0 a container for incense (= a substance that is burned to produce a sweet smell, especially as part of a religious ceremony): --
A priest began walking through the congregation swinging a censer.
In contrast to the figurines, there is no evidence that long-handle censers were circulated by exchange or any other means.
Such a symbolic relationship is of unknown origin and duration, but it could help explain the occasional recovery of paired censers in burials.
Complex pronged bowl-and-support censers are composed of a ceramic basal support generally attached to three prongs, upon which a ceramic bowl would rest.
One approach to the function or ritual meaning of censers is to examine the complex iconography of their modeled and appliqued embellishments.
Ferree suggests that this technological change allowed the production of a new "form" of censer that was not technologically possible before this development.
Non-image and particularly spiked censers were more associated with birth/renewal, earth, rain, and calendrical rituals involving fire drilling.
The reference would be to white stuccoed non-effigy censers used to burn incense near stelae and then left at their place of use.
Vents under the arm and in the open mouth of the singing figure served as the exit holes and smoking "breath" of the censer.
