Anyone Knowledgable About Ancient Egyptian?

Given the lack of any evident legend or script, I truly don't understand the "11-12 AD" reference on the packaging. Having said that, there are a few similar items from Alexandria, Egypt over a VCoins, dated 4th to 6th century AD, with this description:

"Many scholars believe that Alexandria, Egypt was the location of manufacture and use for these glass disks. These disk were clearly not used for jewelry so it seems likely that they were used for tokens, weights or game pieces."

For an example, see:
https://www.vcoins.com/en/stores/an...Default.aspx

Narrow down the beam on your light source and bring the light down low and to one side of the object. This will help bring up the relief on the surface. Play with the angles of incidence and reflectance and you will eventually get a usable image.


Chances are this was a token used as a money substitute. One common place of usage for such tokens in antiquity was in brothels. Tokens of that kind often had rather explicit images.

Egypt has a very popular game called senet (much like backgammon) which is thousands of years old... how could they know it is not simply a piece for that? The British Museum has a set which is from 1550-1069 BC and it is still played to this day.

My speculation about it being a gaming counter was just that, pure speculation.

I have come to believe Sap is more likely than not correct about it being a weight. I just came back from a visit to the British Museum and they had an Egypt exhibition on. I was a little disappointed I wasn't allow to take photos because they had a number of things that looked just like this.

The first was a set of about 12 glass weights, similar sizes and shapes, all different colours. This could easily be one of those.

The second thing was they had like this with loops at one end which were pendants. I notice a straight part on the circumference of yours, if you think it has had the loop broken off it could be one of those. If however you feel it isn't missing anything then I think Sap is right.

The ones in the museum certainly did have... yours certainly looks like there is some unevenness which could be a design but I guess it would be easier to judge in hand.