Perhaps the largest known provenanced collection of lead tokens from Roman Egypt was uncovered around the Iseum on Antirhodos Island in Alexandria. What were they possibly used for?
Among the remarkable finds from the excavations of the Iseum around the royal island of Antirhodos in today's eastern harbour of Alexandria, the IEASM has uncovered over 250 lead tokens. This corpus contributes considerably to the study of a historically under-examined object type. In this lecture, Leonie Hoff of the University of Oxford presents an overview of the assemblage of lead tokens from the Iseum, discussing the relationship of the iconography found on the tokens with the cults worshipped in the sanctuary and the role of such objects within the temple domain.
Furthermore, their recovery during a modern excavation allows to explore the contextual data around tokens, shedding light on their possible use within the sanctuary and the function of tokens in Roman Egypt more broadly. While previous work has suggested that these tokens were used as substitution coinage, it is here concluded that they instead relate to functions more specifically linked to the sanctuary, perhaps as votives or banqueting tokens.
