Saying “I love you” is never an easy thing. Declarations of love are like walking naked onto a stage before a packed auditorium: you hope for appreciative murmurings followed by rapturous applause, but you utterly dread an embarrassed silence or, even worse, stifled sniggering. To say “I love you” is a brave act of self-exposure, so it is no surprise that humans have invented ways to minimise that trauma by using tokens to symbolise love. The token becomes a proxy for the timorous lover and over centuries those tokens have come in a variety of forms.
Ring, ring
The ring as a symbol of marriage is perhaps the most widespread token of love and commitment. The use of the ring dates back 5000 years to the ancient Egyptians who worshipped the shape as a representation of the sun and moon, but also of eternity since the ring has no beginning and no end. The early Egyptians regularly made circular bracelets and
