Bag Check: Looking at contents 2

The Petrie has a number of different kinds of bags surviving within its Roman collection. These intriguing items provide us with an insight into how people stored and carried possessions or raw materials, and gives us an idea of what everyday life in Roman Egypt looked like.

The bags are made from diverse materials. One bag from the collection (UC59044) is formed of twined vegetable fibres to create a flexible fabric, much like matting. This fabric has then been folded over and stitched along the open edges with a thicker plied cord of the same material. There is also the remains of a thick cord handle that now sits on top of the bag – likely a shoulder strap of some kind.

The woven bag UC59044. Photo: Jo Stoner

Although complete, it is very fragile. The top edge has been left open – and still contains its original contents of long lengths of palm or straw fibres. This raw material is suitable for weaving into baskets or matting, or perhaps more bags. The bag is completely full of this stuff, neatly looped and folded into skeins, and is firm to the touch. Perhaps it had a secondary function as a pillow or some sort of padded support. Unfortunately we don’t have an excavation context for this object, but if it came from a burial (as many of the artefacts in the Petrie Museum do) it might have been funerary furniture used to support the head or feet.

The bag’s contents, still in situ. Photo: Jo Stoner.

A second bag in the Petrie is completely different. Made of leather, it is a small lozenge shaped pouch that bears a resemblance to the shape of modern saddle-bags. The small pouch is formed of two pieces of leather sewn at the edges with natural thread. There is a crease in the leather that shows how the top of the bag was simply folded over to close it. It is much more decorative than the previous woven bag, which is starkly utilitarian in its style. The front has cut out circles finished with corroded copper alloy ring studs. Some of these are now loose in the storage box due to the deterioration of the leather.

Leather bag UC72705. Photo: Jo Stoner.

The box also contains 2 green glass beads – these might be unrelated, or represent further decoration or strapping that is now lost. Excitingly, the contents of this pouch also still survive in situ. They appear to be very fine wood chips or saw dust – the texture is a lot like modern rolling tobacco, as you can see from the loose material in the bottom right corner of the box in the image above.

The mysterious contents of the leather bag. Photo: Jo Stoner.

It seems an unusual material to keep in this attractive bag. However, it could be a part of a fire-making kit, representing the material used to kindle a flame. Fire-making paraphernalia are known from elsewhere in the Roman Empire and from Anglo-Saxon grave contexts in Britain. Additional tools like firesticks could easily represent the missing pieces of this Egyptian assemblage. Leather is certainly an appropriate material for such contents as it is durable, waterproof, and would prevent any of the fine material falling through the gaps that occur in a woven bag. The folded over closure could also feasibly fit over a leather belt, allowing the pouch to be carried on the owner’s person, making its decoration all the more appropriate.