The ancient Egyptians were part of a continuous web of people living on the African, Asian, and European continents and the islands between them (Figure 6.1). Lifestyles and habitats varied greatly across this region, but cities and palaces emerged in many areas during the third and early second millennia bc that functioned as regional collecting points and hubs of interregional exchange. Objects connected people over long distances. The circulation of foreign products and styles contributed to an awareness of identity and otherness. In a hymn of the New Kingdom, the god Aten is praised for having created all human beings in Syria, Nubia, and Egypt, distinguishing them by their spoken languages, skins, and characters. Egyptian visual display expressed ethnic differences explicitly by emphasising features of the body, such as hairstyles, skin colour, tattoos, and clothing, though how people behaved towards stereotypes is difficult to gauge. The integration of material remains in the analysis and a refined interpretation of written and visual sources show that practices of contact were multilayered.

The pyramid age began after a centralised polity formed along the Lower Nile in the late fourth and early third millennia bc and ended before Egypt rose to empire in the second half of the second millennium. It saw the unfolding of the Egyptian state, which affected the lives of people across north-east Africa. Archaeologists equate the pyramid age with the Early and Middle Bronze Ages, so these terms are frequently found in discussions of synchronisms across the Mediterranean and the Near East, but they are uncommon in Egyptology when describing internal developments in Egypt and interactions with societies in north-east Africa. From the later nineteenth century ad, the pyramid age was subdivided into the Old and Middle Kingdoms. The term First Intermediate Period, a period portrayed retrospectively in ancient Egyptian texts as a time of chaos, only became widely used after the First World War, possibly in response to contemporary experiences following the breakdown of the European concert of powers.1

There have been significant advances in settlement archaeology in north-east Africa over the past fifty years.1 The number of excavated settlements has increased substantially, and new fieldwork methods have brought to light settlement remains previously hidden from the eyes of archaeologists (Figure 4.1). Most ancient Egyptians probably lived in villages and rural estates that have long been archaeologically elusive. Larger settlements are gradually appearing on maps of ancient Egypt, but towns represent just one – and not the most pertinent – type of settlement in the archaeological record of the pyramid age. Settlements built for the purpose of the state have left a rather clear footprint on the ground.

Modern theorists have seen the development of the concept of risk as reflecting a profound shift away from a belief in the divine determination of human fate. Modernity, it is also argued, has seen the introduction of new mega-risks, which are far larger than those before. The chapter challenges these views and argues both that the Romans were not simply fatalistic about the future, and also that it is impossible to quantify whether the ancients faced less risk.

Some tokens carry specific chants connected to Roman festivals, while others carry imagery that evoke particular spectacles, processions or celebratory events. It is highly likely that some of the Roman tokens that survive were utilised within particular festivals; this chapter explores what these artefacts can reveal about the emotions and experiences of these occasions. Festival motifs may also have been placed on tokens to evoke particular emotions and memories before or after an event. Representations of objects associated with celebrations provide a rare source base for a better understanding of the paraphernalia associated with individual Roman festivities. We need to bear in mind, however, that the ‘festive’ imagery used to decorate many tokens is also found on everyday objects across the Roman world: on frescoes, mosaics, coinage, lamps and other artefacts. The imagery on these pieces is thus part of a broader cultural practice that used singular events as a basis for an iconography that evoked good fortune, abundance and a joie de vivre within daily life. The imagery of singular celebrations regularly transcended its immediate context in the Roman world to become part of the everyday lived experience. Tokens were designed within this broader cultural phenomenon.

This book is intended as a beginning, a demonstration of what the study of tokens might offer the student of antiquity after decades of neglect. There are far more tokens from Roman Italy than have been discussed here, and one imagines far more will be uncovered in the future: in excavations, museum stores and archives. Our knowledge of the potential uses of these objects is thus likely to further develop. The understanding of token use in Roman Italy will also be better contextualised as detailed studies of tokens in other regions are finalised and published.1 Once the imagery, findspots and possible uses of tokens in other regions are better known, particular aspects of tokens from Rome, Ostia or elsewhere in Italy that are unique to the region will be better identified.

Tokens remain one of the most enigmatic and under-utilised bodies of evidence from antiquity. Monetiform objects of varying materials have been known from Rome since the eighteenth century and yet our understanding of these objects has made precious little progress in the years that have followed.1 Many tokens remain unpublished, and the few individuals that have attempted the study of these objects have despaired at their elusive nature. Rostovtzeff, whose catalogue and doctoral dissertation on Roman lead tokens still remains the most detailed work on the topic to date, observed that the volume of the material, the wear on most of the pieces, as well as the seeming unending array of inscriptions and representations on these pieces are enough to warn anyone off studying them, especially when, as he noted, the study does not appear to have any scientific promise.2 Rostovtzeff’s frustration with the subject matter manifested into a hope that future studies might better elucidate the pieces he could not understand, noting that a better understanding of tokens in the East, particularly Athens, would likely result in a better understanding of these objects in Rome.