Ancient pornographic artifact found by the Thames

ArtsBeat reports: A bronze disk recently discovered in the mud near the Putney Bridge in London seemed innocent enough, but on close inspection it has turned out to be one of the oldest pieces of British pornographic art, according to the Guardian.

The bronze, which has been turned over to the Museum of London, dates to around the first century A.D., when London was a Roman outpost, and shows a couple in flagrante delicto. Historians say it is a token of a kind used in brothels across the Roman Empire; the bearer would exchange it for the sex act depicted.

While Brits may jokingly describe the coin as a “pound of flesh,” it is thought to offer a glimpse of arcane art history. Jonanthan Jones, an art writer for the Guardian, argues that the erotic imagery on such tokens was familiar to artists in Renaissance Italy, where they likely influenced the birth of modern pornography.