My house was built in the 1920’s. My living room only has two wall sconces until I found two additional hookups within the plaster walls. I have tested them with an old light fixture and they turn on with the same living room switch. Why would they store them in the wall like this?
It looks like they used cloth tape and then hooked them together with lower gauge wire below.
Best Answer
It's certainly not appropriate nor legal to bury a junction box inside a wall. That should never have been done.
I agree with JACK that this looks like pretty normal chain wiring: one of the larger wires comes from supply and the other one goes onward to other lamps. The smaller wires were pigtails to a former lamp which is now gone.
I don't know what the story is with the two splices in the foreground. I assume those were once possibly soldered? But otherwise, competently executed friction-tape splices. If they still look in good condition, you could continue them in service. Otherwise you may need to remove all the friction tape and vinyl whatever-that-is, and put wire nuts there. If it's soldered you are probably better off just re-wrapping it.
If you want to put a lamp there, you can add the lamp's wires to the bundles if you wire-nutted it, otherwise pigtail the lamp's wires to the existing pigtails.
Otherwise put the wires back into the junction box and cover it with a blank cover plate.