signet-ring

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Object Type
Museum number: 1896,0201.189
Description: Gold signet ring decorated with a female head; thin hoop with a circular section, widening and slightly flattened towards the junction with the oval bezel which is hammered out of the same piece of metal as the ring; a small crack may mark the soldered seam; the design is mostly chased (rather than engraved) and shows a woman's head in profile facing left; she wears droplet earrings (possibly with rosettes and pyramids) and a necklace of spherical beads; the gold has numerous small platinum inclusions.
Cultures/periods: Classical Greek (?); Cypro-Classical II (?)
Production date: 350BC-300BC (circa)
Production place: Made in: Greece (probably); Made in: Cyprus (?)
Excavator/field collector
Findspot: Excavated/Findspot: Kourion, 'Site B', tomb 83
Materials
Technique: hammered; chased; engraved (?); soldered
Dimensions: Diameter: 1.50 centimetres (inner); Diameter: 1.80 centimetres; Length: 1.50 centimetres (bezel); Weight: 5.44 grammes
Curator's comments: According to Williams and Ogden, the subject may represent Aphrodite . For other rings of this type see: SCE IV/2, 156 and fig. 31 (silver); 162-4 and fig. 34 (gold).
Bibliographic references: Finger Ring / Catalogue of the Finger Rings, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman, in the Departments of Antiquities, British Museum (67); Murray, Smith and Walters 1900 / Excavations in Cyprus (p. 83, Tomb 83 no. 2; pl. XIII, fig. 17); Williams & Ogden 1994 / Greek Gold. Jewellery of the Classical World (no. 190, p. 251); Richter 1968 / Engraved gems of the Greeks and the Etruscans. A history of Greek art in miniature. (no. 316); Kiely 2011a / Kourion (83.7)
Location: Not on display
Subjects
Associated names
Acquisition name
Funder name
Acquisition date: 1896
Department: Greek and Roman
Registration number: 1896,0201.189

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