Chapter 4

ANTIQUE RINGS.

Archæology, which was formerly considered by the majority of persons to be a dull and uninteresting study, abounding with dry details of small general interest, which, when not pompously pretentious, were, in the other extreme, of trifling insignificance, has, by a better acquaintance with its true position as the handmaid of history, become so popular that most English counties have societies especially devoted to its district claims, and our large cities have their archæological institutes also. This is due to the good sense which has divested the study of its drier details, or has had the tact to hide them beneath agreeable information. It is not too much to assert that archæology in all its branches may be made pleasurable, abounding as it does in curious and amusing details, sometimes humorously contrasting with our modern manners.

In taking up one of these branches--the history of finger-rings--we shall briefly show the large amount of anecdote and curious collateral information it abounds in. Our illustrations depict the great variety of design and ornamental detail embraced by so simple a thing as a hoop for the finger. It would be easy to multiply the literary and the artistic branch of this subject until a volume of no small bulk resulted from the labour. Volumes have been devoted to the history of rings--Gorlæus among the older, and Edwards,[74-*] of New York, among the modern authors. The ancients had their _Dactyliotheca_, or collection of rings; but they were luxurious varieties of rings for wear. The modern collections are historic, illustrative of past tastes and manners. Of these the best have been formed by the late Lord Londesborough (whose collection was remarkable for its beauty and value), and Edmund Waterton, Esq., F.S.A., who still lives to possess the best chronological series of rings ever brought together. We have had the advantage of the fullest access to each collection.

It is in the oldest of histories, the books of Moses, that we find the earliest records of the use of the finger-ring. It originally appears to have been a signet, used as we now use a written autograph; and it is not a little curious that the unchanged habit of Eastern life renders the custom as common now as it was three thousand years ago. When Tamar desired some certain token by which she should again recognise Judah, she made her first request for his signet, and when the time of recognition arrived, it was duly and undoubtingly acknowledged by all.[74-†] Fig. 76 exhibits the usual form assumed by these signets. It has a somewhat clumsy movable handle, attached to a cross-bar passing through a cube, engraved on each of its facets with symbolical devices. Sir John Gardner Wilkinson[75-*] speaks of it as one of the largest and most valuable he has seen, containing twenty pounds’ worth of gold. “It consisted of a massive ring, half an inch in its largest diameter, bearing an oblong plinth, on which the devices were engraved, one inch long, six-tenths in its greatest and four-tenths in its smallest breadth. On one face was the name of a king, the successor of Amunoph III., who lived about B.C. 1400; on the other a lion, with the legend ‘lord of strength,’ referring to the monarch: on one side a scorpion, and on the other a crocodile.” Judah’s signet was, of course, formed of less valuable material, and had probably a single device only.

The lighter kind of hooped signet, as generally worn at a somewhat more recent era in Egypt, is shown in Fig. 77. The gold loop passes through a small figure of the sacred beetle, the flat under side being engraved with the device of a crab. It is cut in carnelian, and once formed part of the collection of Egyptian antiquities gathered by our consul at Cairo--Henry Salt, the friend of Burckhardt and Belzoni, who first employed the latter in Egyptian researches, and to whom our national museum owes many of its chief Egyptian treasures.

From a passage in Jeremiah (xxii. 24) it appears to have been customary for the Jewish nation to wear the signet-ring on the right hand. The words of the Lord are uttered against Zedekiah--“though Coniah, the son of Jehoiakim, King of Judah, were the signet on my right hand, yet would I pluck thee thence.”

The transition from such signets to the solid finger-ring was natural and easy. The biblical record treats them as contemporaneous even at that early era. Thus the story of Judah and Tamar is immediately followed by that of Joseph, when we are told “Pharaoh took off the ring from his hand and put it upon Joseph’s hand,” when he invested him with authority as a ruler in Egypt. Dr. Abbott, of Cairo, obtained a most curious and valuable ring, inscribed with a royal name. It is now preserved, with his other Egyptian antiquities, at New York, and is thus described in his catalogue:--“This remarkable piece of antiquity is in the highest state of preservation, and was found at Ghizeh, in a tomb near that excavation of Colonel Vyse’s called ‘Campbell’s Tomb.’ It is of fine gold, and weighs nearly three sovereigns. The style of the hieroglyphics is in perfect accordance with those in the tombs about the Great Pyramid; and the hieroglyphics within the oval make the name of that Pharaoh (Cheops) of whom the pyramid was the tomb.” Fig. 78 represents this ring, and beside it (Fig. 79) is placed the hieroglyphic inscription upon the face of the ring, which is cut with the most minute accuracy and beauty.

Rings of inferior metal, bearing royal names, were worn, probably, by officials of the king’s household. Henry Salt had one such in his collection, which was afterwards in the remarkable collection of rings formed by the late Lord Londesborough. It is represented in Fig. 80, and is entirely of bronze. The name of Amunoph III. is engraved on the oval face of the ring, exactly as it appears on the tablet of Abydus in the British Museum. Amunoph (who reigned, according to Wilkinson, B.C. 1403-1367) is the same monarch known to the Greeks as Memnon; and the colossal “head of Memnon,” placed in the British Museum through the agency of Mr. Salt, has a similar group of hieroglyphics sculptured on its shoulder. There was another kind of official ring, which we can recognise from the description of Pliny, and of which we give an engraving (Fig. 81) from the original in the author’s possession. It is of bronze, and has engraved upon its face the figure of the scarabæus; such rings were worn by the Egyptian soldiers.

The lower classes, who could not afford rings of precious metals, but, like their modern descendants, coveted the adornment, purchased those made of ivory or porcelain. In the latter material they abounded, and are found in Egyptian sepulchres in large quantities; they are very neatly moulded, and the devices on their faces, whether depicting gods, emblems, or hieroglyphics, are generally well and clearly rendered.

This fondness for loading the fingers with an abundance of rings is well displayed on the crossed hands of a figure of a woman (Fig. 82) upon a mummy case in the British Museum. Here the thumbs as well as the fingers are encircled by them. The left hand is most loaded; upon the thumb is a signet with hieroglyphics on its surface; three rings on the forefinger; two on the second, one formed like a snail-shell; the same number on the next, and one on the little finger. The right hand carries only a thumb-ring, and two upon the third finger. These hands are cut in wood, and the fingers are partially broken.

Wilkinson observes--“The left was considered the hand peculiarly privileged to bear these ornaments; and it is remarkable that its third finger was decorated with a greater number than any other, and was considered by them, as by us, _par excellence_, the ring-finger; though there is no evidence of its having been so honoured at the marriage ceremony.”

Herodotus narrates a curious antique legend he obtained in Egypt, concerning the ring of Polycrates. It is remarkable as having spread into the legendary history of all countries, being still credited by the commonality. We shall have hereafter to note its existence as an old London tradition; but the version of the Greek historian is briefly thus:--Amasis, King of Egypt, conceived an extraordinary friendship for the Greek, Polycrates, and, observing that the latter was attended by unusual success in all his adventures, reflected that such unvarying felicity seldom lasted through life, and the end of such a career was often calamitous. He therefore advised him to propitiate future fortune by seeking some object whose loss would produce most regret, and voluntarily casting it away from him where it could never be recovered. Polycrates attached most value to a signet-ring he constantly wore; it was of gold, set with an emerald cut by Theodorus of Samos, a famed engraver of gems. He went out in a galley far on to the open sea, and then cast his precious ring into its waters, returning in an excess of grief. Some six days afterwards a fisherman came to his gate, bearing a fish so fine and large he deemed it to be only fitted for the table of Polycrates. The King of Samos accepted the gift, the fish was sent to the royal kitchen, and on opening it a valuable ring was found in its stomach. It was at once taken to Polycrates, who immediately recognised his abandoned treasure, which he now valued the more as it seemed to be returned by divine interposition.

In the comparatively modern era of Roman rule in Egypt, rings of more fanciful construction were occasionally worn. In the British Museum is a remarkable one (Fig. 83), having the convolutions of a serpent, the head of Serapis at one extremity and of Isis at the other; by this arrangement one or other of them would always be correctly posited; it has also the further advantage of being flexible, owing to the great sweep of its curve.

The ancient Assyrians, though remarkable for that love of jewellery which has ever been the characteristic of the Eastern nations, appear to have worn no finger-rings. Yet many of their bracelets are admirably designed for the purpose if produced on a limited scale; and they were worn by men as well as by women. Bonomi, in his “History of Nineveh and its Palaces,” observes, “that not a single case occurs, amidst all this display of personal jewellery, of a finger-ring; the entire absence of this ornament in sculpture, wherein details of this nature are so elaborately and carefully attended to, leads to the conclusion that the finger-ring was an ornament then unknown.”

Among the earliest traces of western civilisation the finger-ring appears. Fig. 84 is an Etruscan ring of gold, now in the British Museum; upon the face are chimeræ opposing each other. The style and treatment of this subject partake largely of the ancient character of Eastern art, and, like that, is very decisive and conventional.

The Greeks and Romans literally revelled in rings of all styles and sizes. Nothing can be more beautiful in design and exquisite in finish than Greek jewellery, and the custom of decorating their dead with the most valued of these ornaments has furnished modern museums with an abundance of fine specimens. Figs. 85 and 86 are copied from originals found in the more modern Etruscan sepulchres, and are probably contemporary with the earliest days of the Roman empire. Fig. 85 is admirably adapted to the finger; being made of the purest gold, it is naturally slightly elastic; but the hoop is not perfected, each extremity ending in a broad leaf-shaped ornament, most delicately banded with threads of beaded and twisted wire, acting as a brace upon the finger. Fig. 86 is equally meritorious; the solid half-ring is completed by a small golden chain attached to it by a loop passing over studs; the links of this chain are perfectly flexible, and of extreme delicacy; they resemble the modern guard-chain, or to speak more properly, the modern chain imitates the ancient one; and we shall meet in the course of our researches with very many other instances of the oft-repeated fact, that “there is nothing new under the sun.”

This ring mania was not content with considering the ring as an ornament, or even as a talisman; a new science was revealed, the _Dactyliomancia_, so named from two Greek words, signifying _ring_ and _divination_. The performance of its mysteries was in itself so simple, that it was deemed expedient to add certain formulæ, in order to make them more expressive. A ring was held, suspended by a fine thread, over a round table, on the edge of which were placed counters engraved with the letters of the alphabet. The thread was shaken until the ring, touching the letters, had united as many as formed an answer to a question previously put. This operation was preceded and accompanied by certain ceremonies. The ring was consecrated with divers mysterious forms. The person who held it was arrayed in linen only; a circle was shaved round his head, and in his hand he held a branch of vervain. Before commencing the gods were appeased by prayer.[82-*] This practice long prevailed, and is mentioned by Gibbon as having given rise to the persecutions for the crime of magic, in the reign of the Emperor Valens, at Antioch.[83-*]

The simplest and most useful form of ring, and that, by consequence, adopted by the people of all early nations, was the plain elastic hoop, as shown in Fig. 87. Cheap in construction and convenient in wear, it may be safely said to have been generally patronised from the most ancient to the most modern times. Fig. 88 gives us the old form of a ring made in the shape of a coiled serpent, equally ancient, equally far-spread in the old world, and which has had a very large sale among ourselves revived as a “decided novelty.” In fact it has been the most successful design our ring-makers have produced of late years. Yet this antique ring may add another “new idea” to the modern designer. It is “made on the principle of some of our steel rings which we use to hold household keys, widening their circle by pressure. In this finger-ring the part in the mouth is inserted loose, so as to draw out and increase to the size of the circle needed.”[83-†]

Though a great variety of form and detail was adopted by Greek and Roman goldsmiths for the rings they so largely manufactured, the most general and lasting resembled Fig. 89, a Roman ring, probably of the time of Hadrian, which is said to have been found in the Roman camp at Silchester, Berkshire. The gold of the ring is massive at the face, making a strong setting for the carnelian, which is engraved with the figure of a female bearing corn and fruit. By far the greater majority of Roman rings exhumed at home and abroad are of this fashion, which recommends itself by a dignified simplicity, telling, by quantity and quality of metal and stone, its true value, without any obtrusive aid.

Sometimes a single ring was constructed to appear like a group of two or three upon the finger. Mr. Edwards has furnished us with the example, Fig. 90. “It has the appearance of three rings united, widened in the front and tapering within the hand. Upon the wide part of each are two letters, the whole forming ZHCAIC, ‘Mayest thou live.’ The Romans often preferred the Greek language in their most familiar customs.”

Among the beautiful objects of antique art collected by B. Hertz, Esq., and sold by auction in 1859, by Messrs. Sotheby and Wilkinson, were many antique rings inscribed with sentences and mottoes of a remarkable kind. Those bearing Greek inscriptions were the wordiest; such as--“I love not lest I go astray; but I observe well, and I laugh.”--“They say what they will; let them say, I care not.” Many were evidently memorials of friendship; one represented a hand pulling the lobe of an ear, with the word “Remember;” another, with a similar device, with the motto “Remind me of the noble character.” Others were inscribed--EYTYXI--“Good luck to you,” and “I bring luck to him who wears this ring.” Among the Latin inscriptions were simple good wishes expressed in the words “Vivas” and “Bene;” or sentiments expressed in few words, such as--“Love me, I will love thee;” “Come, I will not;” “Be greeted, Fabiana.” Many were simply inscribed with the names of the persons to whom they were presented, such as VLP. PRISCELLÆ (“Ulpia Priscilla”); others with the names of the owners, as Valeria Cleopatra and Hermadion Cæsaris. A massive silver ring inscribed with the name “Sabbina” is engraved (Fig. 91) from the original in the Londesborough collection.

We place beside it a ring with a very different device, but one that cannot fail to be looked on with singular interest. It is marked with the _Labarum_, the oldest sacred monogram of Christianity, which Constantine believed he saw in a vision, and placed upon his victorious standard and his coins, with the motto--“In hoc signo vinces!” This ring came from the Roman sepulchre of an early Christian, and the hand for which it was originally fashioned may have aided in the conquering war of the first Christian emperor; or may have been convulsed in an agonising death, “thrown to the beasts” of the circus, but reposing after death with the first martyrs to the faith.

Clement of Alexandria suggests to the Christians of his era, that they should have engraved devices of symbolic meaning allusive to their faith, in place of the heathen deities and other subjects cut by Roman lapidaries; such as a dove, which symbolises life eternal and the Holy Spirit; a palm-branch, peace; an anchor, hope; a ship in full sail, the church; and others of similar import.

Gorius has preserved a representation of a gold ring (Fig. 93) which he believes to have been presented by a Roman lady to the victorious charioteer in the horse-races; it is of peculiar form, but one that was a favourite with Roman wearers. The bust of the donor appears on the summit of the ring, and on each side are the heads of reined horses, as shown in our cut. Her name is engraved on the lower part of the hoop, and on each side AMOROSPIS. The latter properly being HOSPES, having the aspirate omitted and an I for an E, induces Gorius to consider it a late work of the Roman era.

We have already spoken of the ring-hand and the ring-finger, but have not noted the origin of the custom of placing the wedding ring on that finger. It resulted from an inaccurate belief that a nerve went from thence to the heart. That the ancients were indiscriminate in the use of their fingers as recipients for rings we have already shown; Mr. Waterton has placed in his curious _Dactyliotheca_ the forefinger from a bronze statue of late Roman workmanship, wearing a large ring upon the second joint. In Germany it is still customary to wear the ring in this fashion, a custom they evidently borrowed from their Roman subjugators, and have retained through every century of change since then.

As the luxury of Rome increased, the wearing of rings increased also, and the emperors relaxed the law of restraint. Thus Tiberias, in A.D. 22, gave permission for gold rings to be worn by all persons whose fathers and grandfathers possessed property to the value of 200,000 sesterciæ. The Emperors Severus and Aurelian ultimately gave the right of wearing gold rings to all soldiers of the empire; and the Emperor Justinian at length gave a similar right to all who had legal claims to Roman citizenship. Distinction once broken through, and wealth increasing, ring-wearing became general. Seneca, describing the luxury and ostentation of his time, says, “We adorn our fingers with rings, and a jewel is displayed on every joint.” The ridiculous excess to which the custom was carried may be understood from Martial’s description of Charinus, who wore as many as sixty rings on his hands at one time, and so fond was he of his jewellery that he kept them upon his fingers when in bed. They were decorated with a vast variety of subjects, originally cut in the metal of which the ring was made, whether gold, silver, or brass; ultimately the devices were cut upon stones and gems, occasionally representing the tutelar deity of the wearer. Thus Julius Cæsar wore one with Venus Victrix upon it, and his partisans did the same. Pompey’s ring was engraved with three trophies, indicating his victories in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Many used merely fanciful or emblematic devices; thus Mæcenas had a frog upon his ring. Others wore the portraits of their ancestors or friends. Publius Lentulus had that of his grandfather. Cornelius Scipio Africanus, younger son of the great Africanus, wore the portrait of his father; but, as he was a degenerate son of an illustrious sire, the people gave expression to their disgust at his conduct by depriving him of his ring, saying he was unworthy to wear the portrait of so great a man.

This ring-wearing became one of the troubles of the wealthy, and as the Sybarite complained of the folded rose-leaf inconveniencing his bed, the rich Roman was fatigued with his rings. Hence came the custom of wearing light or heavy rings, or as they termed them, summer or winter rings, according to the season. That there really was some reason in the complaint, will be granted by the reader who looks on Fig. 95, copied from Montfaucon.[89-*] It is a thumb-ring of unusual magnitude, and of costly material; it has upon it a bust in high relief of the Empress Plotina, the consort of Trajan; she wears the imperial diadem, which is here composed of precious stones cut into facets. This bust would of course come outside the hand, the narrower part of the wreathed ring passing between the thumb and first finger. The gorgeous inconvenience of the whole thing is at once apparent. It probably decorated the hand of some member of the imperial family.

The enormous sums expended by the wealthy on rings may be best understood by an allusion to the recorded value of two belonging to empresses of Rome. Thus, the ring of Faustina, we are told, cost £40,000, and that of Domitia £60,000, reckoning the Roman sestertia at its modern value.

Sometimes the decoration of a ring was not confined to a single gem, though such rings were comparatively rare. Valerian speaks of the _annulus bigemmis_, and Gorleus furnishes us with the specimen engraved in Fig. 96; the larger gem has cut upon it a figure of Mars, holding spear and helmet, but wearing only the chlamys; the smaller gem is incised with a dove and myrtle branch. Beside it are placed two examples of the emblematic devices and inscriptions adopted for classic rings, when used as memorial gifts. The first is inscribed, “You have a love pledge;” the second, “Proteros (to) Ugiæ,” between conjoined hands--a type of concord still familiar to us.

Though the ancients seem scarcely to have thought of decorating the circlet of the ring, they occasionally varied its form, producing novelty at the expense of convenience. Fig. 98 is a whimsical example; it may, however, have been principally used as a signet. The same may be said of Fig. 99, which has a very broad face, set with an incised stone bearing a figure of Hygeia.

The ancients tell us of charmed rings; such was the ring of Gyges, which was reported to have rendered him invisible when he turned the stone inwardly, and closed it in his palm. Execetus, tyrant of the Phocians, carried two rings, which he was accustomed to strike together, to divine by the sound emitted what he had to do, or what was to happen to him.

The most curious adaptation of the finger-ring to a double use was made by the Romans. It was a combination of a ring and a key, as represented in Figs. 100 and 101, from originals engraved by Montfaucon in his great work on Roman antiquities. He has published many varieties, for they are very commonly discovered in all places where the Romans located themselves. Many have been found in London, York, Lincoln, and other old cities, as well as in the neighbourhood of Roman camps. The use of these rings is apparent: they opened the small cabinets or boxes in which the most precious articles were preserved, and they were less likely to be lost, mislaid, or improperly used by others, when thus worn night and day on the finger.

It is recorded of the poisoning Pope Alexander VI. (Borgia), that he caused a somewhat similar key to be used in opening a cabinet; but the Pope’s key was poisoned in the handle, and provided with a small sharp pin, which gave a slight puncture sufficient to allow the poison to pass below the skin. When the Holy Father wished to rid himself of an objectionable friend, he would request him to unlock his cabinet; as the lock turned rather stiffly, a little pressure was necessary on the key-handle, sufficient to give the trifling wound that ultimately proved mortal. Poisoned rings were known to the ancients; when Hannibal, the Carthaginian general, was overcome by Scipio Africanus, it is recorded that he fled to Bithynia, and ended his life by poison, which for that purpose he had reserved in a ring.

Rings formed of bone, amber, and glass, were provided for the poorer classes, as was the case in ancient Egypt. They were also used as mortuary rings, and are found on the hands of the dead in Italian sepulchres. The Waterton collection supplies us with two specimens. Fig. 102 is of amber, cut to appear as if set with a stone. Fig. 103 is of glass, also made as if set with a jewel. The body of this ring is dark brown with bands of white crossing it; the jewel is yellow.

In the later days of the Roman empire the simplicity and purity in decorative design that the Romans obtained from the Greeks, gave way to the ostentatious love of gaudy decoration taught at Byzantium. Jewellery became complicated in design; enrichment was considered before elegance. The old simple form of finger-ring varied much. Fig. 104 is given by Montfaucon. Fig. 105 is in the Londesborough collection, and was found upon the hand of a lady’s skeleton, buried with her child in a sarcophagus discovered in 1846, in a field near Amiens, called “Le Camp de Cæsar;” on two of her fingers were rings, one of which was set with ten round pearls, the other (here engraved) is of gold, in which is set a red carnelian, engraved with a rude representation of Jupiter riding on the goat Amalthea. The child also wore a ring with an engraved stone. The whole of the decorations for the person found in this tomb proclaim themselves late Roman work, probably of the time of Diocletian.

In 1841 a curious discovery was made at Lyons of the jewel case of a Roman lady, containing a complete _trousseau_, including the rings here engraved. Fig. 106 is of gold; the hoop is slightly ovular, and curves upward to a double leaf, supporting three cup-shaped settings, one still retaining its stone, an African emerald. Fig. 107 is also remarkable for its general form, and still more so for its inscription, VENERI ET TVTELE VOTVM, explained by M. Comarmond as a dedication to Venus and the local Tutela, the guardian of the navigators of the Rhine; hence he infers these jewels to have belonged to the wife of one of these rich traders in the reign of Severus.

Carrying back our researches to the pre-historic era of our own island, and searching in the tumuli of the early British chieftain and his family, we shall discover the utmost simplicity of adornment; not probably the result of indifference to personal decoration, but simply to the rudeness of his position. The wild Gaelic hunter, located in the gloomy fastnesses of wood and morass, had little or no communication with the southern sea-margin of our isle: and when we find the south Cymry of Britain much advanced in civilisation, owing to connection with Belgic Gaul, and Phœnician colonists of Spain, and the Greek colonists of the Mediterranean, we find the tribes inhabiting the midland and northern counties still barbaric, and little advanced in the arts that make life pleasant. Such decoration as they adopted seems to have originated in the basket-weaving, for which the British Islands were famous even at Rome, where noble dames coveted these works from the far-off and mysterious _Cassiteridæ_. Plaited or interlaced-work, resembling the convolutions of wicker and rush, was imitated in threads of metal; thus circlets for the neck, bracelets for the arms, or rings for the fingers, were but twisted strands of gold.

The simplest form of finger-ring worn by these Gaelic ancestors consisted of a band of metal, merely twisted round to embrace the finger, and open at either end. Fig. 108 shows one of these rings, found in excavating at Harnham Hill, near Salisbury, a locality celebrated from the very earliest recorded time as the true centre of ancient Britain. This ring was found on the middle finger of the right hand of a person of advanced age. Sometimes several rings were found on one hand. “Among the bones of the fingers of the left hand of an adult skeleton was found a silver ring of solid form, another of spiral form, and a plain gold ring.”[96-*] Mr. Akerman, who superintended these researches, says, “Similar rings have been found at Little Wilbraham, at Linton Heath, at Fairford, and other localities. They are for the most part of an uniform construction, being so contrived that they could be expanded or contracted, and adapted to the size of the finger of the wearer.”[96-†]

The prevailing form of the old Celtic finger-ring is shown in Fig. 109. It is formed of thick twisted wires of pure gold. This fashion seems to have been in most favour with all the early Celtic tribes, such rings being found in the grave-mounds of Gaul, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, and Scotland. A discovery of many similar rings was made in one of the Western Islands of Scotland; they were formed of from three to eight wires each, elaborately and beautifully enwreathed.

The south Saxons retained to the last the simple form of wire-ring, which originated, as we have already shown, with the most ancient people. Its comparative cheapness and ease of construction were no doubt its great recommendations. Similar rings are still made for the poorer classes in the East: the author has seen such worn in modern Egypt. Specimens have been obtained in Anglo-Saxon grave-mounds in England, and others, identical in form, in the old Saxon cemeteries of Germany.[97-*] Fig. 110 represents one of the plainest of these wire-rings; it was exhumed from a tumulus on Chartham Downs, a few miles from Canterbury, Kent, in 1773, by the Rev. Bryan Faussett, who says, “the bones were those of a very young person.” Upon the neck was a cross of silver, a few coloured earthen beads, and “two silver rings with sliding knots.”

The industry of the same collector furnishes us with Fig. 111, a specimen of a wire-ring so twisted as to resemble a seal ring, or one set with a stone: the wire round the finger has been beaten out flat. It was discovered in the extensive Saxon cemetery on Kingston Downs, near Canterbury, on the Dover Road. The tumulus was evidently the last resting-place of a person of small wealth, as this copper ring and two small beads only were found in it; and it was customary to bury the ornaments of the deceased, however valuable, with them.[98-*]

Ireland seems to have boasted a higher civilisation at an earlier period than the sister kingdoms, and her ancient art-works are remarkable for their skilled and tasteful elaboration. Gold, too, appears to have been used more commonly there, and the museum of the Royal Irish Academy can show a more wonderful collection of personal ornaments in that precious metal, as once worn by the native nobles, than is to be seen in the national museums of any other country, with the exception of Denmark. The gold is of the purest kind and richest colour, and the manner of its working could not be excelled by a modern goldsmith. The Londesborough collection includes two remarkable rings (Figs. 112 and 113), which were found with other gold ornaments near the very remarkable tumulus known as “New Grange,” a few miles from Drogheda. They were accidentally discovered in 1842 by a labouring man, within a few yards of the entrance to the tumulus, at the depth of two feet from the surface of the ground, and without any covering or protection from the earth about them. Two bracelets of thick twisted gold, and a chain, also of gold, were found with them. Another labouring man, hearing of this discovery, carefully searched the spot whence they were taken, and found a denarius of Geta, which may aid us in arriving at some conclusion as to the age of these curious works. The stone set in both rings is a cut agate.