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A ‘Festival of Isis’ token from Kingscote, Gloucestershire

Blog post by C. Mondello & D. Wilding

Tokens (also called tesserae) in the Roman period are a little studied class of object. They are commonly found all over the Roman Empire, with the exception of the province of Britannia, and are usually made and used on a local scale. The presence of a ‘Festival of Isis’ token in Roman Britain is therefore unusual as it has been taken from its place of origin to an area which did not use tokens.

The copper-alloy token was found on Kingscote site 2 in Gloucestershire, in an archaeological context which dates to the 3rd-4th centuries AD (figure 1). Despite its poor quality, imagery, legend and material used suggest that the specimen was part of the ‘imperial’ series of the ‘Festival of Isis’ tokens, which shows the busts of Roman emperors from Diocletian (AD 284-305) to Valentinian II (AD 375-392) on the obverse (= front) of the token in connection to Egyptian images depicted on the reverse (= back). The ‘imperial’ series was struck in Rome over the 4th century AD along with the so-called ‘anonymous’ series, which is so named because it instead displays types (= images) of Isis, Serapis, and other Egyptian deities on both sides of the token. The cult of Isis and Serapis originated in Ancient Egypt, and the worship of the latter was promoted by the Ptolemaic dynasty (305 BC-30 BC). Afterwards, the divine couple was adopted by the Romans and their popularity spread out of Egypt, which led to the establishment of their cult all over the Roman empire.

Figure 1: Festival of Isis token. Obv: Legend uncertain, Bust of Constantine I or Constantine II right. Rev: V-OTA PV-BLL-C-A [= VOTA PVBLICA], Isis on galley left, holding sail. D: 14mm. T: 1.5mm. W: 1.16g. Metal: Copper alloy. Mint: Rome. Cirencester, Corinium Museum. Accession number: 1998/96/14/2. Not to scale.

 

Although the token from Kingscote is very worn due to damage sustained from the soil conditions while it was in the ground, traces of the imperial legend are still visible on the obverse. The remnants of the letters make it probable that the obverse of the token depicted the emperor Constantine I (AD 306-337) or his son Constantine II, who was associated with his father’s reign as a Caesar (AD 317-337) alongside his brothers. Moreover, recent scholarship has identified a reverse die-link between the Kingscote piece and some of the specimens from the time of Constantine I, whose obverse image is more easily discernible (figure 2). This die-link allows us to date the specimen found in Kingscote precisely to 321 AD.

Figure 2: Festival of Isis token. Obv: CONSTANTINVS IVN NOB C. Laureate and cuirassed bust of Constantine II r. Rev: V-OTA PV-BLL-C-A [= VOTA PVBLICA], Isis on galley left, holding sail. D: 16mm. W: 1.48g. Mint: Rome. Madrid, Museo Arqueológico Nacional. Accession number: 2014/59/869. Not to scale.

The reverse image shows the goddess Isis standing left on a ship traveling left, which is accompanied by the legend V-OTA PV-BLL-C-A [= VOTA PVBLICA], that is ‘public vows’. This direction of the ship is unusual, because on most tokens of this type the ship travels right. When this type was published by Alföldi in 1937 he thought that this must be an error as the left was associated with bad luck in the Roman period. This conclusion is, however, unlikely. In fact, not only this type of token is known through other examples, but the coin type showing Isis on a galley variously depicted as traveling left or right appeared for the first time on the Seleukid coinage of Byblos during the reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175-164 BC) (figure 3). Moreover, similar depictions of Isis holding the sail, whose variants show again the ship of the goddess sailing left or right, were largely portrayed on a number of Roman coins as well as on a few carnelian gems throughout the imperial period; afterwards, this imagery was adopted on the ‘contorniate’ medallions, which were issued in Rome over the fourth and fifth centuries AD (figure 4).

Figure 3: AE Tetrachalkon. Obv: Radiate head right. Rev: [B]ASILE[WS] – ANTI.X.Y, Isis on galley left, holding sail. D: 17mm. Mint: Byblos. Münz Zentrum Rheinland, Auction 175, 13.01.2016, lot 277. Not to scale.

Figure 4: AE Contorniate. Obv: DEO SA-RAPIDI, Bust of Sol-Serapis left. Rev: Isis on galley left, holding sail. No data recorded. Thomas Ollive Mabbott Collection, Sale Catalogue, 27-29 October 1969, Part Two, no. 4929. Not to scale.

Only a small number of specimens belonging to this Roman series come from known find-spots, since most of them existed as part of museum and private collections from at least the eighteenth century. The presence of a Festival of Isis token in Britain is unusual; a search for ‘Festival of Isis’ and ‘Isis’ on the PAS database (www.finds.org.uk) indicates that none have been recorded, out of a total of 498,906 Roman coins. However, at least two other Constantinian specimens belonging to the ‘imperial’ series of this token issue are known to have been located in Britain: one piece was found in 1974 in Kirmington, South Humberside, while another one comes from Pound Lane, Caerwent, Gwent, Wales and is currently kept at the National Museum Wales, Department of Archaeology & Numismatics (figures 5-6). These few examples indicate that they were unlikely to be present in Roman Britain to a significant extent. In addition to Britain, few but fortunate findings mostly in context have been made in Sisak/Siscia (Croatia), Trier (Germany), Egypt, Palestine, as well as in Rome and Italy; also, two tokens are reported from hoards which were respectively found in Belgium and France. This evidence hints that, although produced by the Roman mint to be distributed mainly in Rome, some of the ‘Festival of Isis’ tokens occasionally circulated in the western Roman provinces and in the eastern Mediterranean since the fourth century and fifth centuries.

Figure 5: Festival of Isis token. Obv: CONSTANTI-NVS MAX AVG, Rosette diademed, cuirassed, and draped bust of Constantine I r., wearing paludamentum. Rev: VOTA P-VBLICA, Anubis standing l., holding a palm branch in right hand and caduceus in left. D: 14mm. W: 1.20g. Mint: Rome. BJN 65, 1995, 234, no. 56, pl. 22, fig. 56. Not to scale.

Figure 6: Festival of Isis token. Obv: FL IVL CONSTANTIVS NOB C, Laureate and cuirassed bust of Constantius II r. Rev: VOTA P-VBLICA, Anubis standing l., holding a palm branch in right hand and caduceus in left. D: 13.4mm. W: 1.17g. Mint: Rome. Cardiff, National Museum Wales, Department of Archaeology & Numismatics. Not to scale.

The exact function of these tesserae is not certain. According to Alföldi, this token issue was distributed and used during the navigium Isidis (‘the ship of Isis’), one of the main festivals dedicated to Isis over the imperial period. The event was held in Rome on 5 March and included, among other rites, a colorful procession at the end of which a votive ship was launched to mark the start of the sailing season. On the other hand, the legend ‘Vota publica’ on the reverse of the token would allude to the imperial vows that were pronounced on January 3 for the health of the emperor and the preservation of the empire. In Alföldi’s view, this apparent inconsistency should be explained by the fact that the rites of the navigium Isidis were moved from 5 March to January 3, in order to connect the imperial vows with the feast of the renewal of nature. However, there is nothing to confirm this. In fact, although the Latin writer Apuleius reports that ‘auspicious vows’ (‘fausta vota’) were made during the navigium Isidis ‘for the Emperor, the Senate, and the knights and all the Roman people’, no changes are recorded in the Roman calendar for the date of the navigium Isidis during the fourth century. The linking of Isiac imagery with the public vows of 3 January on the tokens makes it more likely that these objects were distributed during the Vota Publica festivities, perhaps as exchange tokens for grain distributions, Isis Pharia being the patron of the African cornfleet. Another theory suggested that these coin-like objects may have been part of the official imperial propaganda on the occasion of the celebrations for reign anniversary, with particular reference to the ‘Festival of Isis’ tokens issued at the time of Constantine. Although their exact purpose remains unclear, there is no doubt that the ‘Festival of Isis’ tokens prove the popularity gained by Egyptian cults still in the fourth century AD, within an empire that had become increasingly oppressive towards Graeco-Roman culture and polytheistic cults.

Once in Britannia, the token probably did not retain its primary use for which it was intended upon minting in Rome. There are two possibilities as to why it was taken to, and eventually deposited, in Britannia. The first is that it arrived with an individual who wished to keep it for sentimental reasons, such as the memories it evoked of a specific festival that was important to them. The second is that it was repurposed as small change, in the same manner that foreign currency may go unnoticed amongst small change nowadays.

 

Denise Wilding has recently completed her PhD at Warwick University on Roman tokens from the provinces of Britain, Gaul and Egypt. She specialises in small finds and numismatics, having held roles with the Portable Antiquities Scheme, and as a Documentation Assistant in the Department of Coins and Medals at the British Museum. She currently works as a Treasure Registrar at the British Museum.

Cristian Mondello is trained as a Roman historian and numismatist. He is currently working as a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Research Fellow within the project Token Communities in the Ancient Mediterranean at the University of Warwick (UK), focusing on tokens from late antique Rome (IVth-Vth centuries AD). He examines the relations between ‘pagans’ and Christians in the late Roman Empire through an interdisciplinary and multi-scalar approach combining literary/documentary sources, numismatic evidence as well as material and visual culture.

 

Selected bibliography

Alföldi 1937: A. Alföldi, A Festival of Isis in Rome under the Christian Emperors of the IVth Century (Disserationes Pannonicae II, 7) (Budapest, 1937).

Alföldi & Alföldi 1990: A. Alföldi & E. Alföldi, Die Kontorniat-Medaillons. Teil 2: Text (Berlin-New York, 1990).

Bricault 2006: L. Bricault, Isis, Dame dels flots (Liège, 2006).

Bricault 2018: L. Bricault, ‘Traveling Gods: The Cults of Isis in the Roman Empire, in J. Spier et al. (eds), Beyond the Nile. Egypt and the Classical World (Los Angeles, 2018), pp. 226-231.

Bricault & Mondello (forthcoming): L. Bricault & C. Mondello, The ‘Vota Pvblica’ tokens. Volume I. In preparation.

Cameron 2011: A. Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome (Oxford, 2011).

Ramskold 2016: L. Ramskold, ‘A die link study of Constantine’s pagan Festival of Isis tokens and affiliated coin-like ‘fractions’: chronology and relation to major imperial events’, Jahrbuch für Numismatik und Geldgeschichte 66 (2016), 157-239.

Reece 1998: Reece, R. “Discussion: The Roman Coins.” In J. R. Timby (ed.) Excavations at Kingscote and Wycomb, Gloucestershire, (Cirencester, 1998), pp. 400–421.

Timby 1998: J.R. Timby, Excavations at Kingscote and Wycomb, Gloucestershire. A Roman estate centre and small town in the Cotswolds with notes on related settlements (Cirencester, 1998).

Wilding 2020: Wilding, D. Tokens and Communities in the Roman Provinces: An Exploration of Egypt, Gaul and Britain, unpublished PhD thesis, (University of Warwick, 2020).

* This contribution arises from The creation of tokens in late antiquity. Religious ‘tolerance’ and ‘intolerance’ in the fourth and fifth centuries AD project, which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 840737.

 

1. Wilding 2020.
2. Timby 1998, 63; Reece 1998, 91-92.

3. Bricault & Mondello (forthcoming).
4. Alföldi 1937, 23. See Pl. XIX, no. 17 for reverse type.
5. See, for instance, Münzen & Medaillen, Auction 45, 09.06.2017, lot 1077.
6. For an overview, see Alföldi & Alföldi 1990, p. 128, no. 48; Bricault 2006, pp. 43-99; Bricault 2018, pp. 226-231.
7. ‘The British Numismatic Journal’ 65 (1995), p. 234, no. 56, pl. 22, fig. 56. The piece was found by Hilda Sands; no data has been recorded about the discovery context. Two other British finds of this series are reported by ‘Classical Review’ 1993, no. 132.
8. Cf. Ramskold 2016, no. 123.

9. Apuleius, Metamorphoses, 11.17.
10. Cf. Cameron 2011, 694-695.
11. Ramskold 2016, 213-215.

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