Tessera Hospitalis

Tessera Hospitalis

Title: Tessera Hospitalis
Date Created: 7th - 6th Century BCE (Ivory Lion)
Creator: Unknown (Ivory Lion)
Identifier: Inv. AC 27878, Capitoline Museum, Rome (Ivory Lion)
Original Location: Sanctuary under Sant'Omobono, Rome, Italy (Ivory Lion)
Current Location: Musei Capitolini, Roma (Ivory Lion)
Description: This object is an ivory lion Tessera, from the sanctuary under Sant’Omobono in Rome. It dates in the range from 7th to 6th centuries BC and has a caption inscribed in Etruscan, the name: Araz Silqetenas Spurianas. The other half of this lion would have been inscribed with whoever Araz had made this pact of friendship with, likely someone from another city or another land, even overseas as far as north Africa or the other reaches of the Mediterranean and beyond. This object is testament of a link between this Etruscan-speaking guest-friend and another.

These objects would have formed part of a wider system of private contracts and hospitality on which the Mediterranean network was based. The remains of banqueting and commensality that would have been crucial to maintaining these ties are found in the elite burials of both men and women, and scenes of such activities – banqueting, games, and processions – proliferate on tomb paintings and are a favourite subject of artists, depicted on vessels of all kinds, and in epics – not least those of Homer. They all attest to the circulation of people, objects, both as commodities and as containers of cultures, stories and knowledge. Hospitality allowed for the opening up of networks and importantly for bringing those who are unknown into the realm of the familiar, thus creating intersections of knowledge-exchange. This was materialised in objects such as this tessera hospitalis – a record of reciprocity – that acted as a binding contract extending over geographic distances and generations.
Credit: Images copyright of Musei Capitolini, Roma.
Contributor: Elena Isayev, Professor, University of Exeter