- Museum number
- AF.231
- Description
-
Gold finger-ring with engraved and nielloed ornament. Flat octagonal hoop with applied eight-foil bezel depicting four figures on exergual line: Christ and Virgin, the former blessing bridegroom and the latter the bride. Above figures is a seven-rayed star; inscription below line. Each face of hoop depicts scene from life of Christ: Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity, Presentation in the Temple, Adoration, Crucifixion and Angel at the Tomb. The figures engraved in outline, the lines being filled with niello.
- Production date
- 6thC-7thC
- Dimensions
-
Diameter: 18 millimetres (bezel)
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Diameter: 23 millimetres (hoop)
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Weight: 394 grains
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Text from Dalton 1912, Catalogue of Finger Rings no. 46:
Cf. no. 38 (AF 223) above, but especially the similar ring in the museum at Palermo (Salinas, 'Relazione suil Museo di Palermo', pl. A 1, Palermo, 1873, and 'Archivio Storico Sciciliano', N.S. iii, pp.92ff; Durand, 'Bulletin monumental', 1882, pp. 508 ff; 'Archaeological Journal, xxxviii (1881), p. 154; de Rossi, 'Bulletino di archeologia cristiana, 1888-9, pp. 84ff.). The Palermo ring, discovered during the construction of the railway from Syracuse to Catania, was associated with numerous coins of Constans II, assassinated in Scicily in A.D. 668.
Text from Ward, Cherry et al, 'The Ring from Antiquity to the Twentieth Century,' London 1981, pl. 107.
Made to mark the celebration of a marriage like the Roman example (Pl. 69), this ring consists of a flat octagonal hoop, each facet of which is engraved with a scene from the life of Christ. From right to left they are the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the Presentation, the Adoration, the Cruxifiction and the Angel at the Tomb, all engraved in outline and picked out with niello. the same technique has been used on the eight-foil bezel depicting Mary and Christ (above whom shines a seven-pointed star), blessing the bride and groom respectively. A line beneath their feet leaves a space which has been filled in with the engraved word:OMONA (..... the Greek word for 'concord')
The B.M.registration number given in the book is EC 130, which does not exist. This ring, however, is identical although it has a Franks registration number.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
2018 - 2019 8 Jun - 20 Jan, Ottawa, Canadian Museum of History, Medieval Europe
2017 11 Jul – 22 Oct, Spain, CaixaForum Zaragoza, Medieval Europe.
2017 9 Mar – 18 Jun, Spain, CaixaForum Barcelona, Medieval Europe,
2016-2017 19 Oct – 5 Feb, Spain, CaixaForum Madrid, Medieval Europe,
2015-2016 11 Dec- 10 Apr, Australia, Brisbane, Queensland Museum, Medieval Europe, power and legacy.
2008-2009 25 Oct-22 Mar, London, Royal Academy of Arts, Byzantium 330-1453 AD
2000 24 Mar-2001 31 Jan, Israel, Jerusalem, The Israel Museum, The Cradle of Christianity
- Acquisition date
- 1897
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- AF.231