[Illustration: XXXII BRONZE TEMPLE (_Moorish. Museum of Granada_)]
The most important object in this substance now extant in any part of Spain is probably the huge and finely decorated lamp of Mohammed the Third of Granada (Pl. xxxiv.), called sometimes "the lamp of Oran," from a mistaken belief that it had formed part of the booty yielded by this city after her capture in 1509 by Cardinal Jimenez de Cisneros.
The material of this lamp is bronze, possibly provided by the bells of Christian churches taken and pillaged by the Moors. It has four parts or tiers of varying shape, delicately wrought in open-work, and reaching a height of nearly seven feet in all. The third and largest tier, corresponding to the shade, is in the form of a truncated pyramid, and shows a different design on each of its four sides. The lamp bears several inscriptions, interrupted here and there through breakage of the metal. The longest of these legends is interpreted as follows:--
"In the name of God the Merciful. (May) the blessing of God be on our lord Mohammed and his kin; health and peace. (This lamp) was ordered (to be made) by our Lord the egregious sultan, the favoured, the victorious, the just, the happy, the conqueror of cities, and the extreme boundary of just conduct among the servants (of God); the emir of the Mussulmans Abu-Abdillah, son of our lord the emir of the Mussulmans Abu-Abdillah, son of our lord Al-Galib-Billah, the conqueror through God's protection, the emir of the Mussulmans Abu-Abdillah; (may) God aid him (praised be God)." Here is a breakage and a corresponding gap in the inscription, which continues, "beneath it, lighted by my light for its magnificence and the care of its _xeque_, with righteous purpose and unerring certainty. And this was in the month of Rabié the first blessed, in the year 705.[91] May (God) be praised."
[91] September 20th to October 19th, A.D. 1305.
The history of this lamp has been explored with scholarly care by Rodrigo Amador de los Ríos, whose monograph will be found in the _Museo Español de Antigüedades_. He says that the lamp was formerly suspended from the ceiling of the chapel of San Ildefonso in the university of Alcalá de Henares. Here, too, he has discovered entries which relate to it in two separate inventories, dated 1526 and 1531, from which we gather that the lamp, excepting the lowest part or tier, which probably proceeded from Oran, was brought to Alcalá by Cardinal Cisneros from the mosque of the Alhambra of Granada.