^0 RINGS By GEORGE FREDERICK KUNZ, Ph.D., Sc.D., A.M. THE CURIOUS LORE OF PRECIOUS STONES Being a description of their sentiments and folklore, super- stitions, symbolism, mysticism, use in protection, preven- tion, religion and divination, crystal gazing, birth-stones, lucky stones and talismans, astral, zodiacal, and planetary. THE MAGIC OF JEWELS AND CHARMS Magic jewels and electric gems ; meteorites or celestial stones ; stones of healing : fabulous stones : concretions and fossils ; snake stones and bezoars ; charms of ancient and modern times; facts and fancies about precious stones. EACH : Profusely illustrated in color, doubletone and line. Octavo. Handsome cloth binding, gilt top, in a box. $6.00 net. Carriage charges extra. SHAKESPEARE AND PRECIOUS STONES Treating of the known references to precious stones in Shakespeare's works, with comments as to the origin of his material, the knowledge of the poet concerning pre- cious stones, and references as to where the precious stones of his time came from. Four illustrations. Square Octavo. Decorated cloth. $1.25 net. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2014 https://archive.org/details/ringsforfingerfrOOkunz_0 THE MAHARANI OF SIKKIM (NORTHEASTERN HINDUSTAN) She wears two gold rings, one set with a turquoise, the other with coral. The peculiar crown of gold, turquoise and coral is that adopted for the queens of Sikkim. From the necklace ot amber beads hangs a gau, or charm box, set with rubies, lapis-lazuli, and turquoise. Oil painting by Damodar Dutt, a Bengali artist Dr. Berthold Laufer's "Notes on Turquoise in the East," Chicago, 191S RINGS FOR THE FINGER FROM THE EARLIEST KNOWN TIMES TO THE PRESENT, WITH FULL DESCRIPTIONS OF THE ORIGIN, EARLY MAKING, MATERIALS, THE ARCHAEOLOGY, HISTORY, FOR AFFECTION, FOR LOVE, FOR ENGAGEMENT, FOR WEDDING. COMMEMORATIVE, MOURNING, ETC. BY GEORGE FREDERICK KUNZ, Ph.D., Sc.D., A.m. WITH 290 ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOR, DOUBLETONB AND LINK PHILADELPHIA & LONDON J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 1917 ) DO -DEL - F A T E COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY PUBLISHED JANUARY, 1917 PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A. To PETER COOPER AND TO HIS DESCENDANTS WHO HAVE SO GENEROUSLY AND DEVOTEDLY CARRIED OUT HIS TRADITIONS, AND DEVELOPED THEM AS OCCASION DEMANDED, AND TO THE COOPER UNION OF ARTS AND SCIENCES IN THE LABORATORIES, LECTURE ROOMS AND LIBRARY OF WHICH THE AUTHOR SPENT USEFUL, PROFITABLE EVENING HOURS FOR SEVERAL YEARS, AT A TIME WHEN THERE WERE NO OTHER OPPORTUNITIES OF A SIMILAR NATURE IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK — THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED FOREWORD THE present volume aims to offer in attractive and convenient form everything that is of importance and interest in regard to finger-rings, from the fabled ring of Prometheus down to the latest productions of the goldsmiths and jewellers of our day. The subject offers a striking illustration of the won- derful diversity of form, decoration and usage, that the skill and fancy of man have been able to realize in the case of the little circlet constituting a ring. To make this clearer to the reader, a division in accordance with the general history and the special uses of rings has seemed more effective than any attempt to separate all the material along geographical or chronological lines. One of the earliest uses to which rings were put was for the impression of an engraved design or device upon letters or documents, as the sign-manual of the wearer. From the time of the ancient Egyptians, this use pre- vailed in various parts of the world and many of the most striking rings of this type are described and figured here. Allied to these, and in some cases identical with them, are the rings given as marks of official dignity and rank. A most important class are the rings bestowed upon and worn by the higher ecclesiastics. Papal rings, among which the most noted is the Fisherman's Ring," rings for cardinals and for bishops, and also occasionally in former times, for abbots, were and are still regarded with special reverence in the Roman and Greek churches. The usage of wearing rings of this type dates far back in the history of Christianity. Many examples of these vii viii FOREWORD rings are given, as also of others bearing Christian emblems, and of those worn by nuns, and by widows who had vowed never to re-wed. Closely connected with these religious rings, are the betrothal and wedding rings. Here it has seemed best to group together the available data, since the line of demarcation between engagement and wedding rings, though clearly enough marked to-day, is not easy to draw in regard to earlier times. A very full selection of mot- toes has been added, some of which might still be used ; the greater number, however, belong to a past age, upon the sentiments of which they cast interesting side lights. Rings as charms and talismans form a class apart. Often the peculiar form of the circlet was conceived to have a symbolic virtue, but more frequently the talis- manic quality depended upon some curious engraved device, upon the stones set in the rings, or upon a mystic or religious inscription. Rings of healing were talismans valued for their special power to cure disease; the " cramp rings," dated in legend back to the time of Edward the Confessor, were notable in this series. The rings of famous men and women will always be prized as mementos, and in the various chapters of this book a large number of them will be found, both rings of the mighty dead and those of distinguished living per- sons ; among these latter we are happy to be able to pro- duce an illustration of the inscription of President Wil- son's ring from an impression of his seal courteously made by his own hand. It shows his name engraved in Pitmanic shorthand. Our American Indians have also made their con- tribution to the art of ring-making, occasionally in the earlier centuries, and more especially in more recent times. Notably the Navajos of New Mexico have FOREWORD ix exhibited a considerable degree of skill in this direction. Much new information on this subject will be found in the present work. How rings are made by our jewellers of to-day, more especially by the accurate and varied mechanical methods now employed for their production, is concisely treated in a supplementary chapter. While machine- made rings can scarcelj^ be expected to equal those executed by the hand of the true artist-goldsmith, those now produced are nevertheless objects of beauty and adornment. A ring is a symbol to which great interest is attached from the cradle to the grave. Frequently, a natal stone, or a ring set with a natal stone, is given to a child at its birth. When the child is baptized it receives the talis- manic gem of the guardian angel. At confirmation the gem of the week is given. At graduation from school or college, a class ring is bestowed. Finally, on the announcement of an engagement, a ring set with any one of the choicer precious stones is selected for the fiancee. Thus each important epoch in early life has its appropriate memento, which will recall the memory of it in after years. As very full indications as to the literature have been given in the footnotes, it has not seemed necessary to append the numerous titles in the form of a bibliography. The author's thanks are due to the following per- sons, who have courteously imparted much valuable information : Hon. Peter T. Barlow; Miss Ada M. Barr; W. Ged- ney Beatty; Theodoor de Boog, Museum of the Ameri - can Indian; Dr. Stewart Culin, Brooklyn Institute; Kobert W. De Forrest; Mrs. Alexander W. Drake; Dr. Gustavus A. Eisen ; Prof. Richard Gottheil, Colum- X FOREWORD bia University; Dr. L. P. Gratacap, Curator, Dept. of Mineralogy, American Museum of Natural History; Right Rev. David H. Greer, Bishop of New York; Mrs. Isabel Hapgood ; Prof. A. V. Williams Jackson, Colum- bia University; William H. Jones; Minor C. Keith; Dr. F. A. Lucas, Director, American Museum of Natu-' ral History; B. Mazza; Edward T. Newell, President, American Numismatic Society; Prof. John Dyneley Prince, Columbia University; Mrs. Annie R. Schley; Dr. George C. Stone; J. Alden Weir, President, Na- tional Academy of Design; Dr. Clark Wissler, Curator, Dept. of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History; Theodore M. Woodland; Walter C. Wyman, and also the late William M. Chase; Dr. Charles S. Braddock, Jr.; Prof. Friedrich Hirth, Columbia Uni- versity; Sidney P. Noe, Librarian, and Howland Wood, Curator, American Numismatic Society ; Rev. Dr. John P. Peters and Rev. Father William J. Stewart, all of New York City. Prof. Cyrus Adler, Dropsie College, Philadelphia; Dr. Hector Alliot, South Western Museum, Los An- geles, Cal. ; Dr. F. H. Barrow, Director, Golden Gate Museum, Los Angeles, Cal.; Prof. Hiram Bingham, Yale University; Frank S. Daggett, Director, Museum of History, Science and Art, Los Angeles, Cal.; Dr. Joseph K. Dixon, Secretary, National American Indian Memorial Asso., Philadelphia; Dr. Arthur Fairbanks, Director, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mass. ; Fran- ciscan Fathers, St. Michael's Mission, Arizona; Prof. L. C. Glenn, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Ten- nessee ; Dr. F. W. Hodge, Ethnologist-in-charge, Smith- sonian Institution, Washington, D. C; Prof. W. H. Holmes, Head Curator, Dept. of Anthropology, United States National Museum, Washington, D, C. ; Dr. Wal- FOREWORD xi ter Hough, Acting Head Curator, Dept. of Anthro- pology, United States National Museum, Washington, D. C. ; Prof. Morris Jastrow, Jr., University of Penn- sylvania; Dr. Berthold Laufer, Curator of Anthro- pology, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago; Waldo Lincoln, American Antiquarian Society, Wor- cester, Mass.; Prof. George Grant McCurdy, Curator of Anthropology, Peabody Museum of Natural His- tory, Yale University; Dr. William C. Mills, Curator and Librarian, Chicago Archaeological and Historical Soc; Edward S. Morse, Director, Peabody Museum, Salem, Mass.; Dr. Warren K. Moorehead, Curator, Dept. American Archaeology, Phillips Academy, An- dover, Mass.; Ostby & Barton Co., Providence, R. I.; Admiral Robert E. Peary, Washington, D. C; Dr. R. Rathbun, United States National Museum, Washing- ton, D. C; William Riker, Newark, N. J.; Oliver A. Roberts, Librarian, Masonic Temple, Boston, Mass.; Prof. Austin T. Rogers, Leland Stanford Jr. Univer- sity, Stanford University, Cal.; Dr. F. J. V. Skiff, Director, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago; Prof. Friedrich Starr, University of Chicago ; Rev. John Baer Stoudt, Northampton, Pa. ; Ex-President William H. Taft, New Haven, Conn. ; J. P. Tumulty, Secretary to President Wilson, Washington, D. C; the late Dr. William Hayes Ward, Assjo-iologist, South Berwick, Mass. W. W. Blake, Mexico City; A. W. Feavearyear, London, England; R. Friedlander & Sohn, Berlin; Prabha Karavongu, Siamese Legation, Washington, D. C. ; Mrs. Isabel Moore, Azores ; M. Georges Pelissier, Paris, France; Dr. William Flinders Petrie, Egyptol- ogist, Hampstead, England ; Sir Charles Hercules Read, Curator, Dept. British and Mediaeval Antiquities and xii FOREWORD Ethnography, British Museum; Dr. Leonard Spencer, Curator, Mineralogical Dept., British Museum (Natural History) ; C. J. S. Thompson, Curator, Wellcome His- torical Medical Museum, London, England; Sir Her- bert Tree, London, England; Dr. T. Wada, Tokio, Japan; Herr Leopold Weininger, Vienna, and also Dr. Albert Figdor, Vienna, and U. S. Consul W. Bar- del, St. Michael, Azores. The illustrations of rings in the British Museum are mostly from one or the other of the two exceedingly com- prehensive catalogues of rings published by this museum : " Finger Rings, Greek, Etruscan and Roman," by F. H. Marshall, and " Finger Rings, Early Christian, Byz- antine, Teutonic, Mediseval, and Later," by O. M. Dalton. In each volume the section devoted to a special description of each ring is preceded by a most scholarly and enlightening introductory essay. G. F. K. New Yoek City, November, 1916 ^ Signet of the author, reading George F. Kunz, New York. Engraved upon a dark red sard, in Teheran, Persia, in 1895. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. THE ORIGIN, PURPOSES AND METHODS OF RING WEARING 1 1. The Origin of the Ring 2. Purposes of Ring Wearing 3. Methods of Wearing II. FORMS OF RINGS AND MATERIALS OF WHICH THEY ARE MADE 67 The Materials of Rings III. SIGNET RINGS 115 IV. SOME INTERESTING RINGS OF HISTORY 162 1. On the Continent 2. English Rings V. BETROTHAL (ENGAGEMENT) RINGS, WEDDING (NUPTIAL) RINGS, AND LOVE TOKENS 193 VI. THE RELIGIOUS USE OF RINGS 249 Vn. MAGIC AND TALISMANIC RINGS 288 VIIL RINGS OF HEALING 336 IX. RING MAKING 355 ILLUSTRATIONS COLOR PLATES PAGE The Maharani of Sikkim Frontispiece Richly Enameled Rings in the Collection of Dr. Albert Figdor. . . 90 Shakespeare's Signet Ring; Lord Byron's Ring 152 DOUBLETONES Evolution of the Ring 2 Serpent Ring; Greek and Roman Rings; Mycenaean Rings 3 Ancient Rings of American Indians 20 Navajo Silversmith at Work 21 Navajo Indian Girl Wearing Native Rings 24 Navajo Silver Rings 25 Navajo Silversmiths Working 28 Pueblo Indian Family, Showing Ring-wearing 29 Autograph Letter of Admiral Robert E. Peary 30 Roman Rings; Charioteer's Ring 32 Isis and Serapis Ring; Decade Ring; Supposed Head of Plotina on Ring; Key Rings 33 Memorial Rings and Poison Ring 44 Cameo of Louis XII; Nelson Ring; Napoleon Elba Ring 45 Hands on Egyptian Mummy Case; Hands from Portrait; Hand Showing Hindu Jewels 50 Hands from Sepulchral Effigy; Illustrating Ring-wearing 51 Upper Part of Mummy Case of Artemidora, Showing Rings on Hand. . 52 Sketch by Sir Charles Hercules Read of Finger of Bronze Statue WITH Seal Ring 53 Portrait of a Lady by Anton Van Dyke 60 Portrait of Princess Hatzfeld by Antonio Pesaro 61 Anglo-Saxon Rings 64 Thumb Ring; Prankish and Lombardic Rings 65 The "Lorscher Ring"; Ring with Mouse; Venetian Ring; Jeweller's Ring-rod 72 Spur Ring; Modern Egyptian Rings; Pipe-stopper Ring 73 Oriental Rings 78 Rich East Indian Ring; Rings Made by Siamese Priest 79 Indian Toe Rings 80 Portrait of Rich Cinghalese Merchant with Many Rings 81 Ring of President Franklin Pierce; Old Rings Combined as Pendant 84 Rings in Drake Collection 85 Rings from Collection of W. Gedney Beatty, Esq 92 XV xvi ILLUSTRATIONS Types of Watch Rings 93 Portrait of a Man, Fifteenth Century, by Antonio del Pollaiolo, Showing Pointed Diamond in Ring 98 Portrait of a Venetian Senator with Thumb Ring 99 Portrait of a Man by Lucas Cranach 118 Portrait of Katharina Aeder, by Hans Bock the Elder 119 Portrait of Cardinal of Brandenburg, by the "Master of the Death OF Mary" 124 Portrait of a Mother and Her Daughter, by Bartholomew Bruyn 125 Ancient Roman Seal Rings; Key Ring. . . . : 132 Roman Rings of Bronze and of Bone; Roman Gold Ring with Settings; Gold Ring from Wiston, Sussex; Roman Silver Ring 133 Bronze Signet Rings; Ivory Signet Ring 136 Gold Signet, Sixteenth Century; Massive Gold Signet, English, Fif- teenth Century 137 Man's Portrait, by Conrad Faber; Portrait of Benedikt von Hekten- stein, by Hans Holbein 148 Man and Woman at Casement. Florentine, Fifteenth Century 149 Rings from Collection of Imperial Kunstgewerbe Museum, Vienna 156 Signet Ring of Charles 1 157 Ring with Portrait, Given to Lafayette by Washington; Impression of President Wilson's Signet Ring; Seal of Right Reverend David H. Greer, Bishop of New York 160 Portrait of a Lady, Cologne School, 1526, Wearing Pointed Dia- mond 168 Man's Portrait, by Hans Funk, 1523, with Seal Ring 169 "Campaign Medals" of Henri II and of John Casimir, Count Palatine, with Pointed Diamonds 170 Portrait of Diane de Poitiers 171 Portrait of Henry VIII, by Hans Holbein 182 Portrait of Jane Seymour, by Holbein 183 Portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots, French School 184 Portrait of Queen Elizabeth, by Lucas de Heere 185 Gold Ring, Cameo Portrait of Queen Elizabeth; Venetian Ring with Pearls; Multiple Silver Rings 186 Puzzle Rings 187 Portrait of a Lady, by Pantoja de la Cruz 194 Portrait of Empress Mary, Daughter of Charles V, by Juan Pantoja DE LA Cruz 195 Inlaid Antique Ring; Locket Ring; Antique Syrian Ring; Roman Ring with Pointed Diamond; Silver Ring on Bone of Finger, from Saxon Sepulchre 196 Syrian Wedding Rings of Agate and Chalcedony 197 Betrothal of the Virgin, by Juan Rodriguez Juarez (Xuarez) 202 ILLUSTRATIONS xvii Hands from the Preceding Picture 203 Jewish Betrothal Rings, Musee de Cluny 212 Jewish Rings from British Museum 213 Portrait of Anne of Cleves, by Hans Holbein, Showing Thumb Ring 216 Portrait of Judith, by Lucas Cranach, Rings Worn Under Gloves 217 Ring with Diamond for Writing on Glass; Gallo-Roman Wedding Ring; Signet and Wedding Ring of Mary, Queen of Scots 218 Betrothal Rings; Gimmal Wedding Ring. . 219 GiMMAL Ring; Betrothal Ring; Puzzle Ring 220 Wedding Rings with Posies , 221 Portrait of Clara Eugenia, Daughter of Philip II of Spain, by Gonzales 222 Portrait of Catarina Michela, Another of Philip's Daughters, by CoELLO Sanchez 223 Engagement and Wedding Rings 230 Wedding Rings , 231 Marriage Medals by Oscar Roty 232 Puzzle Ring; Gold Betrothal Ring; Ornamental Love Ring 233 Portrait of Young Woman, Dutch School 240 Portrait of a Man, by the "Master of the Death of Mary" 241 Rings, Italian, French, Tyrolese, in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts 246 Jacques Guay, Gem Engraver of Louis XV, at Work in the Louvre. . 247 Ring of Pius II, ^Eneas Sylvius 262 The "Fisherman's Ring"; Hand of Cranach's "Judith," with Gloves Slit for Rings 263 Portrait of Clement IX, by Carlo Maratta 268 Portrait of Julius II, by Rafael 269 Christian Ring of Glass; Venetian Relic Ring; Poison Ring; Ring of Bishop Ahlstan 270 Memorial Rings 271 Bishops' Rings; Papal Ring; Rosary Rings 272 Bishops' Rings 273 Abbess Praying, French School ^ . 280 Lady's Portrait, by Coninxbo 281 Rings with Greek Mottoes; Ring of Bronze Gilt 300 Oriental Rings 301 The "Hermit Stone," from Lapidario of Alfonso X 304 The "Offspring Stone, " from Lapidario of Alfonso X 305 Chinese Jeweller's Shop in San Francisco; Modern Chinese Rings 320 Specimens of Curious Ring Collection in American Museum of Natural History, New York; Rings from Philippine Islands 321 Zodiacal Rings 328 Magic Rings 329 Masonic Rings 332 xviii ILLUSTRATIONS Rings of Orders and Societies 333 Edward the Confessor's Ring; Healing Ring 342 Curious Woodcuts Regarding Rings, from the Ortus (Hortus) Sani- TATis of Johannis de Cuba 343 Astrolabe Ring; Watch-Ring by Kossek in Prague 352 Eighteenth Century Watch Ring; Modern Watch Ring 353 Production of Rings with Precious Stones by Means of Machinery 356 Successive Stages in the Formation of a Machine-made Ring 357 The "Allen Ring Gauge" for Measuring Rings 358 Ring, Finger and Millimeter Locking Gauge"; "Display Rings".. 359 RINGS I THE ORIGIN, PURPOSES AND METHODS OF RING WEARING THE ORIGIN OF THE RING THE origin of the ring is somewhat obscure, although there is good reason to believe that it is a modifica- tion of the cylindrical seal which was first worn attached to the neck or to the arm and was eventually reduced in size so that it could be worn on the finger. Signet rings were used in Egypt from a very remote period, and we read in Gen. xl, 42, that the Pharaoh of Joseph's time bestowed a ring upon the patriarch as a mark of authority. From Egypt the custom of wearing rings was transmitted to the Greek world, and also to the Etruscans, from whom the usage was derived by the Romans. The Greek rings were made of various ma- terials, such as gold, silver, iron, ivory, and amber. In his Natural History, Pliny relates the Greek fable of the origin of the ring. For his impious daring in stealing fire from heaven for mortal man, Prometheus had been doomed by Jupiter to be chained for 30,000 years to a rock in the Caucasus, while a vulture fed upon his liver. Before long, however, Jupiter relented and liberated Prometheus; nevertheless, in order to avoid a violation of the original judgment, it was ordained that the Titan should wear a link of his chain 1 2 RINGS on one of his fingers as a ring, and in this ring was set a fragment of the rock to which he had been chained, so that he might be still regarded as bound to the Caucasian rock. Another origin ascribed to the ring is the knot. A knotted cord or a piece of wire twisted into a knot was a favorite charm in primitive times. Frequently this was used to cast a spell over a person, so as to deprive him of the use of one of his limbs or one of his faculties ; at other times, the power of the charm was directed against the evil spirit which was supposed to cause disease or lameness, and in this case the charm had curative power. It has been conjectured that the magic virtues attributed to rings originated in this way, the ring being regarded as a simplified form of a knot; indeed, not infrequently rings were and are made in the form of knots. ^ This symbol undoubtedly signified the binding or attaching of the spell to its object, and the same idea is present in the true-lovers' knot. Many rings of the Bronze Age were found in the course of excavations conducted in 1901 by M. Henri de Morgan in the valley of Agha Evlar, stretching back from Kerghan on the Caspian Sea, in the region known as the " Persian Talyche." Here several sepul- chral dolmens were discovered which yielded a con- siderable number of ornamental objects of metal and stone, as well as beads of vitreous paste. There was no trace of inscriptions to aid in dating these " Scythian " finds, but they are considered to belong to the second millennium before Christ. The bronze rings are of several different types, some of them show- ing from three to five spirals; in other cases the ends Fossey, " La magie assyrienne," Paris, 1902, p. 83. EVOLUTION OF THE FINGER RING 1, Egyptian seal ring. 2, Greek snake ring, found at Kertch in the Crimea. 3, antique Roman ring (Berlin Antiquarium). 4, Romano-Etruscan ring. 5, Roman key ring. 6, Gothic ring with stone set on raised bezel. 7, Gothic ring with cabochon-cut stone. 8, Renaissance ring with enamel decoration. 9, Hebrew wedding ring. 10, Renaissance ring. 11, Renaissance ring. 12, coat of arms of the Medici, three interlinked stones, each set with a natural pointed diamond crystal Greek silver ring. Engraved de- Roman ring of opaque dark glass, sign beneath a sunk border; draped Fourth Century a.d. figure of a girl holding out a dove British Museum British Museum Mycenaean gold rings. 1, from lalysos, Rhodes; given to the British Museum in 1870 by John Ruskin; 2, from excavation at Enkomi, 1896 British Museum THE ORIGIN OF THE RING 3 are overlapping, or else brought together as closely as possible.^ Although it would scarcely be safe to assume that finger-rings were never worn by the ancient Assyrians, still the almost total absence of representations of them, even on female figures, renders it safe to say that this must have been only very rarely the case. Possibly the persistence in Assyria and Babylonia of the cylindrical form of seal may account for this, in part at least, for the signet ring in many places was evolved from the cylinder-seal. Moreover, the absence of small intaglios in the period earlier than 500 B.C. would have deprived a ring of its almost essential setting. The plates in Layard's great work on Assyrian remains, as well as those published by Flandrin and Coste, also offer strong negative evidence, although Dr. William Hayes Ward states that he would have expected finger-rings might have come from Egypt by the way of Syria. At a later period, under Greek influence, rings were not uncommon.^ In the immense cemeteries at Warka and elsewhere numerous iron rings have been found, many of them toe-rings, as well as some made of shell, but the date of these burials is not easily determined, and they are probably, in most instances, not of much earlier date than the eighth or even the sixth century before Christ. A proof that genuine antiques can still be picked up in our day in the East is given by Doctor Ward, who said that he bought in Bagdad a lovely gold ring set with a cameo on which was inscribed in Greek char- ^ Delegation en Perse, Memoires publics sous la direction de M. J. de Morgan, vol. viii, " Recherches archeologiques," 3d ser., Paris, 1905, pp. 321, 322 ; figured on p. 320. ^ Communicated by the late Dr. William Hayes Ward. 4 RINGS acters " Protarchus made it." When, on visiting London, he told this to Doctor Murray, of the British Museum, the latter gave full expression to his scep- ticism, saying, " There are plenty of those signed things." But when the gem itself was shown him, he exclaimed, " This is jolly genuine," and he had it photographed for his book.* A very interesting find was made in 1890, during the excavations conducted under the auspices of the University of Pennsylvania at Nippur. In the north- western part of the mound, as many as 730 inscribed tablets were unearthed, which had been carefully stored in a chamber measuring eighteen by nine feet. These tablets, when deciphered, proved that the chamber was the record room of the sons of a certain Murashu, Bel- hatin and Bel-nadin-shumu, whose activity seems to have been analogous to that of our counsellors-at-law. Many of the tablets bear records concerning the mem- bers of the family personally, but in other cases their services appear to have been claimed in various legal difficulties. One of the most curious of these ancient documents is a contract dated the eighth of the month of Elul, in the year 429 B.C. (thirty-fifth year of Arta- xerxes I of Persia), in which Bel-ah-iddina, Belshumu, and Hatin give the following guarantee to Bel-nadin- shumu, son of Murashu: As concerns the gold ring set with an emerald, we guarantee that in twenty years the emerald will not fall out of the gold ring. If the emerald should fall out of the gold ring before the end of twenty years, Bel-ah-iddina, Belshumu, and Hatin shall pay unto Bel-nadin-shumu an indemnity of ten mana of silver. The record bears the names of seven witnesses and ^ Communicated by the late Dr. William Hayes Ward. THE ORIGIN OF THE RING 5 that of the scribe, and is signed with the thumb-nail marks of those who guaranteed the jewel, " instead of their seals." ^ It seems that we have here the names of the members of a firm of jewellers doing business in Nippur, in the fifth century before Christ, and evidently they were quite confident that the work they sold was well and solidly done, for the indemnity represented a sum equiva- lent to about $400 in our money. This must have been the estimated value of the emerald. As the stone was probably not very large, this particular gem must have been highly valued at that time, a fact due, in all likeli- hood, to the special talismanic virtues attributed to it. Several gold rings of Egyptian workmanship, ex- cavated in tombs at Enkomi, Cyprus, date back to the time of the Middle Empire in Egypt. One in pale gold, now in the British Museum, has a flat oval bezel, in- scribed " Maat, the golden one of the two lands." This belongs to the period from the XIX to the XXI Dynasty (or approximately from 1350 to 1000 B.C.). A ring found on the surface of the ground is of electrum and very massive, and is engraved with a draped figure seated on a throne, to whom approaches another figure clothed with a lion's skin and wearing on the head a disk and horns ; a lion walking is in the exergue, and the sun's disk is above the two figures. This is believed to belong to the late XVIII Dynasty, toward 1400 B.C. A thin, rounded hoop of pale gold, the ends of which are twisted round each other, and a rounded hoop of yellow gold engraved with four ursei, are two other ex- ^ Hilprecht and Clay, " Business Documents of Murashu Sons of Nippur " : The Babylonian expedition of the University of Pennsylvania, Series A : Cuneiform texts, vol. ix, Philadelphia, 1898, p. 30. 6 RINGS amples in the British Museum of the rings from Enkomi. A massive silver ring from the same place has a large oval bezel with the following names and titles inscribed in Egyptian hieroglyphics: Ra-Heru-Khuti, Ra- Kheperu Nefer, Meri-Ra, Ptah-neb-nut-maat.^ The Cypriot gold ornaments which these rings help to date are considered to be essentially contemporary with those from the tombs in the lower town of Mycenae, the period being approximately 1300-1100 B.C., possibly some years earlier or later. A beautifully worked, perforated gold ring, set with a scarab of carnelian, was found in Cyprus and is now in the Konstantinidis Collection at Nicosia. The work- manship as well as the style of the setting indicates that it was produced in the sixth century B.C. Engraved on the carnelian is a fabulous monster, somewhat resembling a chimsera, half lion, half boar.*^ Another ring of the same period from Marion- Arsinoe, Cyprus, has a silver hoop, and is set with a flat scaraboid, engraved with a female figure kneeling. One of the largest Mycenaean rings shows a goddess seated near a tree, and worshippers approaching to do her homage. Others offer various devices : an altar with worshippers; a griffin and a seated divinity; a pair of sphinxes; griffins, bulls' heads, etc., in heraldic order- ® F. H. Marshall, " Catalogue of Finger Rings, Greek, Etruscan and Roman, in the . . . British Museum," London, 1907, pp. 1, 2, 997 (see pi. xx) ; also the same author's Catalogue of the Jewellery Greek, Etruscan and Roman, in the . . . British Museum, London, 1911, p. xvii. Max Ohnefalsch-Richter, " Kypros, the Bible, and Homer," London, 1893, vol. i, p. 367, and vol. ii, plate xxxii, fig. S2, THE ORIGIN OP THE RING 7 ing.® Here we have early Greek art transforming and adapting Oriental forms of metal engraving, to be suc- ceeded, more than five centuries later, by the great gem- engravings of the palmy days of the art of Ionia and Greece. Among the Cyprian rings of the Mycengean period, about 1000 B.c,^ in the British Museum, is a double gold ring which had been evidently inlaid with some vitreous substance, ail but faint traces of which have now disap- peared. This was found in a site near Famagusta, Cyprus, that has been satisfactorily identified with the spot where the Greeks under Teucer are said to have established a settlement on their return from the siege of Troy. Other gold rings discovered here at the same time, in 1896, have plain hoops, with a small cylindrical ornament strung on the hoop, to serve in place of a bezel with setting. Still another of these rings has, on one side, an extension squared off at the corners, making a long and narrow flat surface on the outside of the hoop; along its edge runs a beaded ornamentation.^ The oldest Greek ring bearing an inscription is one believed to belong to the late Mycenaean period. The gold hoop has engraved upon it the Cypriot syllables Le-na-ko, possibly meaning the name Lenagoras. It was found with other ornaments in a grave near Lanarka, Cyprus. The similarity of the name Lanarka with the ^ Strena Helbigena, 73 ; Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. xxi, p. 155, fig. 33; p. 159, fig. 39; Schliemann Mycenae and Tiryns, pp. 354, 360. ® See F. H. Marshall, op. cit,, p. 3 ; rings from Enkomi, Cyprus. ■^^ Pauly's Real Encyclopadie der Altertumswissenschaft, vol. ix, pt. i, col. 827; Stuttgart, 1914; Marshall, Catalogue of the Finger Rings, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman, in the British Museum, London, 1907, No. 574. 8 RINGS phonetic value of the inscribed signs might perhaps suggest that a place name rather than a person's name is signified. That in ancient times several cities had their special signets is proved by a Greek inscription as to the cities of Smyrna, Magnesia, and Sipylum/^ Pliny already remarked the fact that nowhere in the Homeric poems is any mention made of rings or of seals. This is the more singular that we have so much positive evidence in Cretan and Myceneean remains that rings were known to a part of the Greek world for a long time prior to the composition of the Iliad and Odyssey. Probably due allowance must be made for the individual preference of the poet, or school of poets, to whom we owe these masterpieces of ancient literature. In our own day, the present writer in his researches has often been disappointed to find nothing concerning precious stones or jewels in a given work treating of a subject that would invite their mention, the obvious reason being that the author cared little or nothing for such things, and hence passed over, unnoticed, all data regarding them. Nevertheless, the metal-worker's art evidently ap- pealed strongly to the author (or authors) of the Homeric epics, as is shown in many places, notably in the long description of the representations on the elab- orately wrought shield made by Vulcan for Achilles ( II., xviii, 478-608). Certainly the traditions of Homeric times, recorded by later Greek writers, tell of several rings worn by Homeric personages. A ring of Ulysses, engraved with a dolphin by order of the wily hero, in memory of the rescue of his son Telemachus by one of the creatures of the deep, is mentioned by Plutarch ("De solertia Corpus inscriptionum Grsecamm, 3137, i, 87 sq. THE ORIGIN OF THE RING 9 anim."). Moreover, Helen of Troy is stated to have worn on one of her fingers a ring bearing the figure of an " enormous fish/' and, finally, the great Greek painter Polygnotus, a contemporary of Pericles (495- 429 B.C.), in a painting showing the descent of Ulysses into Hades, represented the youthful Phocus as wearing a ring, set with an engraved gem, on one of the fingers of his left hand.^^ This painting was highly reputed in ancient times, and had been dedicated to Apollo in the shrine at Delphi by the Cnidians. The significance of the ring in the fourth century before Christ, as an ensign of office in Athens, is brought out by a passage in the " Knights " of the comic poet Aristophanes, where the people, as an expression of their discontent with the administration of Kleon, demand that he surrender the ring with which he has been invested, as a proof that he is no longer entrusted with the office of treasurer/^ A clever use of a ring is reported to have been made by Ismenias of Thebes, when he was sent by the Boeotians as an envoy to the Persian King. Before he was brought into the royal presence he was instructed by the master of ceremonies that he must prostrate himself before the sovereign. This act was strongly repugnant to his Greek consciousness, both as a debasement of his individual dignity, and as an act of divine homage offered to a mortal. To escape from the dilemma, the envoy, as he approached the throne, took off his ring and succeeded in dropping it without attracting too much attention; whereupon he stooped and picked it up. The Greek onlookers understood the meaning of his action, while Le Brun-Dalbanne, " Les Pierres gravees du tresor de la cathedrale de Troyes," Paris, 1880, p. 32. Aristophanes, " Knights," Act II, sc. 4. 10 RINGS the Persians believed that he had satisfactorily con- formed to the court ceremonial. His little ruse was rewarded by a favorable reception of his requests by the Persian King, who had long been offended by the obstinate refusal of the Greeks to render him the homage he regarded as his due.^^ The iron ring of the Romans, accounted for in popular fancy by the tale of the rock and link ring of Prometheus, probably came to the Romans from the Etruscans, who appear to have owed the fashion to the Greeks, and Pliny notes in his " Naturalis Historia," written about 75 a.d., that even then the Lacedaemonians, with true Spartan sobriety, still wore iron rings/ ^ Roman tradition carried back the introduction of such rings to the age of Numa Pompilius, about 700 B.C., and there is evidence that, at a later time at least, they were regarded as symbols of victory when worn on the hand of a successful general, a late instance being the wearing of an iron ring by Marius at his triumph for the victory over Jugurtha in 107 b.c.^^ The progressive changes in the Roman regulations and customs governing the wearing of rings and the material of which they should be made have been stated in a concise and convenient form by M. Deloche, and his conclusions are of considerable value, based as they are upon a very careful study of the classic sources and their best interpreters in the past.^^ JEliani, " Varia historia," Lib. I, cap. xxi. Lib. xxxiii, cap. iv. Ibid., loc. cit. M. Deloche, " Le port des anneaux dans I'antiquite romaine, et dans les premiers siecles du moyen age " ; extrait des Memoires de I'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, vol. XXXV, Paris, 1896, pp. 4, 5. THE ORIGIN OF THE RING 11 The iron ring, the only one originally, was at first regarded as a mark of individual honor, awarded by the sovereign or in his name. From the earliest times of the Roman Republic, a senator sent on an embassy re- ceived a gold ring, all other senators being restricted to iron ones. Soon, however, senators of noble birth, and, later on, all senators without distinction, enjoyed the right of wearing gold rings. In the third century B.C. this privilege was then extended to the knights, and in the last years of the Republic, as well as under the em- perors, many other classes of citizens were made par- takers of the privilege, so that before long even some freedmen and certain of those pursuing the least repu- table vocations were permitted the enjoyment of a dis- tinction once so jealously guarded. Toward the latter part of the third century a.d. all Roman soldiers could lawfully wear gold rings, although in the late Republican and earlier Imperial periods this right was accorded only to the military tribunes. Thus, finally, all class distinctions in this respect were done away with. Every freeborn man could wear a gold ring, freedmen, with a few exceptions, were confined to silver rings, and the iron ring became the badge of slavery. After the battle of Cannse (August 2, 216 B.C.), in which the Romans were totally defeated by Han- nibal, the Carthaginian leader ordered that the gold rings should be taken from the hands of the dead Ro- mans and heaped up in the vestibule of his quarters. Enough were collected to fill a bushel basket (some authorities say three bushel baskets) , and they were sent to Carthage, not as valuable spoils of war, but as proof of the great slaughter among the Roman patricians and knights, for at this time none beneath the rank of knights, and only those of highest standing among them, those 12 RINGS provided with steeds by the State {equo publico), had been given the right to wear gold rings/^ On days of national mourning the gold rings were laid aside as a mark of sorrow and respect, and iron rings were substituted. This was the case after the defeat at Cannae in 216 B.C. and on the funeral day of Augustus Cffisar in 15 a.d. This usage is noted in one of the poet Juvenal's satires.^ ^ Occasionally, as a mark of disap- probation, senators would remove their gold rings at a public sitting, as, for instance, when, in 305 B.C., the appointment as edile of Cneius Flavins, son of the f reed- man Annius, was announced in the Senate. In Rome supplicants took off their rings as a mark of humility, or a sign of sadness. When the censors C. Claudius Pulcher and Titus Sempronius Gracchus were cited by the tribune Rutilius as guilty of a crime against the State, Claudius was condemned by eight of the twelve centuries of Knights. At this, many of the principal personages of the Senate, taking off their gold rings in the presence of the assembled citizens, put on mourning garments, and raised supplications in favor of the accused persons.^ ^ Another instance of this usage with suppliants is shown in a recital of Valerius Maximus, wherein he relates that when, about 55 B.C., Aulus Gabinius was violently accused by the tribune Memmius, and there seemed to be little hope that he would escape punish- ment, his son Sisenna cast himself as a suppliant at the feet of Memmius, tearing off his ring at the same time. This mark of humiliation finally induced Memmius and Titi Livii, " Ab urbe condita," lib. xxiii, cap. xii. 19 Sat. iii, lines 153-156. Titi Livii, "Ab urbe condita," lib. xlii, cap. xvi. THE ORIGIN OF THE RING 13 his fellow-tribune Laslius to withdraw the accusation, and set Gabinius at liberty.^ ^ The wearing of a gold ring, because it was a sign of patrician and later of free birth, had such a high value in the eyes of the Romans that some freedmen used the subterfuge of wearing a gold ring with a dark coating, so that it would appear to be of iron. Thus, although they neither had the gratification nor incurred the perils of wearing a symbol confined to the freebom, they had the intimate personal satisfaction of knowing that it was really on the hand.^^^ From the rather scant evidence that has come down to us, it appears that Roman women were not subjected to as strict regulations in the wearing of rings of precious metal as were the men. The wives of simple plebeians who were in good circumstances seem as generally and freely to have worn them as the wives and daughters of senators or knights, or other patrician women. Pliny writes of the women wearing gold on every finger.^ ^ In Rome, as early as the first century, at a time when the right of wearing gold rings was, as has been shown, very strictly limited, it occasionally happened that a famous actor was accorded this privilege by the special favor of some influential admirer of his art. Sulla granted this right to Roscius, and some years later, in 43 B.C., the Roman quaestor in Spain bestowed a gold ring upon Herennius Gallus in the ancient city of Gades, the modern Cadiz. This gave him the right to occupy a seat in one of the first fourteen rows at the theatre, the part reserved for the knights. This special privilege 2^ Valerii Maximi, " Factorum et dictorum memorabilium libri IX," lib. viii, cap. i. ^^^See Plinii, " Naturalis Historia," lib. xxxiii, cap. xxiii. 22 " Naturalis Historia," lib. xxxiii, cap. xi. 14 RINGS was accorded to the actor by the Lex Roscia of 67 B.C., conferring the ring upon Roscius.^^ Although the Christian women of the early Christian centuries were taught to avoid all superfluous adorn- ments, the wearing of a gold ring was permitted to them. This was not, however, to be considered as an ornament, but was simply for use in sealing up the household goods entrusted to a wife's care. Nevertheless, while noting this use, Clemens Alexandrinus (ca. 150-oa. 217 a.d.) adds that, if both servants and masters were properly instructed in their respective duties and obligations, there would be no need for such precautions.^^ The dignity conferred by the right to wear a gold ring is even noticed in the Epistle of James, where we read (ii, 2-4) : For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment, and ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor. Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool ; are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts? While this apostle here, as elsewhere in his epistle, warmly espouses the cause of the poor, the prominence he gives to the gold ring as a mark of the rich man, and a passport to the place of honor in the congregation, is a full acknowledgment of the impression it created upon strangers, just as the ribbon of an order is taken as a F. H. Marshall, " Catalogue of the Finger Rings, Greek, Etruscan and Roman, in the . . . British Museum, Lon- don, 1907, p. xix, citing Macrobius, Saturnalia III, 14, 13, and Cicero, Ad Fam. X, 2. 2^ dementis Alexandrini, " Psedagogus," lib. iii, cap. ii. THE ORIGIN OF THE RING 15 proof of dignity or station in monarchial countries to-day, and even to a certain extent in republican France. The custom of bestowing birthday rings (anuli natalitii) was frequently observed in imperial Kome, and a rich and influential personage, with many friends and clients, would receive a large number of these rings on the anniversary day of his birth. As a rule, a setting of white sardonyx seems to have been most favored, to judge from a line in the first of the Satires of the Latin poet Persius (34-62 a.d.). The famous decree of Justinian, promulgated in 539 (Novella 78 of the Digest), conferring upon freedmen the right of wearing gold rings, runs as follows : If a master, on freeing his slave, has declared him to be a Roman citizen (and he is not allowed to do otherwise), let it be known that, according to the present law, he whoi shall have received his liberty shall have the right to gold rings and to regeneration, and shall not need to solicit the right of the prince, or to take any other steps to secure it. It will be his as a con- sequence of his liberation, in virtue of the present law, which goes into effect from this day. This decree shows that, as is proved by other texts, freedmen were sometimes accorded the privilege of wear- ing gold rings by special permission of the ruler or State, but all who could not obtain such special permission were punishable if they ventured to wear a gold ring, just as in countries where State orders are recognized and protected the wearing of such an order or of its ribbon by unauthorized persons is punishable in some way. The " right of regeneration " is more peculiar, as this refers to a legal fiction, by which it was assumed that some one of the ancestors of the freedman had been Beck, " Corpus juris civilis," vol. ii, pp. 406, 407. 16 RINGS free-born; hence, the quahty of free-birth was only re- vived, not created, in the case of the descendant. This is, after all, not so unreasonable as it may seem to be, for the slaves, being generally prisoners of war, or else the descendants of citizens who had in some way lost their citizenship, could truly claim, in a majority of instances, that they came of free-born stock. The image of Mars on a ring-stone was greatly favored by Roman soldiers. A good example of this style of ring is to be seen at the National Hungarian Museum in Budapest. The gem, a carnelian, is en- graved with a figure of the god, with helmet and spear; his left hand rests on a shield bearing the Medusa's head. The hoop is of silver. This ring was found in Bosnia and was donated to the museum in 1820.^^ An old Roman inscription mentions a guild of ring- makers {conlegium anularium) and the denomination anularius even appears as a proper name of the engraver of a signet ring.^^ Near the Forum was a flight of steps designated scalce anularice/^ indicating either that ring engravers or vendors were to be found there, or that they had their shops or workshops in the neighborhood. Treating of the dictatorial conduct of the Procurator Verres, Cicero, in his violent, we might almost say viru- lent arraignment of him, were it not so well deserved, says that when Verres wished to have a ring made for himself he ordered that a goldsmith should be summoned to the Forum, publicly weighed out the gold for him, 2^ Cimeliotheca Musei Nationalis Hungarici, sive catalogus historico-criticus antiquitatum, raritatum, et pretiosorum — eius instituti," Budse, 1825, p. 136. ^ Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum, vol. i, No. 1107. 28 Ihid., vol. xi. No. 1235. 29 Suetonii: "Vita Augusti," 72. THR ORIGIN OF THE RING 17 and commanded the man to set his bench down in the Forum and to make the ring in the presence of all.^^ Tacitus states in his Germania that the most valiant of the Cattse, wore " Hke a fetter " an iron ring, which was a mark of infamy among the Germans. Only when a warrior had killed an enemy had he the right to divest himself of this ring. Whether this was a tribal usage, or only the sign of an obligation voluntarily assumed, must be left to conjecture. It is supposed to evidence that the slaves of the Germans wore iron rings, and that thus such rings were looked upon as badges of slavery.^^ Finger-rings are exceedingly rare among the remains of the prehistoric American peoples, although a few have been found in the Pueblo ruins of Arizona and New Mexico. These are usually cut out of shell. Some of them are skilfully cut from Pectunculus shells, and others from "cone-shells" (Conus). Of the former kind a number were unearthed at Chaves Pass, Arizona.^ ^ Many of the rings were incised with an ornamental de- sign; one of the most beautiful of these was decorated with red figures representing clouds and lightning. This ring, large enough to fit an adult's finger, was found, together with bones of a human hand, in one of the pre- Columbian graves, at Casa Grande, Arizona. The re- 30 Cicero, " In Verrem," iv, 25, 26. Deloche, " Le port des anneaux dans I'antiquite romaine, et dans les premiers siecles du moyen age," Paris, 1896, pp. 46, 47 ; extrait des Memoires de I'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, vol. xxxv, part ii. 3^ Jesse Walter Fewkes, " Two Summers' Work in Pueblo Ruins," Bureau of American Ethnology, vol. xxii, pt. i, p. 91. Also the same writer's " Casa Grande, Arizona," Bureau of American Ethnology, vol. xxviii, pp. 143, 144 ; rings figured on pi. Ixxv, fig. Ay and in text cut, fig. 49. 2 18 RINGS mains here also yielded a ring made out of a cone-shell, with incised decoration. The exceptionally fine speci- men noted above almost certainly had a religious or talismanic character, and it may have been thought to protect the wearer from storms and thunderbolts. The skill with which the shells were utilized for rings as well as for other objects of adornment must have been the result of many generations of experiment and training, springing from that inherent artistic sense so often manifest in the Indians of the pueblos in contrast to the Indians of the plains. Often the circular form was already present in the shell, and this was utilized by dividing a part of the cone into sections, thus giving rings of varying diameter. The material was then smoothed and polished, and either left plain or decorated with an incised pattern, into the outlines of which appropriate coloring matter was introduced. In other cases, when the shell material did not offer a natural circlet, a disk was cut out, and a large perforation produced the rough circlet, to be worked up later into a finished ring. The attainable evidence in regard to the wearing of rings by the aborigines of North and South America is, in the main, negative. This is the case with the Pacific coast Indians, as well as with the Chiriqui graves and other ancient remains in the present United States of Colombia.^^ Indeed, so far as can be ascertained, the wearing of rings is essentially an Oriental fashion and was brought to the ancient peoples of Europe from the East. Still, here and there on the North American Communications from Prof. George Grant McCurdy, Curator, Anthropological Section of Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University, and from Dr. Frank S. Daggett, Director, Museum of History, Science and Art, Los Angeles, Cal. THE ORIGIN OF THE RING 19 continent, as in the instance above noted, rings have been found in burials believed to be pre-Columbian. To the very few pre-Columbian rings found in Indian mounds, belong four from Ohio, now in the collection of the Ohio State Archseological and His- torical Society, Columbus, Ohio. One of the rings was unearthed twenty years ago from a mound in Hamilton County; it is of spiral form and was on the middle finger of the left hand of a skeleton. The three others came from the Adana Mound, two of them being spiral- rings, both found on the middle finger of a skeleton's left hand; the third is not a complete circle, and was picked up at the base of the mound. The spiral-rings are very finely and delicately fashioned.^* The Aztecs of ancient Mexico executed many orna- mental objects of gold, silver, copper and tin, and worked in iron and lead as well. Specimens of this silversmiths' work were sent by Fernan Cortes to Emperor Charles V, and their artistic quality elicited the admiration of the Spanish jewellers. These seem to have been only a small portion of the rich booty gathered by the Spanish Con- quistador, the metal worth of which he estimated at 100,000 ducats ($250,000), or even more, according to the statement in a letter addressed to his sovereign. The greater part of this treasure is believed to have been lost during the Noche Triste/' the " Night of Sorrows," when the Spanish conquerors were surprised and attacked in Mexico City by the native warriors, and were forced to seek safety, after suffering considerable losses in a retreat from the narrow, city streets into the open country, where they could better utilize the enor- Commumcated by Dr. William C. Mills, Curator and Librarian of the Museum. 20 RINGS mous superiority conferred on them by their fire-arms. Even the few specimens which were actually brought to Charles V seem to have disappeared, and were probably melted down for use as buUion.^^ Of the silversmiths' methods a little can be learned from a study of Aztec paintings. Thus we are able to know that they used the crucible, the muffle and the blow- pipe. The statement is made by Torquemada and by Clavigo that they possessed the now lost art of casting objects half of gold and half of silver. Some fine ex- amples of Aztec work in gold and silver are to be seen in the marvelous collections of the Museo Nacional in Mexico City, and among them are several finger-rings. One of these comes from Teotihuacan; its broad hoop is decorated with the head of one of the Aztec gods, wearing an elaborate and curiously complicated head-dress. Other gold rings are of a peculiar type, the inner half of the hoop being only about two-fifths as high as the outer and very broad half, so that the finger could be closed without inconvenience.^^ So few finger-rings of the Indian aborigines, who once inhabited the present territory of the United States, have been brought to light, that some authorities have been disposed to deny the existence of any relics of this kind. Among the rare discoveries may be noted a copper ring found in one of the Indian mounds near Chillicothe, Ross County, Ohio. This ring has been made by bending a short copper rod until the ends over- lapped and then pounding them as closely together as possible. It is only large enough for a child's finger, and W. W. Blake, " The Antiquities of Mexico," New York, 1891, p. 74, figure. Ibid., p. 73, figures. Ancient Indian rings. 1, copper finger ring. From a grave in cemetery at mouth of the Wabash, Southern Indiana, 1898. i^, stone ring (?). From Red Paint Cemetery, Orland, Maine. Explored by W. K. Moorehcad in 1912. 3, shell ring, broken. From adobe ruin. Mesa, Arizona, 1898. All full size Courtesy of Mr. Warren K. Moorehead Four thin shell rings from the Indian adobe ruins near Phoenix, Arizona, explored in 1898 Courtesy of Mr. Warren K. Moorehead NAVAJO SILVERSMITH OF ARIZONA, KOCH-NE-BI-KI-BITSILLY, CALLED "CHARLEY," MAKING RINGS AT GRAND CANYON, ARIZONA THE ORIGIN OF THE RING 21 among the remains of fifteen Indians found in this par- ticular mound were those of a child.^^ A few stone rings, presumably for wear on the finger, have been met with in Indian graves in the Scioto Valley, Ohio, in Kentucky, in Tennessee and also in Arizona, New Mexico and California. An ornamental stone ring from Kentucky was evidently a finger-ring, as are also some others of the stone rings.^^ A shell ring from the adobe ruins near Phoenix, Arizona, in the Salado Valley, shows the skill of the primitive Indians of this region in ring-making. Art in shell is pronounced by Dr. Warren K. Moorehead to be characteristic of the early Indian peoples of this valley, the shell material, which is found in great profusion in the ruins and in the desert, having come here either because of trade relations with the Indians of the sea- coast, or as a result of frequent journeys by some of the Salado peoples to the distant salt water. The dis- covery of shell frogs in the so-called " City of the Dead " in this valley, by Prof. Frank H. Cushing, some thirty years ago, was at first received with considerable in- credulity, but since then several have been unearthed by successive explorers. Shell and bone implements with turquoise inlays occur both in Arizona and New Mexico.^^ The shell ring we have just noted, is un- Warren K. Moorehead, " Primitive Men in Ohio," New York, 1892, p. 148; see plate xxvi, p. 152. Warren K. Moorehead, " Stone Age in North America," Boston and New York, 1910, vol. i, p. 440, fig. 385, ring in Collection of B. H. Young, Louisville, Kentucky. See the writer's " Magic of Jewels and Charms," Phila- delphia and London, 1915, pp. 352, 353; colored plate opp. p. 352. 22 RINGS usually well formed, the projection at the upper part having a form suggestive of a finished bezel, thus render- ing the ring a harmonious and attractive adornment for the hand. This interesting specimen was brought to light in 1898, with a few other shell rings. An Indian cop- per finger ring was unearthed, in the same year, in a grave forming part of a cemetery at the mouth of the Wabash River, southern Indiana. More recently, in 1912, what is believed to have been a stone ring was taken by Doctor Moorehead from the Red Paint Indian cemetery at Orland, Maine.^^ The proficiency of the Navajo and Pueblo Indians of New Mexico as silversmiths is shown by the fact that there are from fifty to seventy-five Indians regularly occupied in this way at present, while several hundred others are more or less familiar with the art and work occasionally. The average pay is so much by the ounce, fifty cents for bracelets, conchos, etc., and seventy-five cents for rings, plus twenty- five cents for each and every setting. It has been estimated that a Navajo silversmith, if he find steady work, may earn as much as $125 a month. This, however, is rarely the case, as they are not fond of overwork, and when they have earned a little sum in ten or fifteen days, they will lay off until it is spent and they are again forced to resume their tasks. Of the more industrious, who might be willing to work uninterruptedly, many are quite prosperous, owning flocks of sheep or other live stock, or else farm land, which must be attended to in preference to the jewellery industry. Warren K. Moorehead, "A Narration of Exploration in New Mexico, Arizona, Indiana, etc.," Andover, Mass., 1906, p. 89, fig. 45. THE ORIGIN OF THE RING 23 One of the best of these Indian ring-makers is Koch- Ne-Bi-Ki Bitsilly, called Charley for short. He finds regular employment in the Grand Canyon shop at Albuquerque, N. M., for several months in each year, devoting the remainder of his time to the care of his sheep and other property. He is pronounced to be above the average in intelligence, energy and initiative. Other silversmiths are: Asidi Yashe, Charlie Hogan, Charlie Largo, Malapai, Bigay and Hastin Nez. Of the stones used for ring-settings, garnets are never employed except at the special request of a trader ; rarely, roughly-cut peridots are set in rings. Turquoise from New Mexico, is the favorite stone, although a little Persian turquoise is occasionally brought in by the traders and set in Navajo rings. In early times the turquoise supply came from the deposits near Cerrillos, now known as the Tiffany Mine,^^"" which furnished the material for all the turquoise ornaments in the ruins at Chaco Canyon and elsewhere. In the manufacture of rings these silversmiths frequently make a number at the same time, first fashioning all the hoops, and then adding the design to the hoops, after which the cups for the settings are added to the series. An industrious worker will be able to finish up as many as a dozen rings on this plan in three days, whereas, when special care is to be exercised in making a single ring, a whole day's work will be required. From four to five thousand rings are made annually in New Mexico and Arizona. As metal working was unknown to the Navajos, as well as to the other Indians of the Southwest before the advent of the white man, it seems most probable that silver jewellery was not made by these Indians until Not named after Charles L. Tiffany. 24 RINGS Spanish silver coins reached them. The Navajos are believed to have acquired their knowledge of jewellery- making from the Pueblo Indians who were the first to undertake it. Prior to this there was massive work in copper probably due to influences from the North. The Spanish derivation of the silver-working is proven by the old Spanish methods used; the bellows is Spanish- Moorish. No reference either to the making or the use of jewellery before recent times by the Navajos is be- lieved to exist. As an indication of the source of the silver used, the Hopi name of this metal is shiha, the literal meaning of the word being " a little round, white cake," an apt designation of a silver coin. In the total absence of archaeological evidence as to the Navajos, Dr. Walter Hough is decidedly of the opinion that silver work among the tribe is of comparatively recent date. A few of the Navajo finger-rings in the National Museum in Washington are at least old enough to show considerable signs of wear.^^ Among the women of the Pueblo Indians the wear- ing of a great number of rings on the hand is an indica- tion of aristocratic birth. This is illustrated in the accom- panying plate, showing a ring on every finger of both hands; they are of silver, set with turquoise. Rings of this type are also shown in the portrait of a Navajo maiden, a daughter of Chee Dodge, dressed in the cos- tume of the wife of a Navajo chief As the Navajo silversmiths dwelt in small huts or temporary shelters which they might move away from Communicated by Walter Hough, Acting Head Curator, Dept. of Anthropology, United States National Museum, Washington, D. C. Communicated by Joseph K. Dixon, Secretary of the National American Indian Memorial Association. DAUGHTER OF CHEE DODGE, NAVAJO INDIAN. SHE WEARS RINGS OF SILVER SET WITH TURQUOISE SILVER RINGS SET WITH TURQUOISE MINED IN ARIZONA AND NEW MEXICO, MADE BY THE NAVAJO INDIANS, GRAND CANYON, ARIZONA. 1916 THE ORIGIN OF THE RING 25 at short notice, they were forced to build low forges directly on the ground, obliging them to crouch down while working/^ In this respect the Pueblo artisans had a considerable advantage, since their spacious dwell- ings made it possible for them to set their forges solidly in a frame high enough to enable them to do their work standing. A considerable number of tools and appliances are in the workshop of the Navajo silversmith; most of them, however, of rude fabrication and not well adapted for fine and accurate work. He deserves the more credit for the quality of work he is able to produce. The fol- lowing is a pretty full list of the outfit in such a work- shop: Forge, bellows, anvil, crucibles, molds, tongs, scissors, pliers, files, awls, cold chisels, matrix and die for moulding buttons, wooden stake, basin, charcoal, tools and materials for soldering (blow-pipe, braid of cotton rags soaked in grease, wire, and borax), ma- terials for polish (sand-paper, emery-paper, powdered sandstone, sand, ashes, and solid stone), and materials for whitening (a native mineral substance — almogen, salt and water ).^^ It has been noted that the Navajos had not acquired the art of making an air chamber of the mouth in operat- ing the blow-pipe, but blew with undistended cheeks, the result being an intermittent flame. The latter is furnished by burning a thick braid of cotton rags soaked in mutton suet or some other similar kind of grease. For the polishing work, the emery paper is sparingly used The details in this and the following paragraphs are taken from Washington Matthews, "Navajo Silversmiths," in the Second Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1880-1881, Washington, 1881, pp. 171-178. Op, cit„ between pp. 174 and 175, plate showing silver- smith's shop set up near Fort Wingate. 26 HINGS because of its cost. After all the preliminary polishing has been done with sandstone, sand or ashes, the finishing is done with emery-paper. For the blanching of the silver the hydrous sulphate of ammonia, termed almogen, is used, the silver being bathed in a solution of this, with the addition of a little salt. The blow-pipe is usually made by beating out a piece of thick brass wire into a long flat strip, which is then bent into the requisite form. Two of the best of these silversmiths were engaged to work for a short time near Fort Wingate. As has been noted, their forges are commonly set very low down, and the position of the workers was evidently an uncomfortable one. Nevertheless, they showed a great degree of persistence, working sometimes as many as from twelve to even fifteen hours in a day. When paid by the piece, artisans could earn about two dollars a day on an average. The method of chasing was ex- cessively primitive. While one worker held the object firmly on an anvil, the other applied to it part of the shank of a file that had previously been rounded, and struck this with smart taps of a hammer. Finer figures were engraved with the sharpened part of a file, to which a peculiar zigzag, forward motion was imparted by the hand. One fault that could be charged against these silversmiths was a lack of economy as to the precious material they used, no care being taken to gather up and utilize the amount lost in filing and polishing, as well as by oxidation in the forge, so that the net loss was estimated at fourteen per cent. While the art of the work produced can scarcely be termed finished, when judged by very high standards, still the silver ornaments executed by the Navajos pos- sess at least the charm inherent in individual work, as con- trasted with the more harmonious and finished produc- THE ORIGIN OF THE RING 27 tions of merely mechanical art, where thousands of ob- jects of a given type of design are turned out annually in a highly-organized silversmithing establishment. With these Indians we have the " personal note " that is too often missed in the ornaments of our day. This Navajo industry has received much encouragement from the managers of the Santa Fe Railroad, and from its agencies. Although the art among the Navajos is gen- erally believed to have been introduced by Spanish in- fluence, the fact that before the Spanish Conquest the jiative Mexicans were able to work metals with con- siderable skill would make it not improbable that it spread to the New Mexico tribes, and perhaps from them to the ancestors of the Navajos of to-day. The Navajo Indians belong to the Athapascan race and emigrated from the northwestern coast. Copper had been worked into ornaments from of old by Indians of the same stock in Alaska, and some remains indicate that this was the case, in rare instances, with the Navajos. The superiority of the Navajos of a later time to the Pueblos as silversmiths, may, perhaps, result from their already acquired knowledge of copper-working. As the Navajo men had not the occupation of farming, as had the Pueblos, silversmithing gained favor among them as a fad, as a means of relieving the tedium of idleness. There is rarely any tendency to transmit this art directly from father to son, individual preferences being the chief factors. Indeed there is so little of the caste spirit among the Navajos that the occupation of the father counts for but little in determining that of the son. This is largely dependent upon the fact that descent is principally traced through the mother. Exogamy, marrying out- side the clan, is the orthodox code of the Navajos, a man being expected to avoid taking a wife from the clan to 28 RINGS which his mother belonged, — a wise precaution for them. As an early description of the lack of silversmiths' instruments of precision among the Navajos in planning and executing their work, Mr. Matthews says of con- ditions as he observed them thirty-five years ago : " The smiths whom I have seen working had no dividers, square, measure, or any instrument of pre- cision. As before stated, I have seen scissors used as compasses, but as a rule they find approximate centres with the eye and cut all shapes and engrave all figures by the unaided guidance of this unreliable organ. Often they cut out their designs in paper first and from them mark off patterns on the metal. Even in the matter of cutting patterns they do not seem to know the simple device of doubling the paper in order to secure lateral conformity." As the Navajos have no silver mines in their country, they depend largely for their material upon Mexican silver dollars worth about 48 cents in United States money. These are melted and then molded, or else cut and hammered into the desired forms. Sometimes, United States half or quarter dollars are used in this way, although such silver costs more than twice as much, because of its worth as currency. Before silver was freely used, copper and brass were bought at the trading posts and favored as materials; a supply of these metals being often secured by melting down parts of the kettles or pans furnished to the Indians by the United States Government, or else bought from white settlers. Some old Navajo silversmiths assert that the art of working silver was introduced from Mexico about sixty years ago, toward the middle of the last century. About this time a Mexican silversmith named Cassilio came to the Navajo country and taught his art to a Navajo black- NAVAJO SILVERSMITHS OF NEW MEXICO, ENGAGED IN MAKING SILVER RINGS 1, Tsozi Bigay; 2, Atziddy Yaski PAULO AHKITA, PUEBLO INDIAN, WITH HIS SON AND WIFE The latter wears turquoise and silver rings on every finger of each hand Courtesy of Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon THE ORIGIN OF THE RING 29 smith called by his people Atsidi Sani, or the " Old Smith." Cassilio is said to have been still living about 1872. An artisan considered to be one of the best, if not the very best of the Navajo silversmiths of our day, who is called Beshlagai Ilini Altsosigi or the " Slender Silversmith," originally learned his art from Mexicans. The fact that Lieut. James H. Simpson, who explored the heart of the NTavajo country in 1849, has nothing to say about silversmithing, although he details very fully the various arts and industries of the Navajos, goes far to prove the truth of the statement that Navajo silver- smithing dates from a later time.^* ^ Borax is now generally used for soldering, but before it was brought to their country, the Navajo silver- smiths are said to have mined a certain substance for this use, probably a kind of native alum. Rock salt, an easily attainable material, called in the Navajo tongue tse dokozh (saline rock), was used for whitening tarn- ished or oxidized silver. For this purpose the salt was dissolved in boiling water, into which the silver articles were thrown and left for a time. In place of the sand- stone, sand and ashes originally used, the silversmiths are now able to employ sandpaper or emery paper bought at the stores. Of the tools employed we have already treated at some length. The details in this and the preceding paragraph have been derived from the very interesting and valuable " Ethnologic Dictionary of the Navaho Language," published in 1910 by the Franciscan Fathers, at St. Michaels, Arizona.^^ Here 44a u^j^ Ethnologic Dictionary of the Navaho Language," published by the Franciscan Fathers, Saint Michaels, Arizona, 1910, p. 271. This is a well-printed octavo of 536 pages, with a most comprehensive index. 30 RINGS the nouns and verbs denoting action are grouped in the only really logical way, under the respective in- dustries and trades, or other forms of human activity. As some of the foremost writers on the origin of lan- guage have urged that its beginnings are to be sought in the various rhythmic exclamations of a body of workers, at first uttered automatically and later used consciously as calls to work, or to favor a coordination of efforts, no better classification of the vocabulary of a primitive race can be employed. The various forms and qualities of silver rings found full expression in the Navajo language, a proof of the importance accorded to this branch of silversmithing among them. The word for ring being yostsd, we have the following designations : yostsa deshzhazh, a worn down ring yostsa geeldo, a broken ring yostsa enidi, a new ring yostsa quastqi, an old ring yostsa ntqel, a broad ring yostsa altsosi, a slender ring yostsa ntsa, a large ring yostsa altsisi, a small ring yostsa nailgai, a polished ring yostsa yiji, a blackened, oxidized ring yostsa do-bikeeshchmi, a plain ring yostsa bikeeshchmi, a ring with a design yostsa alkesgiz, a twisted ring yostsa bitsa, a ribbed ring yostsa bina, the setting of a ring yostsa tseso bina, a ring with a glass setting yostsa dotlizhi bina, a ring with a turquoise setting yostsa tlish beelya, a snake-shaped ring Op. cit., pp. 283, THE ARMY AND NAVT CtXTB WASHINGTON. ^ .iJuU;::^. ^ ^^^^^^ V ^ N>*»->-.»>iL>So ^-^--'s-O^ vX^Zl^^ THE ORIGIN OF THE RING 31 Rings are not in favor with the Eskimos, who do not appear to make or wear any. Indeed, Admiral Peary found it impossible to dispose of a lot of rings he had taken with him on one of his Arctic trips in the belief that they would be attractive to the Eskimos, and good objects of barter/^ Perhaps in the intense Arctic cold even the slightest pressure on the finger may have been avoided, lest it should impede circulation and in- crease the danger of having the fingers frost-bitten. The Mendasans of Mesopotamia are the silversmiths of this region, and they exhibit much skill in their work. The greatest demand is for cigarette cases and for signet rings and seals, although they make a variety of other small ornamental objects. Their methods of work are quite characteristic. In the case of the smaller objects, such as rings, etc., they hammer them out from a heated silver bar. When the general form has been attained, they work up the surface with a steel file or pencil, which has a triangular point ; with it the desired design is laboriously engraved. This process being com- pleted, a black metallic powder, made into a paste, is rubbed over the entire surface, naturally accumulating more or less, according to the greater or lesser depths of the cuttings; the object is then placed in a charcoal forge and fired. After it has remained therein long enough, it is removed and the superfluous powder is rubbed or worked off. The completed ring or other ornament then offers most beautiful contrasts between the bright silver and the lustrous black inlay. The Mendseans are sometimes called "Christians of St. John," because of their great veneration for John the Baptist. Communicated by Admiral Peary in a letter to the author, February 13, 1916. 32 RINGS However, they in no sense deserve the name of Christians, their peculiar, eclectic doctrine being a mixture of an- cient and Christian Gnosticism, with certain elements of the old Persian religion. They have quite a literature, dating back to the early centuries of our era, and written in an Aramaic dialect similar to that of the Talmud. THE PURPOSES OF RING WEARING The wearing of rings as ornaments for the hand requires no explanation in view of the innate love of adornment shown from the very earliest periods of hu- man history. However, apart from this merely orna- mental use, rings were applied to many special uses and were worn for many definite purposes, some of which are so important as to merit extended notice in separate chapters; others again are less far-reaching and less sig- nificant, and certain of these will be explained and illus- trated here. We are not apt to think the wearing of many rings especially in accord with the profession of philosophy, and yet ^lian tells us that a chief cause of the dissension between Plato (427-347 B.C.) and his pupil, Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) , arose from the blame bestowed by Plato upon the greatest of ancient philosophers — " the master of those who know," as Dante calls him — because Aristotle adorned his hand with many rings.*^ Could this have been done with a view to impressing his students and philosophers with greater respect than they might always have been disposed to accord to his intellectual greatness alone? The externals of luxurious adornment made, perhaps, a more direct appeal than the mere power 48 C. W. King, "Antique Gems," London, 1860, p. S81 ; citing ^lian, iii, 19. 1, Late Roman ring; 2, sold ring set with an engraved red carnelian. P'ound in 1846 near Amiens, France 1, ring of gilt copper set with a ruby; 2, ring set with irregularly- shaped sapphire Londesborough Collection 1 , Roman ring, perhaps a signet ; elliptical hoop with projecting shoulders; 2, hexagonal ring set with engraved stone bearing figure of Hygeia, the Goddess of Health Ring that was perhaps given by a Roman lady to a successful charioteer. Bust of donor on summit of ring All from Fairholt's "Rambles of an Artist" 1, spiral ring with heads of Isis and Serapis 2, Etruscan gold ring British Museum Fairholt's "Rambles of an Artist" Silver ring with ten projections Immense rmg with female head incorrectly said to be that of Plotina, (decade ring); that for the Creed (the wife of Trajan bezel) has the design of the Cross. Montfaucon, "L'Antiquile^ expliqu(^e," Paris, 1719 Impression British Museum Ancient Roman Key Rings Fairholt's "Rambles of an Artist" THE PURPOSES OF RING WEARING 33 of logical exposition could do, and such an eminently practical thinker as Aristotle was may not have been blind to these considerations. A gold ring figured by Gorius is thought by him to have been a gift from an ardent Roman sportswoman to a victorious charioteer, to whose skill she may perhaps have been indebted for some material gain, since wager- ing in chariot races was as common in Roman times as betting on horse races in our own day. This ring is engraved with a woman's head and two heads of reined horses ; the name of the donor, Pomphonica,*^ and the words amor and hospes, are engraved on the circlet. " Love the Host," as these words may be read, makes a slightly enigmatic inscription. Indeed, it may well be that some fair Roman had the ring made as a memento for her own use and wear. Another conjecture is that it was a man's ring executed as a memento of what was dearest to him, his lady-love and his chariot horses. It was in the Cabinet of the Tuscan grand duke Francis of Lorraine, later Emperor of Germany and husband of Maria Theresa.^^ A Latin inscription, from Granada, Spain, mentions a ring, set with a jasper, that was placed by a son upon the statue of his mother. The value of the ring is given as 7 000 sestertii, indicating that the stone was engraved ; the design probably had a symbolic significance, as in the case of most of the votive rings.^^ Frederick WiUiam Fairholt, " Rambles of an Archseolo- gist," London, 1871, p. 86, with figure of ring. J. P. Mariette, " Traite des pierres gravees," Paris, 1750^ vol. i, p. 18. See Marshall, " Catalogue of the finger rings, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman, in the departments of antiquities, British Museum, London, 1907, p. xxvi, note, 3 34 RINGS Martial, in one of his epigrams (V.12) says that there was nothing surprising in the feats performed by certain athletes, when Stella could carry ten maidens upon one of his fingers. In a very interesting study on this subject, C. W. King endeavors to prove that the lines refer to a remarkable ring whereon ten precious stones must have been associated in some way with dedicated to Minerva and the Nine Muses. In another epigram (V.ll) Martial writes of Stella turning sar- donyxes, emeralds, diamonds, and jaspers around one of his finger- joints, and King conjectures that the Ten Maidens were represented by the opal, sapphire (hya- cinth), spinel. Oriental topaz, almandine garnet, and pearl, in addition to the four stones enumerated above. Should this conjecture be well-founded these different stones were set at regular intervals, these stones being Minerva and the Muses, although we have no direct proof of this. This ring of the Ten Maidens suggests the decade or rosary rings, of which so many specimens exist. Usually there were ten bosses or knobs, as the name indicates, but occasionally there were eleven, for count- ing ten Aves and a Pater. The earhest date Mr. Water- ton is inclined to assign to rings of this type is the four- teenth century.^^ A so-called decade ring with twelve bosses is described in the catalogue of the Londesborough Collection.^^ (Here the central knob is a tooth, opposite this is a piece of labradorite, while on either side are set two amethysts, a chrysoprase and an emerald, two jacinths, two turquoises, and two pearls. The twelfth knob stood for the creed. Sometimes, where there are eleven projections, ten paternosters and the creed were ^2 Archaaological Journal, London, 1863, vol. xx, p. 75. 53 London, 1853, p. 6. THE PURPOSES OF RING WEARING 35 to be recited. A good example of a decade ring is one of silver in the British Museum. The ten projections for the paternosters are very marked and the eleventh, for the creed, which forms the bezel, has the form of a crucifix, the cross resting on three steps. This rises to a considerable relative height above the hoop. Such a ring could scarcely be worn with comfort, its liturgical use evidently being the paramount idea of the maker.^* The gold and silver chaplet rings, with a cross and ten beads or bosses in relief upon the hoop, were fre- quently used by the Knights of Malta, in the eighteenth century; indeed this type of ring is said to have been invented by them. Their use as substitutes for the less convenient chaplet was spreading, until in 1836 the mat- ter was referred by Pope Gregory XVI to the tribunal of penitentiaries. Its decision, transmitted by the Cardinal Penitentiary Castracane, as to the question " whether the gold or silver rings, surrounded by ten bosses, which are used by some pious persons for the recitation of the Rosary of the Blessed Virgin, can be blessed with the appropriate indulgences," was in the negative.^ ^ The ring-money used by the ancient Gauls and Britons illustrates the employment of what might be ornamental objects as currency. An exceptionally fine specimen made of nearly pure gold was recently found by a farmer while he was ploughing a field near Wood- O. M. Dalton, " Franks Bequest, Catalogue of the Finger Rings, Early Christian, Byzantine, Teutonic, Mediaeval and Later" (British Museum), London, 1912, p. 122, No. 792, pi. xi. X. Barbier de Montault, " Le costume et les usages ecclesiastiques selon la tradition romaine," Paris, 1897, vol. i, pp. 176, 177. 36 RINGS stock, Oxfordshire, England. Of course many or most of these rings were not worn but merely used as money. A legal use of a sapphire ring to bind a bargain is recorded in a deed of gift, from about 1200 a.d., by a certain J ohn Long to William Prohume, clerk, of land and houses in St. Martin's Street, Exeter, at a rent of 6s Sd, which sum was to be donated to St. John's Hos- pital in Exeter. The grantor acknowledges the receipt of 45 marks and of a gold ring set with a sapphire as the price of this lease on very favorable terms.^^ Precious stones set in rings sometimes served to hide a " talisman " of a peculiar kind, namely, a dose of death-dealing poison, kept as a last resort to free the wearer of the ring from disgrace or from a worse death. So we are told that when Marcus Crassus stripped the Capitoline Temple of its treasures of gold, the faithful guardian broke between his teeth the stone set in his ring, swallowed the poison hidden beneath it, and imme- diately expired.^^ The great Hannibal, also, had re- course to the poison contained in his ring, when he was on the point of being given up to his bitter enemies, the Romans. Of this ring the satirist Juvenal wrote as follows : Cannarum vindex et tanti sanguinis ultor Anulus/^ or " That ring, the avenger of those who fell at Cannse, and of so much blood that had been shed." Another great man, the peerless orator Demosthenes, is said to have carried with him a similar ring. In a Rab- binical commentary on Deuteronomy occurs the follow- ing curious passage: Hast thou then no ring? Suck it out and thou wilt die. Historical Manuscripts Commission, Report of MSS. in various collections, vol. iv, Dublin, 1907, p. 59. Plinii, Hist. Nat., lib. xxxiii, cap. xxv. THE PURPOSES OF RING WEARING 37 This has been explained as referring to a hollow ring filled with liquid poison.^^ Some ancient gold rings were made hollow, so that they could be filled with mastic or brimstone, or an aromatic material. In the old " Oneirocriticon," or " Dream Book " of Artemidorus, to see a ring of this kind in a dream portended treachery or deceit, as they enclosed something hidden from view, while a ring solidly wrought by the hammer was exactly what it purported to be.'^ The poison-rings of the Borgias are not fabulous, for some of them still exist, one bearing the date 1503 and the motto of Caesar Borgia in Old French, Fays ce que doys avien que pourra^' (Do your duty, happen what may). Beneath the bezel of this ring there is a sliding panel and when this is displaced there appears a small space where the poison was kept. Such rings simply afforded a ready supply of poison at need, but another type constituted a death-dealing weapon. It is curious to note how in a ring of this latter type the Renaissance goldsmith has combined an artistic idea with the nefarious quality of the jewel. The bezel is wrought into the shape of a lion, and the hollow claws of the animal admit the passage of a subtle poison concealed in a small reservoir back of the bezel. By a mechanical device the poison was pressed out of the cavity through the lion's claws, and it is conjectured that the death- wound could have been inflicted by turning the bezel of the ring inward, so that a hearty grasp would produce a few slight punctures in the enemy's hand.^^ Neuhebraisches und Chaldaisches Worterbuch," by Jacob Levy, Leipzig, 1879, vol. ii, p. 139, s. v. tabba'ath. ^® Artemidorus, " Oneirocritica," ii, 5. 60 Davenport, " Jewelry," Chicago, 1908, pp. 127, 128. 38 RINGS While these Borgia rings represent an extreme of diabohcal ingenuity, the perfumed rings, the use of which has been revived to a certain extent of late, con- stitute a refinement of civilization. This ring is gener- ally made of plain gold with a small elastic ball and valve at the back. This is squeezed flat and the ring is immersed in a perfumed liquid; when the pressure is removed the scent is drawn into the ring by suction. An ingenious adjustment renders it possible for the wearer to discharge a jet or spray of perfume by the exercise of a very trifling pressure. Not only perfumes but dis- infectants also are sometimes used, and rings charged in this way may be said to represent antidotes of the dreaded poison rings, not perhaps in a literal sense, but at least in the sense of being curative rings. A poison ring of Venetian workmanship has a richly engraved hoop, the setting consisting of a pointed diamond on either side of which are two cabochon-cut rubies. On touching a spring at the side of the bezel holding the diamond, the upper half, in which the stone is set, springs open, revealing a space beneath in which a small quantity of poison could be concealed, enough in the case of the more active poisons to furnish a lethal dose, either for an enemy or for the wearer of the ring himself in case of need.^^ The son of the great Egmont was involved more or less directly in an unsuccessful plot to poison the Prince of Orange in 1582. It was asserted that the crime was committed at the would-be assassin's own table, by means of a drug concealed in a ring. This story appeared to 61 Frederick William Fairholt, " Rambles of an Artist," London, n. d (1865?), p. 144, fig. 177. THE PURPOSES OF EING WEARING 39 be confimied by the alleged finding in Egmont's lodg- ings of a hollow ring filled with poison.^ A writer on poison mysteries describes a possible poison ring in the great British Museum collection. The bezel has a repository covered by a thin-cut onyx on which is engraved the head of a horned faun.^^^ However, in the British Museum Catalogue of Kings by O. M. Dalton, the statement is made that there are no authentic poison rings in the Museum, and that "the mere possession of a locket-bezel does not suffice to lend romance to a ring perhaps intended to contain a harm- less perfume.^^"" A golden ring-dial in the British Museum collection is a flat band around the middle of which runs a channel in which another, movable ring, fits closely. The month- names are engraved on the band, six above the channel and six below it. The movable ring has a small hole with a star on one side, and a hand with index and second fingers extended on the other. Inside, the numbers of the hours from 4 a.m. to 8 p.m. are engraved in two lines, the hour of noon being beyond them at the point opposite to the ring which suspends the dial. In using a dial-ring the aperture in the movable ring was brought in a line with the month in which the observation was John Lathrop Motley, " The Rise of the Dutch Repub- lic," New York, 1856, Vol. iii, pp. 558, 559, citing a curious Dutch pamphlet published at Ley den in 1582 and consisting of two letters, one from Bruges, dated July 25, 1582, the other written two days later from Antwerp. C. J. S. Thompson, " Poison Romance and Poison Mys- teries, London, n.d., 2d. ed., p. 123. ^^"^ O. M. Dalton, " Catalogue of the Finger-rings, Early Christian, Byzantine, Teutonic, Mediaeval, and Later [British Museum]," London, 1912, p. Iv. 40 RINGS taken; this being done the figure on the inside upon which the sun's ray would fall would give the approximate time of day.^' Shakespeare provides Touchstone with a dial ring in "As You Like It " (Act II, sc. 7) where Jaques says: " Good morrow fool," quoth I. " No, Sir, quoth he. Call me not fool, till heaven hath sent me fortune." And then he drew a dial from his poke, And looking on it with lack-lus-tre eye. Says, very wisely, " It is ten o'clock." A watch-ring of the eighteenth century is in the Franks Bequest Collection of the British Museum. The oval watch in the bezel is framed with pearls, on the back of the ring are the initials A.B. As the bezel measures but nine-tenths of an inch in length, this tiny watch exemplifies the skill of the watch-makers of the time. The entire ring weighs but 175 grains.^^ The custom of leaving memorial rings for the friends of the departed had its origin in the bestowal of more substantial bequests. In fact, these rings stand in some- what the same relation to such bequests as does the wedding ring to the gifts the husband was expected to make to his wife when he wedded her. In both cases this has been lost sight of, and the intrinsic value of the objects being slight, only the sentimental value is considered. O. M. Dalton, " Catalogue of the Finger Rings, Early Christian, Byzantine, Mediaeval and Later," bequeathed by Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks (British Museum), London, 1912, p. 243, No. 1698, pL xxiii. O. M. Dalton, " Franks Bequest, Catalogue of the Finger Rings, Early Christian, Byzantine, Teutonic, Mediaeval and Later" (British Museum), London, 1912, p. 245, No. 1708, pi. xxiii. THE PURPOSES OF RING WEARING 41 An early instance of the bequest of rings is offered in the case of Richard II (1366-1400), who, by his testament, left a gold ring to each of the nine executors, five of whom were bishops and four great nobles.^* In the seventeenth century one who held, and still holds sway in another realm, that of literature, conformed to this usage, for in Shakespeare's will, dated March 25, 1616, rings were bequeathed to Hamlett Sadler, William Reynoldes, Anthony Nash and John Nash, his fellow townsmen, as well as to three actors, Burbage, Heming and Condell, who had the privilege of " creating " parts in the greatest dramas ever written. The sum of 26^ Sd is appropriated for each of these rings, about $6.50 of our money. As the fashion became more prevalent, the number of rings provided for in the wills of well-known persons must have constituted quite a charge upon their estates. The quaint and delightful Pepys, that close observer and great gossip who knew all the prominent people of the London of his day, left directions on his death, in 1703, for the distribution of 123 memorial rings among his friends. One of the most important events in Eng- lish history is believed to have given such a great vogue to this usage. The death of Charles I on the scaffold, January 30, 1649 — his martyrdom as the royalists called it — created an ineffaceable impression upon the minds and hearts of those who had taken the king's side in the struggle with the parliamentary party. To commemorate this " Memorial Rings, Charles the Second to William the Fourth, in the Possession of Frederick Arthur Crisp," privately printed (London). The data in this and succeeding paragraphs treating of memorial rings, are (unless otherwise noted) derived from this valuable and interesting work. 42 RINGS sad event and to obey the last injunction of the unfor- tunate monarch, " remember," a great number of me- morial rings were made, bearing the name and often the portrait of Charles, and these were worn by the royalists. It appears that this seemed to make the bestowal of memorial rings a more general custom than before, as from this time an increased number of such rings appear. The types of these rings varied considerably in the course of centuries. Those of the sixteenth century were made of plain gold, or of gold enamelled with repre- sentations of a skeleton, spade and pick, hour-glass, or similar emblems of death ; the inscription was engraved, usually on the inside of the ring; occasionally the bezel was rounded into the form of a skull. In the period succeeding the death of Queen Anne (1714), and ex- tending to about 1774, the fashion gradually changed, and the inscriptions, instead of being engraved, were in raised letters, thrown into greater relief by the appli- cation of white and black enamel. This style is said to have been brought from France, and the earliest speci- mens are presumed to have been executed by French workmen ; an example of this type of ring, dating from 1717, is in the Crisp Collection. In one such ring the inscription is enamelled within the hoop. An excep- tionally fine specimen of the rings of this period is that in memory of Richard Pett, who died February 23, 1765, aged 76 years.^^ This bears an amethyst and four rose diamonds in an openwork setting. Another innovation during this period is the employment of white enamel in the case of rings in memory of young maidens; the earliest example dates from 1726 and was given as a memento of the death, at fifteen years, of Dorothy Tenison, daughter of the Bishop of Ossory. In their search for novelty the goldsmiths sometimes had resort «5 Crisp Collection, No. 334, p. 115. THE PURPOSES OF RING WEARING 43 to rather grewsome decorations, and the bezel of some rings has the form of a cofFm, within which Kes a skeleton, carefully done in enamel. The last quarter of the eighteenth century supplies us with some of the most elaborately designed memorial rings. In many of these the bezel shows various em- blematic figures formed of gold wire, seed pearls, ivory and enamel; one ring of this type has the inscription: " Heaven has in store what thou hast lost." However, hair soon became the favorite material. At first, a lock of hair from the head of the deceased person was en- closed in the bezel, no attempt being made to form any pattern; but soon the hair was spread out over the surface and arranged in the form of a tree; later on, these rings show us an urn placed beneath the tree, and still later we have in addition a male or female figure in an attitude of grief, all these being formed entirely of hair. A unique ring in the Crisp Collection is a memento of the death of seven children, the eldest not over nine years, who perished in a fire in Leadenhall Street, Lon- don. This gold and ivory ring bears a design showing seven cherubs' heads surrounding the words : "To eternal bliss." At the back of the bezel is inscribed : "Translated 18 January 1782." As a rule there is little variety in the inscriptions upon memorial rings. ''Memento mori'' and " Not lost but gone before " are most frequent. On the ring of Princess Amelia, the favorite daughter of George III, who died November 2, 1810, are the words " Remember me." There is a touching story regarding this ring. On her death-bed the princess ordered that it should be «6 No. 632, p. 197. ^'^ Crisp Collection, No. 981, p. 317. 44 RINGS made and had a lock of her hair enclosed in it. As she lay dying she put the ring on her father's finger with the words of the inscription. The loss of this dearly beloved daughter appears to have finally determined the madness of the unhappy king, for he never recovered his reason after the event. Another interesting ring is that dedicated to the memory of the rather notorious Lord Lovat, who was beheaded in London, April 9, 1747, for alleged com- plicity in the Jacobite rising of 1745. This is set with a crystal, beneath which is some hair between two rose diamonds, and bears Lovat 's last words, the famous line of Horace, Dulce et decorum est pro patria moriJ" The extravagance and tastelessness shown in many of the more elaborate forms of the memorial ring, have had the natural result of causing a reversion to the severe simplicity of the earlier types, and a plain, but massive gold ring, with the words, " To the memory of " became the usual type. Seven Nelson memorial rings were shown at the Royal Naval Exhibition at Chelsea in 1891 ; two of these contained some of the hero's hair, and one belonged to those distributed among Nelson's captains and other officers after his death. Of the two rings enclosing hair, one set with a diamond was loaned by Messrs. Lambert & Co. and the other by Admiral Sir Arthur Farquhar, K.C.B.^^ A fine specimen of a Nelson ring is in the British Museum. The broad, flat hoop expands at the shoulders, and in a raised oblong bezel are figured a viscount's coronet and a ducal coronet with N beneath 68 No. 165, p. 69. 6^ Notes and Queries, 11th ser., No. 311, December 11, 1915. p. 469. 1, memorial ring of Charles I, concealed portrait beneath a table-cut diamond. 2, memorial ring with two skeletons supporting a sarcophagus. When the lid is raised a minute skeleton is seen within Fairholt's "Rambles of an Artist" 1, design for a memorial ring from the "Recueil des Ouvrages d'Orfevrerie" by Gilles I'Egar^; early part of reign of Louis XIV. 2, En- glish memorial ring converted into a memorial of Charles I by the following inscription inside the hoop: "C. R., Jan. 30, 1649, Martyr." 3, memorial ring, early part of Eighteenth Century Fairholt's "Rambles of an Artist" Gold memorial ring of Capt. Robert Jackson, died October 29,1726, aged fifty-six years British Museum Cameo portrait of Louis XII of France, cut in a pale ruby. On the gold plate at the back of the bezel is the inscription: Loys XII™<^ Roy de France deceda 1 Janvier, 1515. Latter part of Fifteenth or beginning of Six- teenth Century. Double linear size C. D. Fortnum's "Antique Gems and Jewels in Her Majesty's Collec- tion at Windsor Castle" Nelson memorial ring. Gold ring with two initial letters: N, beneath a viscount's coronet, referring to the title Viscount Nelson of the Nile; and B, beneath a ducal coronet, for the title Duke of Bronte British Museum Napoleon memorial ring of gold, said to be one of six given those con- cerned in his escape from Elba in 1815. Portrait concealed beneath hinged lid British Museum THE PURPOSES OF RING WEARING 45 the former and B beneath the latter, indicating his titles Viscount Nelson of the Nile and Duke of Bronte. Below the letters is the name Trafalgar and on the exterior of the hoop appears Nelson's motto ''Palmam qui meruit ferat (Let him bear the palm who merits it) . There is historic record of two memorial rings, one set with an emerald and the other with a sapphire, the gifts of two unhappy royal personages made shortly before death. The first of these rings was bestowed upon the great French preacher Bossuet by the Stuart princess Henrietta Anne, who, on her death-bed, directed that after she had gone to rest there should be given to Bossuet " the emerald ring she had ordered to be made for him." Of the second ring, that set with a sapphire, we learn that shortly before her execution in 1587, the unfortunate Mary of Scotland took it from her finger and sent it to her faithful follower. Lord John Hamilton, in whose family it has since then been passed down from generation to generation as a priceless heirloom.'^^ Several memorial or mourning rings are among the treasures of the Figdor Collection in Vienna. One of these is of massive silver and has the Old French inscrip- tion: "dort couatr (rest in peace) ; it was found at Huy, near Statte, Belgium, and represents work of the fif- teenth century. Another is of enamelled gold, and is evidently for a woman's wear. The inscription is: " R. C. Not lost but gone before," in gilt letters on a white enamel ground. This is an English ring of about 1800. A German ring of the eighteenth century has its head formed in the shape of a coffin, on which are skull and cross-bones; on its sides is the inscription: Hir ist A. E. Cropper, " Some Notes On Three Classes or Types of Rings," in The Connoisseur, London, vol. xix, p. 184, Sep- tember to December, 1907. 46 RINGS Ruhe," (Here is rest). When the lid is lifted, a heart is disclosed in the coffin J ^ Memento mori rings, bearing a death's head, were sometimes left as legacies. Such was the " golde ringe with a deathe's head " bequeathed by Thomasin Heath to her sister in 1596, " for a remembrance of my good will." Shakespeare wrote in his Love's Labour's Lost (Act V, sc. 2) of " a Death's face in a ring," where poor, pedantic Holof ernes' countenance is made the subject of mockery. A rather unaccountable circumstance is that such rings are asserted to have been worn, toward the end of the sixteenth century, by professional " ladies light o' love," if we can safely generalize from a passage in Marston's " Dutch Courtezan." '^^ The ruthless executions carried out after the suppres- sion of the last Jacobite revolt in 1745, are memorialized in a ring of the period. This is of gold, the inscriptions being defined by a white enamel background. On the panel-shaped bezel are the letters B. D. L. K., the initials of the Jacobite lords, Balmerino, Kilmarnock (exec. Aug. 18, 1746) , Deruentwater (exec. Dec. 8, 1746) , and Lovat (exec. April 9, 1747), and the dates 8, DEC. 9, AP. 18, AU; in the middle is an axe and the date 1746. The initials of seventeen of these lords' followers, ex- ecuted on Kensington Common in the same year, are marked on the hoop of the ring."^^ Communicated by L. Weininger, of Vienna. O. M. Dalton, " Catalogue of the Finger Rings, Early Christian, Byzantine, Teutonic, Mediaeval and Later," be- queathed by Sir Augustus WoUaston Franks, K.C.B. (British Museum, London, 1912, p. xxxiii, footnote. O. M. Dalton, " Franks Bequest, Catalogue of the Finger Rings, Early Christian, Byzantine, Teutonic, Mediaeval, and Later [British Museum]," London, 191S, p. 204, No. 1417. THE PURPOSES OF RING WEARING 47 In the possession of Waldo Lincoln, of Worcester, Mass., is a memorial ring consisting of a narrow plain gold band. There is faintly discernible on this a winged head, apparently a skull, similar to the heads of this type sometimes to be seen sculptured on old gravestones. Around the inner side of the band runs the following inscription: "Ho^^^ I. Winslow Esq''., ob. 14 Dec^ 1738 M 68." This refers to Isaac Winslow, a son of the noted Josiah Winslow (1629-1680), governor of Plymouth Colony from 1673 until his death, and who was the first native-born governor in INev/ England. It was during his term of office that the severe contest with the Indians, known as King Philip's War, was fought out successfully. A mourning ring with a strangely materialistic motto is that executed by order of the Beefsteak Club to commemorate the demise of John Thornhill, Esq., on September 23, 1757, according to the inscription in white enamel on the hoop. The bezel is fiat and of oval form, enamelled in pale blue and white; in the centre is shown a gridiron and around this is the legend : " Beef and Liberty." The Beefsteak Club, formed early in the eighteenth century, was Tory in politics, an oppo- nent of the Kit-Cat Club, whose members were devoted to the success of the Whigs. Rings as memorials of the dead suggest the mention of a memorial ring of another kind, one destined to favor the revival of a defunct government. When Napoleon I was exiled to Elba after the overthrow of his empire '^^ Communicated by Waldo Lincoln, the owner of the ring. '^^ O. M. Dalton : " Franks Bequest, Catalogue of the Finger Rings, Early Christian, Byzantine, Teutonic, Mediseval and Later [British Museum]," London, 1912, p. 232, No. 1628, , 48 RINGS and the restoration of the Bourbons, many of his faith- ful followers clung to the hope that he would return and re-establish his rule in France. In order to aid in keeping this hope alive, a number of rings were made which could be worn with impunity, but which could also serve when desired as proofs of the wearers' attach- ment to the Napoleonic cause. One of these is described as a gold ring on which a minute gold and enamel coffin was set; on pressing a spring at the side of the ring a section of the circlet sprang up and revealed a tiny figure of Napoleon executed in enamel.^^ At the English Bar, the usage long existed that certain chosen barristers should be given the title and superior rank of Serjeants. In important cases, a Ser- jeant was usually retained as principal manager and chief representative at the trial, and generally made the statement of the case in court, while one or more ordinary barristers got up the evidence and aided in the examina- tion of witnesses ; no Serjeants have been appointed since 1868. As with almost all the stages of an English law- student's and barrister's progress, heavy expenses had to be born by the new serjeant, as he was expected not only to give a splendid dinner, or rather a series of dinners lasting for a week, to all who were closely or distantly related to his preferment, but to bestow a gold ring upon each one of the numerous guests, these " Serjeant rings " varying in elegance and value accord- ing to the rank of the recipient. So strictly was this purely traditional custom con- strued that a close watch was kept to prevent any cheap- ening of the quality or intrinsic value of these obligatory rings. As it had been laid down by a leading authority Szendrei, " Catalogue de la collection de bagues de Mme. de Tarnoczy," Paris, 1889, pp. 142, 14)3. THE PURPOSES OF RING WEARING 49 that the ring to be given to a chief justice, or " chief baron," must have the weight of twenty shillings' worth of gold, a formal protest was made on one occasion, when rings weighing a tenth less than this had been bestowed, not, as Lord Chief Justice Kelynge told the newly appointed Serjeants, because of the money value, but " that it might not be drawn into a precedent." '^'^ The average cost of one of these bestowals of rings has been estimated at about £40 ($200). The first definite notice of the bestowal of Serjeants' rings comes from the later years of Elizabeth's reign, although the usage is believed to date back at least as far as the time of Henry VI ( 1422-1461 ) . The Latin motto on a ring of Sir John Fineux, called in 1485, is Swce quisque fortunce faher/' or " Every man is the artizan of his own fortune." The mottoes engraved on these rings have varied from reign to reign. One of Elizabeth's time bears '^Lea^ regis 'prcesidiumf' ( The Law is the stronghold of the King) ; under Charles II the motto was ''Adest Carolus magnus" (Charles the Great is with us). Much more dignified and telhng is the motto in James II's reign, ''Deus, lex, rex" (God, the Law, the King) , implying that God is the source of the law, and that the law is above kings. As to the heavy tax sometimes imposed upon a new barrister's pecuniary resources, it is stated that on one occasion 1409 rings were given at an expense of £773 ( $3865 ) . The usage, though maintained to a considerable extent, became somewhat less oppressive toward the end of the eight- eenth century, but even in 1856 rings were given, some of them bearing the motto ''Cedant arma togce" (Arms '^'^ Charles Edwards, " The History and Poetry of Finger- Rings," New York, 1855, pp. 86-90. 4 50 RINGS will give place to the Gown) in allusion to the approach- ing peace with Russia after the Crimean War."^^ About 1830, when popular feeling was roused to the highest pitch by the agitation for the repeal of the Corn Laws, many rings were set with the following stones, the initial letters forming the word " repeal Ruby Emerald Pearl Emerald Amethyst Lapis lazuli An Irishman, who owned such a ring, noted one day that the lapis lazuli had fallen out, and took the ring to a jeweller in Cork, to have the missing stone replaced. When the work was completed, the owner, seeing that the jeweller had set a topaz in place of a lapis lazuli, protested against the substitution; but the jeweller induced him to accept the ring as it was, by the witty explanation that it now read " repeat," and that if the agitation were often enough repeated, the repeal would come of itself J ^ METHODS OF WEARING A striking illustration of the large number of rings that some of the noblewomen of ancient Egypt wore on their fingers is given by the crossed hands of the wooden image on a mummy case in the British Museum. Hon. R. C. NeviUe (4th baron Brajbrooke), " The Ro- mance of the Ring, or the History and Antiquity of Finger Rings," Saffron Walden, 1856, pp. 25, 26. "^^ Londesborough Collection : Catalogue of a collection of ancient and mediaeval rings and personal ornaments, London. 1853, p. 7. Privately printed. Crossed hands of the figure of a woman upon a mummy case in the British Museum Fairholt's "Rambles of an Artist" Hands from portrait of a woman. School of Cranach British Museum Hindu ring jewel combining a ring for each finger and for the thumb, a large ornament for the back of the hand, and a bracelet Barth, " Das Geschmeide" Hands from Botticini's "St. Jerome with St. Damasius and other Saints" National Gallery, London METHODS OF WEARING 51 The left hand is given a decided preference in this respect over the right, there being no less than nine rings on the former against but three on the latter. These left-hand rings comprise one thumb-ring (the signet), three for the index, two for the middle finger, two for the " ring- finger," and one for the little finger. The thumb of the right hand bears a ring and two are on the middle finger. In the tomb of a king of the Chersonesus, discovered at Nicopolis in the Crimea, two rings were on the king's hand and ten on that of the queen. The style of work- manship indicated that these rings were productions of the Greek art of the fourth century b.c.,^^ a period when in the Greek world rings were usually worn more spar- ingly, in contrast with the fashion that prevailed during the latter part of the first Christian century in Rome. The fine Egyptian collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City offers an illustration of Egyptian ring wearing at the beginning of our era. This appears in the mummy-case of Artemidora, daugh- ter of Harpocradorus, who died in her twenty-seventh year. The wooden case figures the form of the deceased woman. The index, fourth and little fingers of the left hand, each bear a ring; the fingers of the right hand have been broken off. The hands are of stucco and the rings are gilded. In the Golden Age of Greek gem-engraving, from about 480 B.C. to 400 B.C., the scarab, never used by the Greeks of Asia Minor, came into general disuse in the Greek world, and a type of ring-stone appeared, destined to become very popular. In these the engraving was often done on the convex side of a scaraboid form, the convexity having been much flattened out, while with ®^ Compte rendu de la Commission Arch, de St. Petersbourgj 1864, p. 182. 52 RINGS the true scarab the flat underside bore the engraved design or characters. Occasionally ring-stones had been originally pierced for suspension. The flattened scara- boid marked a transition to the flat ring-stones; but few, if any, examples of these antedate the beginning of the fourth century B.C. One of the theories given by Macrobius to explain the wearing of rings on the fourth finger, attributes this usage to the desire to guard the precious setting of the ring from injury. He states that rings were first worn, not for ornament, but for use as signets, and in the beginning were made exclusively of metal. However, with the increase of wealth and luxury, precious stones were engraved and set in the metal ring, and it became necessary to place such a ring on the best-protected finger. The thumbs were most constantly used; the index was too exposed; the third finger was too long, and the little finger too small, while the right hand was much more frequently used than the left hand. Hence the choice fell upon the fourth finger of the left hand as the best fitted to receive a precious ring.^^ Pliny declares that while at first, in the Koman world, the ring was worn on the fourth finger, as was shown in the statues of the old kings Numa Pompilius and Servius TuUius, it was later on shifted to the index and finally to the little finger,^ ^ this being in accord with our modern custom, for men's seal-rings especially. Isidore of Seville, in his brief chapters on rings, cites the words spoken by Gracchus against M^enius, before the Roman Senate, as a proof that the wearing of many rings was then considered to be unworthy of a man. 51 Macrobii, " Saturnalia," Lipsiae, 1868, p. M6, lib. vii, cap. 13. 52 " Historia Naturalis," liber xxxiii, 24. r 1 SKETCH KINDLY MADE FOR THE AUTHOR BY SIR CHARLES HERCULES READ Curator of the Department of British and Medieval Antiquities and Ethnography in the British Museum, with his autograph description METHODS OF WEARING 53 The speaker calls upon his hearers to " look upon the left hand of this man to whose authority we bow, but who with a woman's vanity, is adorned like a woman." The Bishop of Seville also adduces the declaration of Crassus who, as an explanation for his wearing two rings, although an old man, said that he did so in the belief that they would further increase his already im- mense wealth.^ ^ Hence he must have thought them endowed with some magic power. One explanation of the greater supply of ancient gems of the period subsequent to the Augustan Age, as compared with those of an earlier date, has been found in the increasing popularity of ring-wearing. Horace (65-8 B.C.) already considers three rings on the hand as marking the limit of fashionable wear, but Martial (ab. 40-104 A.D.), writing a century later, tells of a Roman dandy who wore six rings on each finger. As an instance of the multiplication of seal-rings, Pliny states that the signet proper had to be placed for safe-keeping in a special receptacle, which was then stamped with the impression of another seal, lest some improper use should be made of the signet, the equivalent of an individual signature.®^ When the usage of wearing rings set with plain or engraved precious stones became general in Rome, special caskets were made — many of them of ivory — to contain the rings and other small jewels. The name dactylioiheca, ring-treasury," was given to such a Sancti Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi, " Opera Omnis," vol. iv, col. 702, Etymologiae, lib. xix, cap. 33, vol. Ixxxii of Migne's Patrologia Latina, Paris, 1850. " Historia Naturalis," lib. xxxiii, cap. 6. Duffield Osborne, " Engraved Gems," New York, 1912, p. 107. 54 RINGS casket. The first Roman to own one was Emilius Scaurus, son-in-law of Sylla (138-78 B.C.), who Hved in the early part of the first century before Christ, but for a long time his example was not followed by the Romans, the next dactyliotheca to be seen in Rome being that dedicated by Pompey to the Capitol in 61 B.C., out of the spoils of Mithridates the Great, who owned the most famous gem collection of his time.^^ In the first century a.d. these ring-caskets came into general use, and were regarded as indispensable parts of a rich man's luxury. This is brought out in one of Martial's epigrams when, after saying that Charmius wore six rings on each finger and kept them on at night and even when he took his bath, he proceeds: "You ask why he does so? Because he has no dactyliotheca f'^'^ This evidently im- plies that he lacked one of the elements of Roman " good form " in the fashionable world. The Latin epigrammatist whose brief, caustic poems are a mine of information regarding the customs and costumes of the Romans in the Imperial age, wrote the following couplet, probably designed for an inscription upon a dactyliotheca, or ring-case : " Often does the heavy ring slip off the anointed fingers; but if you confide your jewel to me, it will be safe." In the large ring collections of royal treasuries or of wealthy nobles in mediseval times, the rings with precious-stone settings were often classified according to the particular stones, and then those of each of these classes were strung on one or more small sticks or wands Plinii, " Naturalis Historia," lib. xxxvii, cap. 11. ^'^ Martialis, " Epigrammata," xi, 59. Martial, Bk. XIV, No. cxxiii ; from " Martial translated into English prose," London, George Bell & Sons, 1897. METHODS OF WEARING 55 (bacula). Among King John's (1167-1216) jewels in the Tower of London, an inventory of 1205 hsts several such baculcej one with 26 diamonds, two with 40 and 47 emeralds, respectively, another shorter one with 7 " good " topazes and still another with 9 turquoises.^ ^ Jewellers also, were wont to keep their rings strung on such small rods, an example of this being shown in a portrait depicting a jeweller, painted by an unknown German artist of the sixteenth or seventeenth century. With other royal collections of rings the classified set rings were kept already in ancient times in dactylio^ thecce, or ring-caskets, the term dactyliotJieca coming to be used later more broadly as an equivalent for " ring collection " or even " gem collection." In 1272 the Crown Jewels of Henry III of England included a number of these ring boxes, four of them for 106 ruby, or balas-ruby rings, two for 38 emerald rings, one for 20 sapphire rings, and another for 11 topaz rings and one set with a peridot.^^ The following description of a jade (nephrite) ring- box of seventeenth-century Indian workmanship, in the Heber R. Bishop Collection, is given in one of the great folios treating of these wonderful jades.^^ A small covered box of three compartments in the form of three compressed plums (or similar fruit) held together by the twigs and leaves of a leafy branch which projects to form a handle, and hollowed out to form a receptacle for finger-rings, studs or the like. The box proper is decorated underneath with leaves carved in slight relief, and is flanged on the edges to receive the three upper segments of the fruit which forms the Hardy, " Rotuli litterarum patentium in tursi Londinensi asseverati," London, 1835, vol. i, pt. i, p. 55. Rymer, " Foedera," London, 1727, vol. i, pp. 878, 879. QiOp. cit„ vol. ii, pp. 249, 250, No. 760, illustration. 56 RINGS cover and are similarly decorated on top with plum blossoms and held together by a twig, a leaf, and an upright bud which serves as a handle. The whole is very daintily cut and polished, and is so thin and of such translucency that print in contact with it can easily be read through it. The mineral is remarkably pure and resembles a pale transparent horn. While the Greeks and Romans did not usually wear rings on the middle finger, the Gauls and Britons adorned it in this way. In the sixteenth century it was customary to assign rings as follows, according to the quahty of the wearer To the thumb for doctors. To the index finger for merchants. To the middle finger for fools. To the annular finger for students. To the auricular finger for lovers. There is a curious Hindu superstition to the effect that anyone who wears a ring on the middle finger will probably be attacked and bitten by a scorpion. For this reason the Hindus are said to avoid wearing any rings on this finger, although the others are laden with them, each finger-joint having its special adornment.^^ In the Grseco-Iioman world also there was a prejudice against decorating the middle finger with a ring. Regarding the liberality with which the Greeks and Romans of the second century of our era used ring adorn- ments for their fingers, the great Greek humorist Lucian gives testimony. In his writing entitled " The Cock," he makes a character relate a dream in which the dreamer thought that a rich man had just died and had left him ®2 Schaumi, " De annulis," Francofurti, 1620, cap. ix. »3 Col. T. C. Hendley, " Indian Jewellery," London, 1909, p. 79. Journal of Indian Art and Industry. METHODS OF WEARING 57 his fortune. Thereupon, in his dream, he saw himself arrayed in splendid raiment and wearing siocteen rings on his fingers.^^ Of the affectations practiced in ring wearing by some nouveau-riches foreigners in Roman times, Juvenal says : When one sees an Egyptian plebeian, not long be- fore a slave in Canopus, carelessly throwing back over his shoulder a mantle of Tyrian purple, and seeking to cool his perspiring fingers by wearing summer-rings of openwork gold, as he cannot bear the weight of gemmed rings, how can one fail to write it down in a satire? Indeed, to judge from the weight and size of some of the rings that have been preserved from ancient times, this practice was not quite so foolish as it may seem, for in the moist heat of the dog-day in Rome such heavy rings may well have been a burden. With the Roman ladies rings bearing images of the animals worshipped by the Egyptians came into fashion in Imperial times, favored no doubt by the enthusiastic worship of Isis and Serapis. Such rings are said to have been worn almost exclusively by women up to the reign of Vespasian, when men began to wear them also.^^ In ancient Rome it was not unusual for the admirer of a philosopher or a poet to wear his portrait engraved on a ring-stone. One of the elegies of Ovid^^ (b. 43 B.C.), written during his banishment from Rome, by order of Augustus, alludes feelingly to this custom. The poem is addressed to a faithful friend, who wears the poet's portrait in his ring, and Ovid says: " In casting Luciani, " Opera Omnia," Paris, 1615, p. 712. Juvenal Sat. I, 11, 26-30. ®® Schaumi, " De annulis," Francofurti, 1620, cap. iv. Tristia, Lib. i, el. vii. 58 RINGS your eye upon this, perhaps you sometimes say, ' how far away is poor Ovid now! ' " He died in exile in 18 a.d. So huge were the proportions of the Roman emperor Maximinus (d. 238 a.d.), who rose from the ranks to the imperial dignity, that he is said to have used his wife's bracelet for a thumb-ring.^^ ^ The great size of some of the Roman rings to be seen in collections indicates that they could only have been worn on the thumb. One of the fingers of a bronze statue in the British Museum, a Roman work of the third or fourth century, A.D., has a ring on its second joint. We are fortunate enough to be able to reproduce here a full-size drawing of this, courteously made for the present book by Sir Charles Hercules Read, Curator of the Department of British and Mediaeval Antiquities and Ethnography in the Museum. In a letter to M. Deloche, the German archaeologist Lindenschmit states that in only one instance was he able to ascertain definitely on which finger the rings of the early mediaeval period were worn. This concerned a female skeleton, exceptionally well preserved, owing to favorable conditions of sepulture; on the fourth finger of the right hand there was a bronze ring. This sepul- chre was found at Obermorlen, in Hessen-Darmstadt. Researches in France have furnished confirmation of this. In the Merovingian cemetery of YeuUe (dept. Pas-de-Calais) a woman's ring was found on the right hand of the skeleton, as was also the case with two rings in the Visigothic and Merovingian cemetery at Herpes (dept. Charente), and this proved to be the case with ^'^^ Julii Capitolini, " Maximini duo," cap. vi ; Scriptores hist. August., vol. ii, p. 7. METHODS OF WEARING 59 almost all the early medieval rings found in this region. On the contrary, M. Albert Bequet, Curator of the Archseological Museum of Namur, and the French archaeologist, M. L. Pilloy, report the discovery of rings placed upon the left hand. As a possible explanation of these contradictory results, the opinion has been advanced that the rings on the right hand were wedding rings, and those on the left, rings worn for ornament, as there is good evidence that at an early period among the Gauls the betrothal ring was put on the right hand, not on the left."" The portrait by Coello of Maria of Austria, daughter of Charles V of Germany, shows on the fourth finger of the left hand a ring set with a large table-cut stone, which may be a ruby, or else a rather dark-hued spinel. The right hand is gloved, the parts of the glove covering the index and fourth fingers having slits so as to give space for the rings on those fingers. There is an elab- orate girdle of table-cut stones, a richly worked cross with three pendent pear-shaped pearls is suspended from a gauze scarf about the neck, splendid pearl earrings hang from the ears, and the coiffure is surmounted by a head ornament set with precious stones and pearls. In a three-quarter length portrait of Henry VIII, painted by Hans Holbein in 1540, when the king was in his forty-sixth year, he is represented wearing three rings on his hands, two of these, set with square-cut stones, are on the index fingers of the right and left hand, respec- tively. The third and smaller ring, also set with a square- cut stone, is on the little finger of the king's left hand. There is an intentional harmony in the jewelling, for ®^ Deloche, " Le port des anneaux dans I'antiquite et dans les premiers siecles du moyen age," pp. 61-63. 60 RINGS stones of the same form, alternating with pearls, adorn the collar suspended from Henry's neck and serve also as decoration for the sleeve-guards. This portrait is in the Reale Galleria d'Arte Antica, Rome. Princess Mary, daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, and afterwards Queen of England (1553-1558), is portrayed in a painting in the Uni- versity Galleries, Oxford, by an unknown artist, as wearing, in addition to many fine pearls both round and pear-shaped, three rings, one on the index, another on the middle finger, and the third on the fourth finger of the left hand. That on the middle finger is set with a pearl, and the ring-adornment of this finger is quite worthy of note because of the comparative rarity of this setting. A large pear-shaped pearl, figured on a portrait of " Bloody Mary," was given to her by Philip of Spain, who afterward took it back to Spain with him. It later came into the possession of Jerome Bonaparte, who gave it to Queen Hortense. She gave it to the young prince, who later became Napoleon III, and he, in turn, disposed of it to the Duke of Abercorn, in whose possession it now remains. Allison V. Armour, Esq., to whom it was shown in Ireland by the Duke, at the time of an expected visit from King Edward, told the author it was very interest- ing to note that it had apparently preserved all its origi- nal lustre. The adornment with a ring of the second phalanx of the right-hand middle finger, appears in the fine por- trait, said to be that of Mary Stuart, in the Prado Gal- lery, Madrid ; the little finger of the same hand shows a stone-set ring, worn as usual. Over the elaborately embroidered bodice hangs a neck-ornament, at the differ- ent sections of which are groups of three pearls, and PORTRAIT OF A LADY, BY ANTON VAN DYKE (1599-1641) The thumb ring on the right hand, and the ring on the index of the left hand, are both set with square-cut stones, the last-named probably a ruby Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Marquand Gift, 1888 J PRINCESS HATZFELD, BY ANTONIO PESARO (1684-1757) Large pearl cluster on little finger of right hand Cathclina Lambert Collection sold at American Art Galleries, New York, February, 1916 METHODS OF WEARING 61 there are pearl earrings in the ears, as well as groups of pearls in the head-ornament. The portrait is listed as a production of the French School, but is of doubtful authenticity as a likeness of the unhappy queen. The Italian fashion of ring- wearing in the sixteenth century is illustrated by the portrait of a noblewoman by Lorenzo Lotto, in the Galleria Carrara at Bergamo, Italy. On the right hand are two rings, on the fourth and little finger respectively; the left hand bears three, one on the index, apparently set with an engraved gem, and two on the fourth finger, the larger of which seems to have as setting a pointed diamond, while the smaller one, possibly bearing a little facetted diamond, is on the second phalanx of the finger, a fashion sometimes fol- lowed instead of wearing the two rings together, one directly over the other, on the third phalanx. A fine example of a pearl-cluster ring is to be seen in the portrait of Princess Hatzfeldt by the artist Antonio Pesaro (1684-1757). The ring, worn on the little finger, has a large centre-pearl surrounded by five smaller ones, the whole constituting a rather inconveni- ently large jewel, although unquestionably a very beau- tiful one. It appears to be the only ring worn by the fair princess when posing for her portrait. Finger rings were sometimes worn suspended from the neck, usually strung on a chain. This custom is testified to by several old portraits, among them by one of the Elector John Constans of Saxony, in the Collec- tion of Prince George of Saxony, Dresden, and also in several of Lucas Cranach's portraits. In one of the latter, depicting an elderly and hard-featured Dutch lady, eight rings are to be seen strung on a chain or band below the collar. As the sitter's hands are adorned with five rings, her object may rather have been to display all her choicest rings, than to wear them as amulets, although 62 RINGS this superstitious use is generally believed to be the true explanation of wearing finger-rings suspended from the neck. Sometimes a single ring was hung from the neck on a long string, and rings were occasionally worn attached to a hat or cap, as shown in the portrait of Bernhard IV, Margrave of Baden (1474^-1536), by Hans Baldung Grien, in the Pinakothek, Munich/ The painting of hands adorned with one or more rings, was not favored by several of the portraitists of the seventeenth century. Few if any rings, for example, can be found on the delicately shaped hands of any of Sir Peter Lyly's beauties, hands undoubtedly lacking in individuality and conforming to a preconceived type. Vandyke's usage in this respect varied, probably, with the taste of the respective sitters, although the frequent absence of rings might lead to the inference that he did not favor them in portraits. The great masters of the sixteenth century certainly gave no evidence of any such prejudice, their realism and their fondness for rich orna- ment and color causing them to adorn the hands of their subjects, both men and women, with valuable and finely wrought rings. With eighteenth century painters, the tendency to discard rings was very pronounced, as in- dicated by their sparing appearance in portraits of this period. It may be interesting to note the distribution of the rings in seventeen portraits of the Blakeslee Collection, disposed of in New York City, March, 1916, and representing a kind of average for the period from the O. M. Dalton, " Catalogue of the Finger Rings, Early Christian, Byzantine, Teutonic, Mediasval and Later, bequeathed by Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks, K.C.B. (British Museum)," London, 1912, pp. xxv, xxvii, 1, figs. 6, 15. METHODS OF WEARING 63 latter part of the sixteenth century to the beginning of the nineteenth century: Thus the index and fourth fingers of the right hand and the fourth and httle fingers of the left hand are almost equally favored. An oil-portrait of the Maharani of Sikkim, painted in 1908 by Damodar Dutt, a Bengali artist, shows this queen decked out with all her favorite jewel adornments ; among them are two gold rings, one set with a turquoise and the other with a coral, on the middle and fourth fingers of the left hand (see Frontispiece). The right hand is concealed in a fold of her mantle, but had there been any rings on it, it would probably have been dis- played, to judge from the variety of the ornaments she was pleased to wear at the sittings. She is a full-blooded Tibetan princess, was born in 1864, and became the second wife of the King of Sikkim in 1882, so that she was forty-four years old when the portrait was painted. At this time she and her husband had been held in cap- tivity by the British since 1893. The singular crown is the one adopted by the queens of Sikkim. It is com- posed of broad bandeaux of pearl, turquoise and coral; the gold earrings are inlaid with turquoise in concentric rings ; the necklace has large amber balls, and suspended from it is a gau or charm-box, set with rubies, lapis lazuli and turquoise ; on the wrist is a triple bracelet of corals.^^^ Berthold Laufer, " Notes on Turquoise in the East," Field Museum of Natural History, Pub. 169, Anthrop. Ser., vol. xiii, No. 1, plate 1 ; Chicago, July, 1913. Right Hand Left Hand Index finger, 7 Middle finger, 1 Fourth finger, 7 Little finger, 1 Index finger, 4 Middle finger, 0 Fourth finger, 7 Little finger, 6 64 RINGS In the opinion of J. Alden Wier, President of the Academy of Design, New York City, rings can scarcely be regarded as in any sense important accessories of a good portrait, as this does not depend upon the elabora- tion of such detail. With Popes and Doges, and with some of the higher ecclesiastics, however, rings are sig- nificant as insignia of office, and are therefore depicted as marks of individuality.^ A fifteenth century example of a thumb ring was found in England at Saxon's Lode, a little south of Up- ton. The material was of silver, either considerably al- loyed, or else plated with a baser metal. In seventeenth century times in England the wearing of such rings was favored by many of the richer, or more prominent citi- zens, so that they served to differentiate the wearer from those less well-to-do, although he might not have the right to a crest or coat-of-arms. A character in one of the Lord Mayor's shows given in the reign of Charles II (1664) , is described as " habited like a grave citizen, — gold girdle and gloves hung thereon, rings on his fingers, and a seal ring on his thumb," like Falstaff's alderman.^ Even native African potentates could boast of fine jewelled rings in the seventeenth century. When an embassy of Hollanders came to visit the christianized King of the Congo in 1642, and were ushered into his presence, they found him vested in a coat and drawers of gold-cloth, and adorned with three heavy gold chains. On his right thumb was " a very large Granate or Ruby Communicated by J. Alden Weir, N.A., in letter of March 15, 1916. Journal of Archaeology, vol. iii, p. 268. Two wire rings from a tumulus near Canterbury, Kent, England, one with a bezel effect Fairholt's "Rambles of an Artist" Ring of mixed metal set with engraved stone showing a monkey looking into a mirror Fairholt's "Rambles of an Artist" 1, thumb-ring; two cockatrices engraved in relief on agate. 2, ring set with Gnostic gem Fairholt's "Rambles of an Artist" Two gold rings. 1, with high cir- cular bezel; Prankish (?); Sixth or Seventh Century; 2, with pyramidal bezel; Lombardic (?); Seventh Century British Museum Agate ring with a Runic inscription Late Saxon British Museum Massive gold ring with two bezels, one engraved with circular design of interlacing curves, the other with three interlaced triangles. Late Saxon British Museum METHODS OF WEARING 65 Ring, and on his left hand two great Emeralds." The red stone was almost certainly a large cabochon-cut garnet, and it is very doubtful that the green stones were genuine emeralds. Under the strict discipline of the Catholic rulers of Poland the wearing of rings was for a long time for- bidden to the Jews. This restriction was removed in the reign of Sigismund Augustus (1506-1548), but the permissive decree required that a Jewish ring must bear the distinguishing inscription " Sabbation," or " Jeru- salem." The Jews themselves sometimes enacted rigid sumptuary laws as to rings, for instance in Bologna, where a convocation of rabbis decided that men should be confined to one ring, while women were not to be allowed to wear more than three. At a later period a Frankfort convocation decreed that no young girl should be permitted to wear a ring. Not improbably the natural fondness of the Hebrew women for rich jewels, a fondness already emphasized by the prophet Isaiah (chap, iii, vs. 16-26) in the case of the Daughters of Jerusalem in the eighth century B.C., may have led to an excessive use of fine rings. Indeed any strict sumptuary regulation always implies the existence of an undue de- gree of luxury in the usages that are subjected to legal restraint. A unique collection of ring stones may be seen in the American Museum of Natural History, New York. These are oval, domed stones, about one inch long, and are all cut so as to fit a single setting. They were gath- ered together by an old gentleman in the seventeenth century, so that without changing the gold ring to which John OgUby, Africa, London, 1671, p. 559. Vogelstein and Rieger, " Geschichte der Juden in Rom," vol. i, p. 337. 5 66 RINGS he was accustomed, he could vary the color of the precious stones, thus bringing them into harmony with that of the waistcoat he was wearing. As there are two hundred and forty of these specially-cut stones, the waistcoats must have represented the whole gamut of colors and shades. A few of the stones are capped with a different gem. This collection was presented to the Museum in January, 1873, by the late Samuel P. Avery, Esq. There is also in the Museum a remarkable collection of rings begun in the eighteenth century by a Viennese imperial and royal jeweller named Tiirk, and continued by his grandson up to 1860. It was later acquired by J. Pierpont Morgan, Esq. The settings of the seventy rings comprise a variety of colored diamonds, as well as emeralds, sapphires, and a number of uncommon stones. II FORMS OF RINGS AND MATERIALS OF WHICH THEY ARE MADE A MONG ancient gold rings, one of Egyptian work- ±Sl manship is especially noteworthy for its size and weight as well as for its design. It is ^ inch in its largest diameter, and bears an oblong plinth, which turns on a pivot; it measures 6/10 inch at its greatest, and 4/10 inch at its least breadth. On one of the four faces is the name of the successor of Amenhotep III, Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten), who lived about 1400 B.C.; on another is figured a lion, with the inscription " lord of strength " ; the two remaining sides show a scorpion and a crocodile respectively. The weight of this massive ring is stated to be about five ounces and its intrinsic gold value nearly a hundred dollars.^ Some remarkably fine finger-rings were among the ornaments found by Ferlini, an Italian physician, when he unearthed the treasure of one of the queens of Meroe. These rings are now in the Berlin Royal Museum. Some of them are plain hoops to which movable plates are attached; others are signet rings. In a few specimens of the first-named class the plate is so large as to ex- tend over three figures, the inconvenience to which this could give rise being partly obviated by joints in the plate, so that the fingers might be moved with greater facility. We hardly think that a design of this type is ever likely to become popular in our times. ^ Sir John Gardner Wilkinson, "Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians," vol, iii, p, 373. 67 68 RINGS Scarabs strung on wire so as to be worn on the finger were found at Dahshur by De Morgan. These belonged to the Twelfth Dynasty, to the time from Usertasen III to Amenemhat III (ab. 2660-2578 B.C.) . Stronger wire was used at a later time, the ends being thrust into perforations on the sides of the scarabs. In all these cases the scarab and the circlet, more or less well formed, were separate parts loosely put together. It was not until the Golden Age of the ancient Egyptian civiliza- tion that complete metal rings were made, in which both circlet and chaton formed one piece. Rings of the Egyptian type, although strongly modified by Ionic or Phoenician art, were introduced into Etruria at a very early period, and probably thence into Latium.^ At an even earlier date, at least 1200 B.C., scarab rings were worn in Cyprus, several examples having been found in sepulchres there, the scarab being made of porcelain strung on a gold-wire hoop. The ancient rings in the British Museum offer ex- amples of nearly all the different types favored in early times.^ Some, from the Mycenaean period, exhibit a long shield-shaped bezel, convex above and concave be- neath, across the direction of the hoop; others have a flat band decorated with plaited or twisted wire on which is set a bezel holding a paste. Phoenician rings of the period from 700 to 500 B.C. present a variety of forms, some being swivel rings, the extremities of the rounded hoops passing into beads, in which are inserted the pivots ^ F. H. Marshall, Catalogue of the Finger Rings Greek, Etruscan and Roman, in the Departments of Antiquities, British Museum, p. 50, Nos. 278-281 ; pi. vii. No. 281. ^ See F. H. Marshall, " Catalogue of the Finger Rings, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman, in the Departments of Antiquities, British Museum," London, 1907, pp. xxxvii— xlix. FORMS OF RINGS AND MATERIALS 69 of a scarab-setting; another type has elliptical hoops, either plain or ornamental, the scarab being in a filigree- decorated bezel; in still another, the lower part of the hoop is twisted into a loop, so that the ring can be worn suspended; there are also some plain, fl^at or rounded hoops, sometimes with the ends overlapping. The Greek and Hellenistic periods, from the sixth to the second century B.C., furnish a large variety of forms, some copied or adapted from earlier ones and then independently developed. A rounded hoop taper- ing upward, with ornamental extremities, occasionally appears in fine examples, the ends of the hoop repre- senting the lions' masks ; the bezels are frequently of oval shape, and the shoulders of the hoop are often nearly straight ; in another type while the outside of the hoop is rounded, the inside is facetted ; sometimes there is a high convex bezel, bevelled underneath. There are still a few swivel rings with scaraboids. In the Hellenistic period appear massive gold rings with square-cut shoulders and raised oval settings, in which a convex stone is placed. Still another type is an expanding hoop formed of two overlapping ribbons and with a convex bezel. Etruscan rings assume various characteristic and peculiar forms, many of which are found among the Roman rings of a later period, indicating the derivation from the Etruscans of ring-wearing among the Romans. One of these in the British Museum has a broad hoop ending in convex shields, a scarab being pivoted in the terminals; in others, the hoop is hollow, terminating in cylindrical ornaments, between these a scarab revolves on a wire swivel. A peculiar example has a grooved hoop, the ends being convex disks, in which is pivoted a scarab. One of these Etruscan rings has a very large convex oval bezel, around the slope of which run a series of embossed figures. 70 RINGS As an example of Roman art found in Egypt, we have a spiral ring of serpent form, either extremity terminating in a bust, of Isis and Serapis respectively. The conjecture has been made that this ring, and others of the type, may have been intended to figure the reign- ing emperor and empress of Rome under the types of Isis and of Serapis, the latter a Grseco-Egyptian divinity as worshipped in Alexandria and in the Roman world, though having a distinctly Egyptian form in the national pantheon as Asar-Hapi, or Osiris-Apis. The rings of the type described have the advantage of being easily adapted to a finger of any size, since pressure at both extremities would enlarge the girth of the single spiral.^ In his Etymologise, Isidore of Seville defines three of the types of rings worn in ancient times, the ungulus, the Samothracius and the thynnius,^ The ungulus was set with a gem and owed its designation to the fancy that the stone was as closely attached to the gold of the ring as a human nail {ungulus) was to the flesh of the finger. The Samothracian ring was of gold, but had an iron setting. Lucretius in the sixth book of his great philosophic and scientific poem, " De Natura Rerum," in speaking of the magnet to which he attributes negative and positive powers, of repulsion and of attraction, re- lates that when, in an experiment, Samothracian rings were placed in a brazen dish beneath which a piece of magnetic iron was moved to and fro, he had seen the rings leap up, as though to flee from an enemy. The third type of ring was the tliynnius, the name indicating, according to Isidore, that it was made in Bithynia, called ^ Figured in Cajlus, " Receuil d'antiquites," vol. ii, p. 310. ^ Sancti Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi, " Opera Omnia," vol. iv, col. 702, Etymologiae, lib. xix, cap. 32; vol. Ixxxii of Migne's Patrologia Latina, Paris, 1850. FORMS OF RINGS AND MATERIALS 71 at an earlier time, Thynna. Horace writes, in one ot his odes, of rings " chased by a Thynnian graver." Of the key-shaped rings, several specimens of which have been preserved from Roman times, it has been sug- gested that the key projection was intended to serve as a guard for an exceptionally long finger-nail, similar to the finger-guards the Chinese wear for a like purpose. The fact that many of these key-rings are evidently too large to have been worn on the finger, makes it not im- probable that the ring form was arbitrarily chosen, and that they may have been carried suspended from a girdle. Some of them, however, might have fitted on a very stout thumb, and a few of the rings of this type do not exceed the ordinary finger-ring in diameter.^ One of the large and unwieldly Roman rings, or at least a ring made on this model, bears a bust said to be that of Plotina, the wife of Trajan. This was in the collection of Monsignor Piccolomini. The extraor- dinarily elaborate coiffure shows three rows of facetted gems, and this alone may be considered to testify against the antiquity of the ring. Still, even as a production of the Renaissance period, the fact that it at least figures an ancient form makes it an object of interest and of a certain archaeological value.*^ It was in the late Republican, and especially in the Imperial age in Rome, that the greatest variety of ring forms were produced, originally influenced by the earlier Etruscan art, and later largely by the extraordinary ^ C. D. E. Fortnum, "Additional Notes on Finger Rings and on Some Engraved Gems of the Early Christian Period," Archajological Journal. Dom Bernard de Montfaucon, " L'Antiquite explique," Paris, 1724, Suppl., vol. viii, p. 40 ; pi. xiv, opp. p. 43, two views, side and front. 72 RINGS eclectic art of Alexandria, where the combination of Egyptian, Oriental and Greek elements brought forth many peculiar forms, some of which are noted else- where. A Romano-Egyptian ring has a flat hoop, sub- angular on the outside, the large circular bezel being engraved with three figures of divinities. Then there are the composite rings, sometimes having as many as four hoops, joined together at the back of the bezel. A striking type is the penannular ring in the form of a coiled serpent, or else having at each extremity the head of a serpent. In another form the bezel is lozenge- shaped. There are also massive rings with an elliptical hoop and thick projecting shoulders, the setting being de- pressed ; sometimes the shoulders slope sharply up to the bezel, forming a decided angle on the hoop. Hoops polygonal on the outside and circular within also occur. Some twin rings were made adapted to fit on two fingers of the hand ; in one of these are three cup settings hold- ing garnets, one on the top of each hoop and one between the hoops. In some instances the hoops of these twin rings were not closely joined to each other, but connected by a short gold chain, so that the rings could either be worn on a single finger, or on two fingers. Many of the hoops of the later Koman rings were elaborately decorated, either in openwork, with spirals in wire, or with beads on the shoulders ; this latter type is, however, more probably of Merovingian times. A Roman polygonal hoop, with a high-set bezel, has on the side of this loops for carrying a string of pearls suspended from the ring. In one of the rings specially designed for insetting with engraved gems, the hoop, rounded on the outer side, has shoulders ending in curl- ing leaves. A curious specimen is a plain hoop broad- Gold ring with plain hoop on which is freely looped a little mouse wrought in gold and white enamel. It slips around the hoop. About 1600 Albert Figdor Collection, Vienna Gold ring of Venetian workman- ship. The ends of the hoopform mon- sters' heads, supporting a bezel formed like the octal of a flower. XIV Cent. British Museum Gold ring set with an amethyst Found at Lorsch, Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt, and hence called the "Lorscher Ring." German; end of Tenth or beginning of Eleventh Century. Grossherzoglich - Hessisches Museum, Darmstadt Silver ring having projecting bezel "Regard ring," with seven hoops, in form of a spur with revolving The initials of the six stones spell the rowel. Italian (.''), Fourteenth or Fif- word "regard" teenth Century j^^^^^^ British Museum Rings of modern Egyptian type. 1, woman's ring; hoop of twisted gold, 2, man's ring made by silversmith of Mecca, with stone setting; 3, cast silver ring; stone setting; with guards Fairholt's "Rambles of an Artist" Pipe stopper ring. A silver ring on which are set three Indian, rose-cut zircons. This ring was placed on the finger and the tobacco in the bowl of the pipe was pressed down with it. French; about 1750. A similar ring was figured by Hogarth in one of his illustrations Field Museum, Chicago FORMS OF RINGS AND MATERIALS 73 ening in an oval bezel ; in this has been inserted an intaglio head in sard, the shape of the stone following the exact outline of the head, without any margin. A Burgundian ring of a form that M. Deloche be- lieves to be unique, has an open hoop. At one extremity is a nail-shaped attachment which can be passed through the other extremity, thus closing the ring. A bronze ring, also Burgundian, of a rare or unique type has at the bezel a high, oblong projection. Both these rings are of the Merovingian period which closed in 752 a.d.^ In no period were a greater number of ring forms produced than in the Middle Ages. The major part of these mediaeval rings were made as insignia of office or rank, for sealing official documents, or for ceremonial use. One of the earliest is that known as the Lorscher Ring.^ It is considered to belong to the end of the tenth, or the beginning of the eleventh century, and to be a product of German workmanship under the influence of the Byzantine art of the Merovingian period. The artistic and finely executed design of the bezel is especi- ally worthy of admiration. The stone set therein is a light-colored amethyst cut en cahoclion and without foil. This ring is now in the Grossherzoglich-Hessisches Museum in Darmstadt. The Besborough Collection of Gems, shown in June, 1861, by the Archseological Institute of London, was interesting for the high artistic excellence of the rings in which many of the gems were set. A number of them rank among the finest examples of Renaissance work in this direction. One, set with a sard in which a head of Lucilla has been engraved, shows, carved in flat relief ^ Deloche : " Etude historique et archeologique sur les anneaux sigillaires," Paris, 1900, pp. 2^5, 226, figs. ^ Friedrich Henkel, " Der Lorscher Ring," Trier, 1896. 74 RINGS on the gold hoop, two nude figures bearing in their hands torches, the design continuing completely around the hoop; about the figures are doves and flowers. This beautiful specimen of goldsmiths' work belongs to the first half of the sixteenth century. The pose of the small figures has been wonderfully adapted to the curve of the ring.^^ To a special class has been given the name " icono- graphic rings," this designates those bearing, either on the bezel or the sides, images of the Virgin and Child or of the saints. These rings, which date from a period running from 1390 to about 1520, are peculiar to Eng- land and Scotland. The material is either gold or silver, those of the latter metal showing much ruder workman- ship than was devoted to the gold rings. What must have been regarded in its time as an ex- ceptionally ornate ring is listed in an inventory of 1416. It is described as a gold ring having a helmet and a shield made of a sapphire, the shield bearing the arms of "Mon- seigneur." As supports of the shield were an emerald bear and a swan made of a white chalcedony. An ornate though tasteless type of Italian rings were those called " giardinetti," showing flower baskets, jar- dinieres, or nosegays, the flowers being figured by precious stones and pearls, with stems and leaves of gold. As the aim was purely decorative, the stones and pearls C. W. King, " Notices of Glyptic Arch«ology exhibited by the Archaeological Institute in June, 1861," London (Report from Archaeological Journal), p. 12. " Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Works of Art at the South Kensington Museum, June, 1862," section 32, " Rings," by Edmund Waterton, p. 622. De Laborde, " Notice des emaux du Musee du Louvre," 2d Part, " Documents et Glossaire," p. 131, s. v. Anel. FORMS OF RINGS AND MATERIALS 75 were usually small and inexpensive ones. Very few such rings have been made in recent times, but from the six- teenth to the eighteenth century they were much favored and a number of fine specimens have been preserved from that period/^ A ring-setting consisting of a turquoise surrounded by small diamonds appears to have been favored in Eng- land in the seventeenth century, for Samuel Pepys in his " Diary," under date of February 18, 1668, writes that he had been shown a " ring of a Turkey-stone, set with little sparks of diamonds." A " Trinity Ring," that is a ring consisting of three intertwined circlets, was shown in February, 1857, to the Society of Antiquaries in London by Mr. Octavius Morgan. This specimen, carved, or turned out of a circular band of ivory, was believed to be one of three executed by the German ivory carver, Stephan Zick (1639-1715), who is said to have been the first to make a ring of this type out of ivory, although they may have been made of gold — no exceptionally difficult task — before Zick executed his ivory rings.^^ This ring, or one similar to it, is now in the British Museum, Franks Bequest. While the rings of the Louis Quinze period were generally of delicate and beautiful form, the tendency to exaggeration in fashions that characterized the suc- ceeding Louis Seize period found expression in rings of disproportionate size. At the same time both the number of rings in a fine lady's jewel casket, and the number she would wear at the same time upon her hand, greatly increased over what was customary in the pre- ^3 Cyril Davenport, " Jewellery," Chicago, 1908, p. 118. William Jones, "Finger-Ring Lore," London, 1877, pp. 487, 488. 76 RINGS ceding reign. Thus Bachaument, in his " Memoires Secrets," states that at the sale of Mile, de Beauvoisin's jewels, which took place November 22, 1784, there were 200 rings rivalling one another in magnificence. Another French author of this time, M. Mercier, wrote in 1782 " when one takes the hand of a pretty woman, one only has the sensation of holding a quantity of rings and angular stones, and it would be necessary first to strip these off the hand before we could perceive its form and delicacy." The enthusiasm of the early days of the Revolution brought into vogue rings set with a little fragment of the stone-work of the recently demolished Bastille; at the same time wedding-rings were enamelled in red, white and blue, the new Republican colors. At the out- set the young royalists, as a protest, wore rings of tor- toise-shell, with the motto, Domine salvum fac regem, " God save the King." A type of ring that became popular during the darkest days of the French Revolution, the period of the dreadful Reign of Terror, was that of a large silver hoop with a plain gold bezel on which was graven the head of some one of the leading spirits of the time, such as Marat, De Chalier, or De Lepelletier St.-Fargeau. There are several significant French proverbs re- garding rings, of which we may here note the following: ''Ne mets pas ton doigt en anneau trop etroW (Do not put your finger in too small a ring) ; ''Anneau en main, honneur vain'' (A ring on the finger is an empty honor) ; "Bague d'amie porte envie'' (The ring of a lady friend arouses envy) . Portrait rings were very popular at the time of the French Revolution, as they afforded an opportunity for the expression of the ardent devotion to particular per- FORMS OF RINGS AND MATERIALS 77 sonalities characteristic of that troublous period. Many Washington rings and Robespierre rings were to be seen, bearing the enamelled portrait of the respective hero, but the most popular were the Franklin rings, for Franklin's personal influence, born of his sterling qual- ities of insight and common sense, and perhaps strength- ened by the contrast of his cool-headedness with the fever- ish excitement of the Paris of that time, was wide and far-reaching. Hindu tradition tells of the wearing of rings in India in very ancient times. The earliest forms used by the Brahmans in their forest life, were woven of kusa-grass (Saccharum spontaneum) , and even in our time rings of this kind are worn by those assisting at a religious ceremony, as otherwise the water offered to gods or to the spirits of ancestors will not be accepted. As to metal rings, Hindu law assigns those of gold to the index finger and silver rings to the fourth finger. A story related in the Hindu epic " Mahabharata " alludes to a trick or magic practice with rings, denom- inated ishika, A ring was thrown into a deep well and then recovered in some mysterious way after it had seemed to be irrevocably lost. The " Mahabharata " in its present form may date from about 500 a.d. The other great Hindu epic, the Ramayana of Valmiki, written perhaps as early as 500 B.C. even mentions en- graved rings. When Sita, wife of Kama, the hero of the poem, is abducted by Ravana, the ten-headed Cing- halese giant, Rama sends a monkey called Hanuman to seek for her, giving him a seal ring as a token. As soon as the monkey succeeds in finding Sita, he approaches her holding out the ring and saying, " Gracious Lady, I am the messenger of Rama. Look, here is his ring engraved with his name." 78 RINGS In Sanskrit books the following types and kinds of rings are mentioned: Dwi-hiraJc (double diamond). — Rings with a diamond on either side and a sapphire in the centre. Vajra (diamond, thunderbolt). — A triangular finger orna- ment, with a diamond in the centre and other stones on the sides. Ravimandal. — ring with diamonds on the sides and other stones in the middle. Nandydvarrta. — four-sided finger ornament studded with precious stones. Nava-ratna or Navagraha. — A ring on which the nine most precious stones have been set. The nine precious stones in Sanskrit are called: Hirak, Ndnikya, Baiduryya, Muktd, Gomedj Bidrum or Frahdl, Marakata, Pushpa-rdg, and Indranil; or the Diamond, Ruby, Cat's-eye, Pearl, Zircon, Coral, Emerald, Topaz, and Sapphire. Bajra-beshtak. — Ring of which the upper circumference is set with diamonds. Trihirak (triple diamond). — Ring with two small diamonds on the sides and a big one in the centre. Sukti-mudrikd. — Ring made like the hood of a cobra snake, with diamonds and precious stones on the upper surface. Mudrd or Anguli-mudrd. — Ring with name engraved upon it. These are some of the principal names for finger rings in modern India: Angushtri. — A ring set with stones, called also Mundri or Anguthi. Chhalld. — The chhalld is a quite plain hoop or whole hoop ring (with or without stones), being gold or silver, but the same all round. Worn also on the toes. Angushtdrd or Anguthd. — A big ring with a broad face, worn on the great toe. Khari panjdngla. — A set of finger rings of ordinary shape. Shdhdlami or Khdri. — A ring of long oval shape. T. N. Mukharji, "Art Manufactures of India," Calcutta, 1888, pp. 105-107. Oriental gold ring, large globular bezel with leaves and flowers in open- work. Said to have belonged to Chief Samory British Museum Oriental rings. 1, of cast silver; 2, of brass; 3, of silver; 4-6, Moorish rings: 4, set with turquoise and rubies; 5, with octagonal bloodstone and turquoise; 6j signet-ring bearing name of owner on a carnelian Fairholt's "Rambles of an Artist" 1, ring with pendent garnets; 2, silver ring. East Indian. The loose-hung silver drops jingle as the hand moves Fairholt's "Rambles of an Artist" Elaborate East Indian ring, with figure of Buddha. Hoop of peculiar shape to keep the ring from falling off the finger Courtesy of Miss Helen Bainbridge Rings made by Siamese Bonza, or Priest, from metal lying about among the idols at Ongchor, Old Cambodia, in 1871 Courtesy of Mr. Walter C. Wyman FORMS OF KINGS AND MATERIALS 79 Birhamgand. — ^A broad ring. In Bombay, the local designations for finger rings are: Angthi, Salle, Mohorechi Angthi and Khadyachya angthya; toe- rings are named: Ranajodvi, Jodvi, Phule, Gendy and Masolia}^ Rings, necklaces, armlets and Sirpech (or tiaras) are made at Bikanir, and exquisitely light and fine rings of gold and silver are produced at Jhansi in the Gwalior territory. An unusual form of ring ornamentation ap- pears in a silver ring of Indian workmanship, dated in the fourteenth or fifteenth century. This has a pro- jecting bezel in the form of a spur, with a revolving swivel. A ring of similar design, believed to be Vene- tian, now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, was brought from Chalis.^^ The rings made by the Hindu goldsmiths are in many cases very elaborately chased and ornamented, in the ornate style characteristic of Indian jewellery. The women of the Deccan almost universally wear rings; they are usually of gold, a silver ring being looked upon as showing meanness on the part of the wearer. There does not appear to be any preference of one finger over the other for decoration with rings. One of the most attractive types is a closely-fitting ring to which is affixed a little mirror, about the size of a silver quarter-dollar; this may be mounted either in gold or silver, and un- doubtedly Hindu female vanity finds this thumb mirror of some practical use. With its rich ornamentation a ring of this kind is in itself a pretty jewel, but would 16 T. N. Mukharji, "Art Manufactures of India," pp. 124- Calcutta, 1888. ^'^ O. M. Dalton, " Franks Bequest, Catalogue of the Finger Rings, Early Christian, Byzantine, Teutonic, Mediaeval, and Later [British Museum]," London, 1912, p. 247, fig. 80 RINGS hardly suit Occidental taste on account of its size and the inconvenience of wearing it. A rather singular fact is that mirror-rings are sometimes worn on the great toe, where they would seem to be quite useless; but it has been suggested that as the Hindu women of the better class commonly have their feet nearly or quite bare when in their apartments, and have acquired the power to move and use their feet much more freely than is the case with Occidentals, a toe mirror might possibly be of some slight utility; still, it seems probable that they are purely ornamental and came into fashion in imitation of the thumb-mirrors. Many varieties of toe-rings are made, a special type being that for wear on the middle toe.'« A ring of an unusual form is worn on the great toe of the left foot by some Hindu married women, as a dis- tinguishing mark of the married state. Men frequently wear a ring on the big toe for curative purposes, or to augment their masculine vigor. These toe-rings of the men are not generally closed circles, but open hoops, so that they can be easily removed when this is desirable.^ ^ The art of the Persian goldsmith in the fifteenth century is displayed in a ring belonging to one of the splendid collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York. It is of massive form with an immense bezel, richly decorated in openwork; the hoop is also elaborately chased. The flat surface of the bezel is adorned with a design in keeping with the ornamentation of its sides and of the hoop. For a large and massive ring IS Col. T. H. Hendley, " Indian Jewellery," Journal of Indian Art and Industry, vol. xii, pp. 4, 5 ; 1907-1909. Figs, on plates 6, 7, 8, 15, 18. ^» Ibid., p. 103. INDIAN TOE RINGS OF SILVER, MADRAS PRESIDENCY 1, three views of ring worn on second and third toes of the left foot; the conventional fish is an emblem of Siva 2, 3, 4, other toe rings Journal of Indian Art and Industry, vol. v, 1894 RICH CINGIIALKSE MER( HAN T, IN (.ALA DUKSS The immense, round ring on the little finger of his right hand is a favorite adornment in Ceylon; smaller rings are on the fourth finger of right hand, and on the little finger of left hand FORMS OF RINGS AND MATERIALS 81 this one is remarkably well-proportioned and harmonious in design. A good specimen of the rings worn on state occasions by East Indian princes was sold in February, 1913, at the American Art Galleries. It is of gold, but bears no precious stones; the circlet is ornamented with white enamelled crocodiles, and also with a minute enamelled figure, within a temple and incased in glass ; the bezel of this ring is decorated in blue, green and red enamel. While the simpler Chinese rings as a general rule are unset, usually consisting merely of a plain silver band on which are engraved designs of various objects, or else coated with ornaments in enamel, the rings of the Tibetans display a considerable variety of settings, tur- quoise, coral, agate, mother-of-pearl, mica and similar stones being used. Few or none of the true precious stones are to be found in the rings of these countries. The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago has a large number of specimens some of which are figured in the accompanying plate. A collection of some two dozen rings of artistic Siamese workmanship were sent to the Chicago Exhibi- tion of 1893, in charge of Prince Surrya, later Siamese ambassador to France. These rings were of nearly pure gold, and were ornamented with designs in red, green, and white enamel, representing animals, fish, and other forms, but never human figures. They were believed to be of considerable age and historic value; indeed, they were so highly prized that they were not publicly ex- hibited but were kept locked up in a safe, and only rarely displayed to some especially favored visitor. After the Communicated by Dr. Berthold Laufer, Curator of Anthropology, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago. 82 RINGS close of the Exhibition they were safely returned to Siam. An American traveller in Cambodia, in 1871, suc- ceeded in having a few rings made for him by a native Buddhist bonza, the material being old metal found lying about among the idols of a temple at Ongchor. The work of the priest gives evidence of a considerable degree of skill in design, doubtless derived from examination and study of native and Indian types of rings. The type having an intertwined bezel prevails; one massive ring is penannular.^^ An elaborate Burmese ring has the hoop in the form of a serpent, whose open mouth displays the death-dealing fangs. Along the body runs a continuous band of rubies placed in oval settings. The rest of the surface is adorned with green, red and white enamel — mouth, nose, tail and scales being brought out in this way. Of two red stones which origi- nally marked the serpent's eyes, one has fallen out; on either side of the head is a small sapphire. This fine ring is in the British Museum.^^ While fifty years ago in Japan the women of the better classes did not favor the wearing of finger-rings, it was not infrequently the case that kitchenmaids and houseniaids would wear silver or brass rings. They are believed to have been influenced by the example of Dutch women in Nagasaki.^" At the present day American and European influence is very slow in making itself felt in the direction of ring-wearing. Communicated by Mr. F. W. Partridge, through Mr. Walter C. Wyman. O. M. Dalton, " Franks Bequest: Catalogue of the Finger Rings, Early Christian, Byzantine, Teutonic, Mediaeval and Later [British Museum]," London, 1912, p. 336, No. 2422, PI. XXX. 23 Communicated by Dr. T. Wada, of Tokio. FORMS OF RINGS AND MATERIALS 83 In the large oval bezel of a fine Syrian ring is set a paste representing a topaz. The shoulders expand to form the bezel. This ring, the lower half of which has been broken off, shows an exceptionally fine patina; it was of large size and must have been a striking ornament on the wearer's hand. As the broad oval extends across the hoop, not at right angles with it, it must have inter- fered slightly with a free use of the fingers near the one on which the ring was worn. In the Philippine Islands a type of ring that is made by the natives has a number of spiral twists, from five to as many as a dozen coils appearing in these rings. The serpentine form is accentuated by a pattern of dots or cross-marking, with sometimes the indication of a conven- tional flower design. While rather clumsy for wear, these rings still possess a certain artistic quality. Fine examples are in the Ethnological Department of the American Museum of Natural History, New York City. The ancient city of refuge, Machu Picchu, probably built by the Incas nearly 2000 years ago on a Peruvian mountain top, was uncovered by the National Geo- graphic Society — Yale University Peruvian Expedition of 1912, of which Dr. Hiram Bingham was the director. Among the many interesting relics found on this unique site were some silver rings, one being of the twisted type, with the ends free, so as to suit the size of any finger, while another has been welded or hammered into a closed circlet. While it is impossible to date these rings with any approach to exactness, they are undoubtedly ex- amples of the art of native Peruvian silversmiths prior to the Spanish Conquest.^^ Rings in great variety are worn in the Congo region Hiram Bingham, " The Story of Machu Picchu," in The National Geographic Magazine, February, 1915, pp. 172-217. 84 RINGS and in every part of Bantu and Negro Africa. There are heavy rings and light ones, simple hoops and spirals, and they are worn on neck, arm, leg, finger and toe. They are made of brass, copper, ivory, iron, elephant foot-pad, and several other materials. At Akkra, and in Liberia, there is quite a manufacture of gold rings, and, to a lesser extent, of silver rings also.^^ An example of the exceptionally large rings some- times made to commemorate special occasions, rather than for possible wear, is one donated to President Pierce by some Californian admirers in 1852. This somewhat ambitious production scarcely answers the requirements of a high standard of art, but its decoration offers a great variety of appropriate designs illustrating life in the Far West in the middle of the past century. The ring is of solid gold and weighs something over a pound, thus having a mere metal value of about $250. On square surfaces cut on the circlet are a series of designs intended to present an epitome of California's early history; the native animals in a wild state, the Indian warrior armed with bow and arrow, and a native mountaineer; then comes a Californian, riding a horse at full speed and casting his lasso ; to him succeeds the miner with pick and shovel. The bezel is engraved with the arms of Cali- fornia; it is hinged and when opened reveals a kind of box having nine compartments divided by golden bars. In each compartment is a characteristic specimen of one of the principal ores found in California. Inside the circlet has been engraved the inscription: " Presented to Franklin Pierce, the Fourteenth President of the United States." What may be called a presidential 2^ Communicated by Prof. Frederick Starr, of the Uni- versity of Chicago. RINGS FROM THE ALEXANDER W. DRAKE COLLECTION, SOLD AT THE AMERICAN ART GALLERIES IN MARCH, 1913 1, silver ring of East Indian workmanship. 2, massive Tartar finger ring of fine gold. 3, copy in silver of the betrothsl ring of Martin Luther, a gift of Richard Watson Gilder. 4, finger ring with precious stone setting and two irregularly-shaped pearls. Pendant shows the bust of a bearded man in armor. 5, gold betrothal ring. Two hands holding a crowned heart. Type used by Galway fisherman from the Thirteenth Century and called a " Claddugh Ring." 6, open-work gold ring. 7, old Chinese gold ring — oval with Chinese characters, on either side a chiseled bat. 8, Moorish finger ring of fine gold. Large shield with characteristic ornamentation. 9, gold ring with intaglio of a shepherd and goat cut on a light sard. 10, square gold ring, with bead groups in centre and at corners, the central part in raised openwork. 11, gold ring. French. Heart-shaped bezel set with Watteau figure in repousse, under crystal, and surrounded with bits of green and white crystal between small flowers of gold. 12, silver finger ring. Two hoops linked together by true-lovers' knot. FORMS OF RINGS AND MATERIALS 85 ring is that depicted in the effigy of Abigail Power Fillmore, wife of President Fillmore (1850-1853), a quaint wax figure in the Wives of Presidents series, shown in the United States National Museum, Wash- ington D. C. In this she is shown wearing a handker- chief ring. An unusually large ring was worn by the well-known theatrical manager, Sheridan Shook. It was set with an amethyst an inch long by three-quarters of an inch broad and half an inch deep, and weighing two and a half ounces. The letter S was engraved in the stone and inlaid with small diamonds. This immense ring with its massive gold setting can hardly be termed a great work of art, but it is unique in its way and was greatly valued by its owner, who only ceased to wear it when ill-health and weakness made it too much of a burden. The extensive and remarkable collections of the late Alexander Wilson Drake, which were disposed of at the American Art Galleries in New York, March 10th to 17th, 1913, comprised a fine collection of finger rings, illustrating a large variety of forms and periods. There were in all nearly 800 examples, set and unset. There were betrothal rings, memorials rings, gimmal rings, puzzle rings, rings of Roman, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Irish, Scandinavian, English and American workmanship, and many Oriental rings, Sas- sanian, Indian, Japanese, Chinese, Hebrew, Gypsy and Moorish, one of the latter being a gold circlet with the twelve signs of the zodiac engraved in high relief around it. 2^ Charles Edwards, " The History and Poetry of Finger- Rings," New York, 1885, pp. 42-44 ; quoting from Gleason's Pictorial Newspaper, December 25, 1852. 86 RINGS The personality of the collector added greatly to the charm of this collection for all who had known him. As art editor of the Century Magazine, and in a thousand other ways, no one had labored more enthusiastically and successfully in the cause of art encouragement and art education, and his death constituted a real loss for the progress of art in America. The valuable and carefully chosen collection of gem stones set in rings, which was made by the late Sir Arthur Herbert Church (1834-1915) , has been presented by his widow, Lady Church, to the trustees of the British Museum and is shown in the Natural History building.^'^ Corundum 12 Opal (precious, fire, black Spinel 17 and milk) , 10 Chrysoberyl 8 Zircon 45 Quartz (amethyst, tiger- Phenacite 5 eye, chrysoprase) .... 3 Enstalite 1 Peridot 1 Moonstone 2 Spodumene 1 Garnet 19 Labradorite 1 Topaz 8 Beryl 4 Cordierite 2 Andalusite 1 Sphene 1 Tourmaline 20 Turquoise 1 Only three of the rings are set with more than a single stone. Of the 18 examples in the British Museum collection of the interesting class of rings cut out of a single stone. The collection comprises 169 specimens, 45 of them zircons, fully illustrating the wide range of color to be found in this gem-stone; two of them are of a beautiful sky-blue. The following hst gives the number of rings for each mineral species: Communicated by Dr. Leonard J. Spencer, Curator of the Department of Mineralogy, British Museum (Nat. Hist.). FORMS OF RINGS AND MATERIALS 87 several belonged to the collection of Sir Hans Sloane in 1753, five of them being archers' thumb-rings, of agate, carnelian, mocha-stone, or jasper. A green jasper ring of this type is thus entered in the Sloane Manuscript catalogue : " A thumb piece for defending it from being hurt by the bowstring, from Turkey." A remarkable, though decidedly eccentric ring of the art nouveau style of Rene Lalique shows in the long, irregularly oval bezel, a full-length, nude female figure cut in very high relief out of a bluish rock-crystal; set at one side about the middle of the figure is a round pearl, apparently of immense proportions as compared with those of the human body.^^ Not only are there the watch-bracelets which have been so extensively worn of late years, but minute orna- mental watches have been set in finger-rings, where they can be consulted with even greater ease than when worn on the wrist. The watch-face is surrounded by a border- ing of small jewels. Apart from their practical value, the " watch-rings " are pretty and dainty objects in themselves, and lend a new element of variety to the long list of ring forms.^^ There is in the collection of the Imperial Kunst- gewerbe Museum, Vienna, an exceptionally fine example of the watch-ring, made by Johann Putz, of Augs- burg, in the seventeenth century. It has a detachable cover, cut from an emerald, on which the Austrian double-eagle has been engraved. In the same collec- tion are two sun-dial rings; one, made in the seven- teenth century, has a lid figuring a hedge-hog, studded ^ Figured in Journal der Goldschmiede Kunsty 30 Jahrg., No. 27, Leipzig, July 3, 1909, p. 220. See also p. 353 of the present work. 88 RINGS with black diamond lozenges ; the other, a sixteenth cen- tury ring, bears a Greek inscription to the effect that " time removes all things and brings forgetfulness; " the sun-dial is on the inner side of this ring, which is of silver gilt. There is also a gold astrolabe ring, which when closed looks like an ordinary one ; but when the connected circles are opened up, the ring constitutes a veritable astrolabe.^^ A gold " sphere-ring " in the British Museum collec- tion has an outer hoop in two parts, working like a gimmal, and three interior hoops which are almost con- cealed when the ring is closed. The exterior hoop is chased; on the inner surfaces, concealed from view when the ring is closed, appears in sections the following in- scription in black enamel : Verbo Dei cell firmati sunt. Dixit et creata sunt, ipse mandavit et creata sunt. ( The heavens are founded in the word of God. He spoke and they were created; he commanded and they were cre- ated.) After " firmati sunt," is the date 1555. The three interior hoops bear, enameled in black, the signs of the zodiac, stars, and other astral figures. This ring is of German workmanship.^^ In the collection of works of art bequeathed to the British Museum in 1898 by Baron Ferdinand Rothschild, and designated as the Waddesdon Bequest, there are sev- eral characteristic rings. Of these perhaps the most nota- ble is a large finger ring of gold, enameled and set with jewels, a sixteenth century example of German work- manship. The bezel is in the form of a clasped book ; on Communicated by L. Weininger, of Vienna. 2^ O. M. Dalton, " Catalogue of Finger Rings, Early Christian, Byzantine, Teutonic, Mediaeval and Later [British Museum]," London, 1912, p. 243, No. 1700, Plate xxiii. FORMS OF RINGS AND MATERIALS 89 the cover is a skull, about which are four stones, sapphire, ruby, emerald, and diamond, and two toads and snakes in enamel. When the book cover is thrown back there appears a loose plate of gold, on which is enameled a recumbent figure with skull and hour-glass ; on the under side of the cover is inscribed in black enamel (in capi- tals) : sivE viviMUS^ sn^ morimur^ domini sumus. COMMENDA DOMINO VIAM TUAM^ ET SPEEA IN EUM ET IPSE EACiET (Whether we live or whether we die we are the Lord's. Commit thy way unto the Lord and trust in Him, and He shall bring it to pass). This combines the text, Romans xiv, 8 with Psalm XXX vii, 5. On the shoulders of the ring are two groups in enamel, the Fall and the Expulsion from Eden.^2 Sixteenth century ring-making, so rich in its variety of eccentric types, evolved whistle-rings, one of which is in the British Museum. This is of bronze gilt; the large oval bezel is engraved with a shield of arms; the hoop is slender at the back. The shoulders are engraved with strap-work, one of them having a tubular whistle.^^ An enameled gold ring of striking and original de- sign is owned by Dr. Albert Figdor, Vienna. The bezel has a lid on which is enameled a head wearing a half- mask; the eyes are of small lozenge-shaped diamonds, and there is a bordering of seventeen rubies. On lifting Sir Charles Hercules Read, " The Waddesdon Bequest : Catalogue of the Works of Art Bequeathed to the British Museum by Baron Ferdinand Rothschild, M.P.," 1898 ; London, 1902, p. 94. 33 O. M. Dalton, " Catalogue of the Finger Rings, Early Christian, Byzantine, Teutonic, Mediaeval, and Later [British Museum]," London, 1912, p. 87, No. 571, fig. 90 RINGS the lid there appears beneath an oval surf ace, on which is enameled a heart with the motto : " Pour vous seule " ( For you alone ) . The inner side of the lid is hollowed out so as to serve as a receptacle for hair. The hoop, of a ribbon-like form, bears the significant inscription: " Sous le masque la verite " (Beneath the mask is truth) . This ring, which belonged to the famous Viennese trage- dienne, Charlotte Wolter, is of French workmanship and dates from about 1800. A whimsical gold ring in the collection has a plain hoop, to which the figure of a little mouse, wrought in gold, is looped by the tail so that it slips around the circlet. Another gold ring of singular design is one having a diamond in a silver setting about which are three rubies in gold settings ; between the rubies are three playing cards in enamel. The hoop is of open- work with two playing cards and two ovals ; a section of reddish gold that has been added to it, indicates that the ring was enlarged at some time from its original size.^^ A decoration of a somewhat unusual type appears in a ring to be seen in the Cleveland Museum of Art, the gift of Mr. and Mrs. J. Homer Wade. It has for its adornment a minute landscape painting, in place of a precious stone or seal decoration.^ ^ This might be a suggestion to those who may wish to bear with them a pretty reminder of their favorite country home, or else of some scene that is associated with exceptionally happy memories. A symbolic ring recently designed and executed in New York artfully combines a number of significant Communicated by L. Weininger, of Vienna The Cleveland Museum of Art, Catalogue of the Inaugural Exhibition, June 6 to September 20, 1916, Cleveland, 1916, p. 68, No. 109. GOLD RING, RICHLY ENAMELED The hoop haa white, red and black enameling, and is studded with little emeralds and rubies. The high bezel is set with au emerald and with a small ruby on each of the four sides. Second half of Sixteenth Century Albert Figdor Collection, Vienna GOLD RING, WITH HEAD IN FORM OF A ROSE KNOT The setting consists of a diamond in a silver bezel, and three rubies in gold bezels; between the rubies are three enameled playing cards. The hoop is of openwork interspersed with two playing cards and two ovals in enamel; a section of reddish gold indicates an enlargement of this ring. Eighteenth Century Albert Figdor Collection, Vienna FORMS OF KINGS AND MATERIALS 91 elements, each of which has a distinct bearing upon the history, the fortunes, or the taste of the prospective wearer. At the head of the ring is set his birth-stone, the sard, about which are engraved his family crest and motto, and the initials of his name. On the shank are two relief representations, one of a lion, " the king of beasts," typifying royal descent, the other showing the wearer's patron saint, Michael ; at the left of this figure is set an emerald as the talismanic gem. Surmounting the head of the ring are a series of light gothic arches, indicating the religious character of this jewel. On the smooth inner side of the head is engraved a mystic design, consisting of a double triangle, interlaced to form a six- pointed star, and enclosed by a circle ; within the triangles appears in blue emerald the " mystic number "15, that of the wearer, blue being his astral color; the triangles symbolize the inseparability of the Holy Trinity, and the circle typifies Eternity, this word being engraved above, as well as the date of the wearer's birth, and a legend commemorating the gift of the ring. It is made of fine gold, so that it may the better denote absolute purity. In one type of serpent ring, one of the ends is in- serted loose into the mouth of the serpent's head ter- minating the other end, so that by a little careful bending, the trifling difference in the diameter of the hoop neces- sary to adjust it perfectly to a finger can be easily attained. This form already appears among ancient rings.^^ Two finely wrought serpent rings are shown on 2^ Frederick William Fairholt, " Rambles of an Artist," London, n. d., p. 77, fig. 88. A later edition of this book, dated 1871, bears the title, " Rambles of an Archaeologist." 92 EINGS thePlate.^^^ In one of these (No. 2), with three coils, the erect head of the snake with distended jaws is vividly portrayed, making the ring a work of art indeed, but arousing an instinctive repulsion in the beholder. The other serpent ring constitutes a simple circlet, the head of the snake overlapping the tail. As an example of artistic workmanship it fully equals the larger ring, and may be considered better adapted for the adornment of the hand, since the serpent nature is not so aggressively presented. Rings of a quite unique type, that owes its origin to the great war and to French skill and taste in adapting the most unpromising means to an artistic end, are those made by French soldiers out of aluminum fuses taken from the bombs which their German foes have so liberally rained upon them. At the outset the disks were first worked with scissors to make rude rings for men's big fingers. Later on the well-furnished tool-box of the machine-gun squad was called into requisition. This early primitive type was soon abandoned, and in order to make rings of the proper dimensions the metal from the German shells was fused and run into ingots; the crucible was frequently one of the new iron helmets, which was set on a wood fire that was kept going by a bellows improvised from a bayonet sheath. However, the soldiers finally became so reckless in their search for material that it was found necessary to put a stop to this, after several had been shot by the enemy. The first models for the rings were made of wood or soft limestone. At a more advanced stage, round bars were made, which were cut into sections by means of the jagged edge of an old trench-spade. The smoothing off 36a Yrom the collection of W. Gedney Beatty, New York City. FORMS OF RINGS AND MATERIALS 93 was done with a knife, and for making the ring apertures a pick was commonly used. They were then polished with a piece of hard wood, moistened from time to time to soften it. This still primitive form failed to satisfy the amateur ring-makers, and soon some of them began to engrave their rings with the point of a pocket-knife, and others, more ambitious, encrusted them with small pieces of copper, either mortised or rivetted in. Although many of the rings were undoubtedly the work of entirely un- practiced hands, of course in any of the great modern national armies men of all trades and professions are represented, and hence the really fine examples of these war-time rings have been the work of those familiar with the jewellers' art. So eagerly did some of the soldiers pursue this avocation, that when their aluminum threat- ened to give out, they would look impatiently for a bom- bardment to get a new supply.^ ^ The " add-a-link " ring is made up of a series of small links which all snap one in the other. The pur- chaser buys one with the number of links requisite to fit the finger exactly. If he wishes to have a stone in it he buys a link with a stone inserted therein. A plain link is snapped out of the ring and the link with the stone is snapped in. Sometimes these rings are made up of a variety of stones and then again with only one stone. It is possible in this way for the purchaser to obtain, at a moderate cost, a variety of settings, changeable at will. Moreover, a ring of this type can be enlarged as the finger grows larger. Among a number of ring- types designed for the practical convenience of the owner and only worn tem- " Les bagues des tranchees," L' Illustration, July 3, 1915, p. W, with cuts showing soldiers at work and specimens of their rings. 94 RINGS porarily to serve a particular purpose, we may note the cigarette ring, provided with a straight sliding rod the end of which clasps the middle of a cigarette, so that when a whiff has been taken, the hand may be freely used without laying aside or dropping the cigarette. Another smokers' ring is one provided with a projection for stopping a pipe, rendering it possible for the ardent pipe-smoker to keep his pipe-bowl well filled and well packed without soiling the tips of his fingers. These pipe-stopping rings are sometimes of rich materials, in one instance the stopper was of a beautiful white zircon, finely contrasting with the rich yellow gold of the ring proper. Rings of this kind were very much in vogue in the eighteenth century, and one appears on the hand of a gentleman in one of Hogarth's engravings. The name " swivel ring " is applied when the head of the ring is loose, and is loosely secured by a bar to the band or circlet, so that the ring will swing around. This type is frequently used in scarab rings, or where there is a double intaglio, a double miniature, or other double object, or where the ring is what is known as a concealed seal ring, the outside part being a gold ornament or a stone. One of the " surprise rings " in which a hinged outer section of the hoop can be made to detach itself, on a spring being pressed, so that a concealed surface appears, shows on its hidden surface a number of magical signs and the names of the angels or spirits Ashmodel, Nachiel, Zamiel, and others. Wearing a ring of this kind, the adept could reveal his belief in the magic arts to others of his sect or fraternity, thus bearing about with him a secret passport admitting hi m to their confidence.^^ ^8 Frederick William Fairholt, " Rambles of an Artist," London, 1880, p. 141, fig. 171. FORMS OF RINGS AND MATERIALS 95 A pretty way of utilizing old and cherished rings for the production of an attractive ornament is to link them together so as to form a chatelaine. By this means a large number of family memorial rings, either those of more or less remote ancestors or of persons whom the owner has known and loved, may be combined in a single beautiful chain. This can be done in several ways. After opening the rings at the joint, they are strung one below the other, the monotony of the effect being varied by one or more double rings, the terminal of the chain being a seal-ring with the bezel downward. Another method is to have a series of double rings, each one of which is joined to the member of the pair immediately below, by means of a small ring made for this purpose ; here again the terminal will be either a seal-ring, or one set with a large precious stone. Such ornaments are not only things of beauty in themselves, but unique in the memories they serve to perpetuate in the hearts of the wearers. THE MATERIALS OF RINGS Ring whittling or carving is a favorite occupation of sailors and young boys. Many interesting rings have been carved by them out of peach pits, flexible ivory, cocoanut shells, gutta percha, walrus ivory, boxwood, whale's teeth and many other substances. These are fre- quently incised with the initials of the wearer or the one to whom the ring is to be presented. Then again, pins are cut off and the upper part driven into the hoop, in such a way that the head of the pin appears as a beading; often metallic points are added. Other rings are carved with hearts, folded hands and other symbols of sentiment. As a ring is necessary in marriage it has occasionally happened when no precious metal was available in hasty 96 RINGS marriages, or out of economy, that a curtain ring, taken from the church curtain, has been used. Memory rings, of threads wound around the finger, have often been employed. Sometimes these are made of cord or yam, and each ring is supposed to represent one object to be remembered, and to be purchased, or dehvered at the final place of destination. The writer distinctly remembers seeing an old man nearly 90 years of age, wearing a waistcoat older than himself, and with at least twenty strings of different colors and variety on his fingers. He trudged a distance of six miles to the nearest village and had been instructed not to return until he had purchased or obtained the object meant by each string. This memorizing by cords or strands has been practised by many primitive peoples who had not developed any system of writing, a well-known instance being the wampum records of some of our North American Indian tribes. To the famous episode of the descent of the life- goddess Ishtar to the infernal regions, forming part of the great Babylonian poem known as the " Gilgamesh Epic," have been appended a few lines suggesting an idea distantly resembling that in the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. A mourner who seeks to re- lease a loved one from the Realm of Death, is told to address himself to Tammuz ( = Adonis ) . A f estival gar- ment is to be put on the god's statue to induce him " to play on the flute of lapis-lazuli," with a ring of porphyry. This divine music was believed to arouse the dead and call them to inhale the fragrance of the incense offering prepared for them.^^ The " porphyry ring " for play- Morris Jastrow, Jr., " The Civilization of Babylonia and Assyria," Philadelphia and London, 1915, pp. 459, 460. FORMS OF RINGS AND MATERIALS 97 ing the musical instrument might seem to indicate that it was some form of lyre, on which the ring could be used as a kind of plectrum, rather than a flute or other wind-instrument. Rings made entirely of a precious stone substance were not uncommon in the time of Rameses III (1202- 1170 B.C.) and later Egyptian sovereigns, but there is no evidence of their having been made at a more remote period. The prejudice against burying rings with the dead does not seem to have affected the Egyptians, for in a number of cases rings have been found on the fingers of mummies.^ ^ The sardonyx was a favorite stone with the Romans of the Imperial Age, as is proved by the frequent allusions to it by the poets of this time. Of a celebrated player on the lyre, Juvenal (50-130 a.d.) says that as his hand passed over the strings the whole instrument was lighted up by the sheen of his many sardonyx rings.** Such a ring was regarded as a most appropriate birth- day gift.*^ Another passage relates that the advocate Paulus, in order to render his address before the court more impressive, wore upon his hand a fine onyx ring which he had borrowed from a friend especially for this occasion.*^ Indeed, so highly was the stone prized that it was called the first of gems {gemma princeps sar- donychus) and ivory caskets were regarded as fit recep- tacles for sardonyxes.*^ The value of rings set with Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson, " Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians," revised by Samuel Birch, New York, 1879, vol. ii, p. 340, note by Birch. Juvenal, sat. vi, 1, 382. Persius, sat. i, 1, 16. 4« Juvenal, sat. vii, 11, 143, 144. *7 Idem, sat. xiii, 11, 138, 139. 7 98 RINGS them is shown by the fact that in Hadrian's ( 7 6-138 a.d. ) time, they were expressly associated with the gems of greatest value, such being strictly differentiated from those worth but four gold pieces each.^^ Several rings of the Later Roman period in the British Museum are set with small diamonds. Of these the following are believed to represent original settings No. 779. Plain solid hoop with sides cut flat. It is set with a small pointed diamond. Castellani Coll., 1872. No. 785. Thin rounded hoop, slightly expanding upwards. Pointed diamond in raised oblong setting. From Tartus. Franks Bequest, 1897. No. 787. Angular hoop, projecting sharply below the shoulders, which are in the form of hollow leaves within a tri- angular frame. The bezel is square and contains an octahedral diamond ; the sides are open and form a kind of wave pattern. Castellani Coll., 1872. 3rd century, a.d. No. 788. Type akin to last. On either shoulder is an openwork triangle. The bezel is square and contains an octa- hedral diamond; on either side of the bezel is a small open- work triangle. No. 789. Type akin to last. The lower part of the hoop has a groove running along its middle ; either shoulder is cut away in a slight curve. The bezel is square, with a triangular space left open in each side and with a round opening below. It contains a diamond of octahedral form. Franks Bequest, 1897. No. 790. Type akin to last. The hoop is rounded without ; the curved excision of the shoulders is more pronounced. Two double pyramid-shaped (octahedral) diamonds are set in the bezel. A triangle is cut out of either shoulder, and two smaller Ulpian, L., 6 sqq., De bon. damnat. F. H. Marshall, " Catalogue of the Finger Rings, Greek, Etruscan and Roman, in the Departments of Antiquities, British Museum," London, 1907, pp. 127-129, pi. xx, 778, 785, 790. and text figures 106, 107 on p. 129. PORTRAIT OF AN UNKNOWN MAN IN THE COSTUME OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY, BY ANTONIO DEL POLLAIOLO He holds between the thumb and index of his left hand a ring set with a naturally pointed diamond crystal Galleria Corsini, Florence PORTRAIT OF A VENETIAN SENATOR, BY A. DA SOLARIO Seal ring on thumb of left hand National Gallery, London FORMS OF RINGS AND MATERIALS 99 triangles on either side of the bezel. Underneath the stone are two lozenge-shaped openings. Franks Bequest, 1897. In all these cases the diamond is a small natural crystal of octahedral form suggesting the " diamond, a point of a stone," of which the astronomer Manilius wrote in the first century, and, perhaps, the diamond in Berenice's ring mentioned in the same period by the satirist Juvenal. Another ring in the British Museum, however, is set with two facetted diamonds, as well as with two other stones (No. 778 of catalogue, Plate xx, same number). Here the diamonds have unquestion- ably been set at a time long posterior to the making of the ring, which is believed to belong, approximately, to the same period as the others we have listed. The diamonds were probably inserted to replace two of the original stones that had fallen out of their settings. Sir Charles Hercules Read pronounces the instances of diamond settings in ancient rings to be exceeding rare. He states that the examples above noted are the only ones of which he knows, and considers that they belong to the third or fourth century of our era.^^ The famous Marlborough collection of gems includes a thumb ring entirely of sapphire. To give this stone ring the necessary resisting power, it has been lined with a thick hoop of gold. The engraving it bears, a head of the Elder Faustina, the wife of Antoninus Pius (86-161 A.D. ) , is believed to replace an original Arabic inscription that fitted this ring for use as a seal.^^ Rings entirely of precious-stone material, or holo- lith " rings, have been found at Mycense, one of jasper From a personal letter to the writer, dated February 21, 1916. C. W. King, "Antique Gems and Rings," London, 187S, p. 373. 100 RINGS and another of rock-crystal, and a carnelian ring was dis- covered in a tomb in southern Russia. Each of these bears an engraved design. Two carnelian rings are in the British Museum. Chalcedony rings, that is, rings entirely formed of this stone, while quite rare, are represented by a few specimens. We describe elsewhere the so-called be- trothal ring of the Virgin at Perugia,^^ and the British Museum has a large example of a chalcedony ring, with the hoop rounded on the outer side, and a raised bezel that has been roughly cut so as to indicate a human head, some scratches marking the hair. The work is late Roman and the inscription shows that it was made for some adherent of the Gnostic sect.^^ A large ring, entirely of rock crystal, shows on the oval flattened surface of the upper part a curious com- bination of the " Tau Cross," with superposed " chrisma," and with a serpent twined about it, recalling the brazen serpent of Moses, the view of which restored health to the diseased; the Greek letters, alpha and omega, " the beginning and the end," complete this in- terlacing of Old and New Testament emblems; the doves facing the cross are the faithful to whom the Cross of Christ brings salvation.^^ Another entire crystal ring bears on its flat face a design of somewhat similar im- port, with, however, the curious difference that the lower See pp. 222, 258-261 of present work, and plate opposite p. 316 of the writer's, " The Curious Lore of Precious Stones," Philadelphia and London, 1913. ^3 F. H. Marshall, Catalogue of the Finger Rings, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman, in the Departments of Antiquities, British Museum, London, 1907, p. 110, No. 654, pi. xvii. 54 Bosio, " Roma Sotteranea," Rom^, 1672, vol. i, p. 211. FORMS OF RINGS AND MATERIALS 101 end of the cross is supported on a little Cupid, on either side of which figure is a dove.^^ The jewels of the Mogul emperors were the most splendid in the world, but few have survived intact to our time, as nearly all were broken up by the spoilers of the Mogul Empire. However, one of the few that have been preserved for us is a most interesting illus- tration of the type of ring favored in that age and region. This is one made for Jehangir Shah, the father of Shah Jehan, for whom was erected the wonderful Taj Mahal at Agra, a memorial of his dearly beloved wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died in 1629. It is about 1J4 inches in diameter and is cut out of a solid emerald of exceptional purity and beauty of color ; from the ring proper depend two fine emerald drops, while set in two collets are rose diamonds with ruby bordering. Jehangir's name is en- graved on the hoop. This ring was probably carried off by Nadir Shah at the looting of Delhi in 1739, and after remaining in the Persian treasury for a few years found its way, with other gems and jewels plundered from the Moguls, into the hands of the Afghan chiefs. One of these, the unfortunate Shah Shu j ah, in the course of his wanderings after he had been blinded and deprived of his throne by a brother, finally sought and found refuge under the protection of the British East India Company, and as a token of gratitude, or as a slight quid pro quo, he gave this historic ring to the company. After having been acquired by Lord Auckland, it passed into the hands of the Hon. Miss Eden. This is probably the very finest specimen of the rare type of hololith rings, s^Gorlsei, " Dactyliotheca," vol. i, p. 211; cited in " Dictionnaire d'Archeologie Chretienne et de Liturgie," Paris, 1907, vol. ii, col. 2194, figures. 102 RINGS or rings entirely consisting of a single precious-stone material.^^ For those who believed in the magic virtues of precious stones, a ring of this kind would possess much greater efficacy than would a metal ring set with the stone, as in the former case the substance when worn would always be in direct contact with the skin of the wearer. Jehangir also owned an entire ruby ring given him by Shaikh Farid-i-Bukhari, and valued at 25,000 rupees (about $12,500) . In modern times, the Burmese ambassador to the court of Persia is said to have brought with him, as a gift to the Shah, a ring cut out of a solid ruby of the finest color.^^ One of the most remarkable archers' rings was en- graved out of a single piece of emerald. It is an example of the type which is narrow at one end, tapering to a broad edge at the other. It is of a beautiful green emer- ald and very handsomely engraved. This ring was prob- ably made for the Mogul Emperor Shah Jehan, about 1650. It was part of Nadir Shah's share of the booty from the sack of Delhi in 1739, and this Persian adven- turer had the following inscription engraved upon it in Persian characters : " For a bow for the King of Kings, Nadir, Lord of the Conjunction, at the subjugation of India, from the Jewel-house [at Delhi] it was selected 1152 [1739 A.D.]". The luckless Shah Shuja, gave it to Runjit Singh, the Lion of the Panjab, in 1813, when he King, " Natural History of Precious Stones," London, 1870, p. 297. ^'^ Bloohmann, "Ain-i-Akbari," Calcutta, 1871, p. 414 and Wills, " The Land of the Lion and the Sun," London, 1883, p. 376; cited in Ball, "A Description of Two Large Spinel Rubies," Dublin, 1894, p. 390; reprint from Proc. of the Roy. Ir. Soc, 3d ser., vol. iii, No. 2. FORMS OF RINGS AND MATERIALS 103 took refuge at the latter's court at Lahore. At the end of the second Sikh war in 1849 it was found with the regaha in the royal treasury of Lahore. This splendid ring once owned by Lord Dalhousie, was sold at Edin- burgh in 1898; it came into the possession of W. H. Broun, Esq., and is now one of the gems of a private collection in Philadelphia.^^ In past times the Shahs of Persia have passed ordi- nances restricting the exportation of turquoise. Regard- ing this precious stone as peculiarly Persian and for the furthering of Persian goldsmiths, it was enacted that no unset turquoises should be exported; as a rule the settings were in rings, these being easily transported, since a great number of them could be strung together. Sometimes a prospective purchaser was permitted to test the quality of a string of turquoise rings by wearing a bunch of them for a while under his arm-pit, to see whether the stones would change color. Although some failed to endure this rather severe test, many withstood it successfully. The entire circlet of certain of the finest turquoise rings was of pierced gold enriched with rose diamonds; other, less valuable turquoises have been set in fine gold rings, carved or plain, and those of the next lower value, in ornamented silver. The cheaper sort ranged in price all the way from one cent to a few dollars, and were often set in rings made of tin, or of tinned iron, the hoop costing but two cents. The stones were always cut T. H. Hendley, " Indian Jewellery," Journal of Indian Art and Industry, vol. xii, 1907-1909, p. 166; pi. 141. Gul- Begum, " The History of Humayun," translated by Annette S. Eeveridge, London, 1902, p. 121, note; Orient Trans. Fund, n. s., vol. i. 104 RINGS irregularly en cahochon, the form being frequently quite pleasing ; if the turquoise were thin the back was coated with pitch to bring out the color, and on the surface was engraved some short formula from the Koran, such as "Allah be praised! " or "Allah is great! " Occasionally the Shah's portrait was the subject. In the Roman world entire rings of yellow amber were sometimes formed, and in a few instances figures or heads have been engraved in relief upon the chaton. Their execution need not have presented any greater difficulty than did the carving of the many small amber figures which have come down to us from ancient times. A carved amber ring in the Franks Bequest of the British Museum is beautifully formed with full-relief figures of Venus and of Cupid on either side. It is cut out of a single piece of amber, and is considered to be the finest example extant of Roman carving in that material,^^ but unfortunately is considerably damaged. Pliny declares that in his time amber ornaments were almost exclusively for women's wear ; indeed, a few years later, Artemidorus, in his " Oneirocritica," an interpreta- tion of dreams, after saying that amber and ivory rings were only appropriate for women, proceeds to assert that this was true of all kinds of rings.^^ There are but a very few ivory rings in the British Museum, although the collection includes several bone rings, probably for wear on the thumb. The relief-carving of masks has Hodder M. Westropp, "A Manual of Precious Stones and Antique Gems," London, 1874, p. 120. No. 1627 of British Museum Catalogue of the Finger Rings, Greek, Etrus- can and Roman, in the Dept. of Antiquities, by F. H. Marshall, London, 1907. Oneirocritica, lib. ii, cap. 5. FORMS OF RINGS AND MATERIALS 105 been thought to make it hkely that they were actors' rings.^^ Not only have entire emerald and ruby rings been formed, but even the intractable diamond has lately been cut in this form. An entire diamond ring, the work of the diamond-cutter Antoine, of Antwerp, was shown in the exposition held in Antwerp in 1894.^^ Another such ring has since been executed by Bart Brouwer of Amsterdam. In this latter ring the facets are all triangular. The unrivalled Heber R. Bishop Collection of Jades, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, contains an ancient thumb-ring {pan chih) , entirely of jade, from the time of the Han Dynasty (206 b.c- 220 A.D.). Its major and minor diameters are 1.16 inches and 1.03 inches, respectively, and it weighs .809 ounce. The material is the nephrite variety of jade, the color being clouded gray with very dark brown veinings. The rings of this type were worn on the thumb of the left hand to protect it from injury by the bowstring after the discharge of the arrow. The dark veining re- sults from the filling of the fissures in the material with some brownish-black substance ; it is an excellent example of the amphibolic alteration of jadeite, which is shown by chemical analysis to be present here to the amount of 4.15 per cent. (No. 330 of the collection). A recent type of archer's thumb ring in this collec- tion, of the Ch'ien-Lung period (1736-1795 a.d,), is of F. H. Marshall, " Catalogue of the Finger Rings, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman, in the Departments of Antiquities, British Museum," London, 1907, p. xxxvii; see plate xxiv, Nos. 1621, 1624. Figured in Leviticus, " Geillustreerde encyclopedie der diamantnijverheid," Haarlem, 1907, p. 229. 106 RINGS cylindrical form, the thick solid side bevelled inward at the base so as to adjust the ring to the hand; the convex top slopes downward from the middle. This is of a beautiful light emerald-green jadeite, clouded here and there with shades of greenish gray. It has diameters of 1.06 inches and 1.25 inches, and weighs about 1 Vs ounces. The specific gravity and hardness are those of the jadeite variety of jade, a silicate of aluminum, while nephrite is a silicate of magnesium (No. 508). The Bishop Collection also contains two archers' rings of the original type, with a wide flange on the lower side. These are entirely of carnelian, and are representa- tive of the kind really used by archers. The greater part of the thumb-rings, many of them called more or less loosely " archers' rings," were never designed for any such special use, but constitute a modification of the original form to suit them for habitual wear. Indeed, in many cases the more ornate were rather used as pretty toys to handle, as Orientals are fond of handling gems or small jewels, than for wear. Of course the gradual disuse of archery in military operations contributed greatly to the change of fashion. In this collection may be seen a finger-ring (chih- huan) of white jade (nephrite) set with jewels. Its shape resembles that of an archer's ring and it is dec- orated with floral designs, the effect enhanced by sixty precious stones, comprising twenty-four rubies, thirty- two emeralds and four diamonds. This ring is of Indian workmanship, those made in China scarcely ever having any precious-stone adornment. In the floral ornamenta- tion a row of rubies and emeralds cut en cahochon are outlined in gold so as to represent flowers, while in the field are four conventionalized upright sprays, each com- posed of three flowers, the upper one a facetted diamond. FORMS OF RINGS AND MATERIALS 107 while the lateral pair are facetted emeralds. On the upper rim an undulating floral scroll has stem and leaves of gold, and flowers set alternately with rubies and emeralds.^^ At the time a Corean embassy visited the United States in 1883, one of its leading members was Min Yonk Ik, a princely personage, closely related to the queen of the country, who brought with him two thumb- Hngs, which he wore, alternately, on his right hand thumb. In the case of one of these rings the Corean must have been imposed upon by the seller, for he supposed it to be jade, while the present writer's examination of it showed that the material was merely serpentine. Its outside diameter was 34 mm. ( 1 Vs in. ) , the inside diameter being 22 mm. (about % in.), the length, or height, was 28.5 mm. {lys in.). This ring was described by the writer in 1884, in Science; in the succeeding year he had occasion to correct a statement that it was an archer's ring.^* The Corean women commonly wear two rings, always exactly similar in every respect. As a rule they are perfectly plain, of oval form, the material being gold, silver, amber or coral. The coral was usually imported from China. The Chinese ambassador, Wu Ting Fang, wore a jade ring in which was a thick plate of gold to reduce the size. Some of the more beautiful are of the pale green jade, known by the Chinese as fei ts'ui^ or "king- ^3 " The Heber R. Bishop Collection of Jades," New York, vol. ii, p. 259, illustration. Science, vol. iv. No. 82, pp. 172, 173, with cut of the ring; vol. iv, No. 85, pp. 270, 271, communication by Edward S. Morse on the subject; vol. vi, No. 126, July 3, 1885, reply of George F. Kunz, citing letter of Lieut. G. C. Foulke, U.S.N., of U. S. Legation at Seoul, Corea. 108 RINGS fisher-plumes." Many of these rings are exceedingly- costly; when made of some piece of jade possessing very exceptional qualities of color and surface, a thumb-ring may cost as much as $10,000, or even $15,000. Inci- dentally, it should be noted that Wu Ting Fang is an excellent judge of precious stones. Archers' rings are made by Chinese and Manchus, Turks and Persians, who release the arrow according to Asiatic style, the bowstring being held by the bent thumb. In China they eventually became the insignia of military rank, and were of jade, or a glass imitation of j ade ; the latter are the kind usually to be found in curio shops. The Japanese did not use them, the archers wearing a glove with a horn thumb-piece. This type of glove was, however, not used by the Japanese swords- men, as the stiff thumb-piece would have hindered the free use of the hand.^^ An engraved finger ring entirely of milk-white jade is in the Berlin Mineralogical Museum, and in the col- lection of Dr. David Wiser, of Zurich, there is a jade ring-setting on which is engraved a scorpion. This image was believed to lend to the object so engraved a talismanic virtue. A slab of jade in the Freiburg Museum bears the carefully engraved figure of a scor- pion and is considered to be an amulet. The source of this specimen and the place and time in which it was engraved have not been accurately acertained.^^"" The Pueblo Bonito ruins in New Mexico have fur- nished us with a fragment of a jet ring. The portion remaining of this ring shows that it must have had a Communicated by Stewart Culin, Brooklyn Institute. ^^^Heinrich Fischer, " Nephrit und Jadeit," Stuttgart, 1880, pp. 39, 334, fig. 52 on page 39. FORMS OF RINGS AND MATERIALS 109 diameter of about 2.3 centimetres, the width of the band being 1.4 centimetres. Apparently some accident befell the original ring, causing part of the brittle material to chip off, for in the section that has been preserved a piece of jet, as wide as the band and 9 millimetres across, has been inlaid in the body of the ring. This was cut away to a depth of a millimetre, and the concave-convex inlay was then glued on.^^ The gold-plating of bronze rings dates back to the Mycensean period, and Ionic silver rings with gold plat- ing were made in the sixth century b.c. ; Cypriote bronze rings of about the third century B.C. have also been found. Where, as in many cases, mere gilding has been resorted to, only traces of this may remain after the lapse of centuries.'^^ We note elsewhere the gold-plated iron rings worn by some Roman slaves to evade the penalty imposed upon those who illegally wore gold rings. Glass rings are frequently made at Murano and other places in Italy of the so-called " gold stone," aven- turine, or Venice gold stone. They are very inexpensive and are generally worn by children or young girls. Mosaic rings are those in which the upper part of the ring contains either a Byzantine mosaic made up of colored glass or other material, or a Florentine mosaic, in which shell, marble and other materials are set in slate or marble settings. Bohemian garnet rings are generally made of facetted, rose cut, or cabochon cut garnets, set usually in 8 to 14 George H. Pepper, " The Exploration of a Burial Room in Pueblo Bonito, New Mexico," Putnam Anniversary Volume, New York, 1909, p. 244, fig. 7. F. H. Marshall, " Catalogue of the Finger Rings, Greek, Etruscan and Roman, in the . . . British Museum," London, 1907, p. xxxii. 110 RINGS carat gold. They are made in Prague and other cities in Bohemia, the garnet material, of the pyrope variety, coming largely from the mines at Meronitz, Bohemia. Among the cheap materials that have been used on occasion for making rings, are horseshoe nails, which may perhaps be supposed to possess some of the wonder- ful talismanic power accorded by popular fancy to the horseshoe. The nails are more or less skilfully twisted into a ring form, and are at least as durable as other forms of iron rings. An extraordinary material combination for the sub- stance of rings, is that of dynamite and pewter. At present when the war-fever has seized upon almost all civilized peoples, we might accord to the dynamite in this composition a symbolic martial meaning. What risk there might be of the painful results of war befalling the wearer of a dynamite ring through its detonating unexpectedly because of some powerful shock, is per- haps too slight to deter those who are in eager pursuit of novelties. The pale alloy of gold, known as electrum,^^ was favored for ring-making in Oriental Greece, and is termed " white gold " in ancient inventories. Thus in an inventory of the temple treasures of Eleusis, made in 332 B.C., there is mention of " two plain gold rings of A natural or artificial mixture of gold and silver found native at Vorospotak, Transylvania, and elsewhere, mentioned by Herodotus. The electros, rjXeKrpo^s^ of Homer and Strabo ; Pliny, xxxiii, 23 ; although this word was most frequently used to designate amber. Varying in specific gravity from 15.5 to 12.5. The ratio of gold to silver is 1:1. Specific gravity of gold, 19.33; silver, pure, 10.5; correspond to 35.3 per cent, of silver, gold 64.7 per cent. Pliny states that when the propor- tion of silver to gold is 1 : 4 (20 per cent.), it is called electra. FORMS OF RINGS AND MATERIALS 111 white gold." Some Ionic rings of the fifth century, B.C. from Cyprus are also of this metallic composition. Of gold rings set with stones, a Parthenon inventory of 422 B.C. lists one with an onyx, perhaps a scaraboid, and in a Delos inventory of 279 B.C., there is one with an anthraoo, probably a garnet. The variation of the phras- ing in these two mentions, the former naming an onyx having a ring of gold, while the latter speaks of a " gold ring having a garnet," might be taken to indicate that the onyx was a large object compared with the hoop, and the garnet a relatively small one.'^^ In the masterpiece of ancient Greek romantic prose literature, the ^thiopica of Heliodorus (fl. ab. 400 a.d.) , perhaps Heliodorus Bishop of Tricca, the writer de- scribes a splendid ring given by Kalasiris to Nausikles. This was one of the royal jewels of the King of Ethiopia. The hoop was of electrum, and in the bezel was set a beautiful amethyst engraved with a design showing a shepherd pasturing his flock."^^ Heliodorus especially dwells upon the fact that this was an Ethiopian (prob- ably an Indian) amethyst, this variety far surpassing those from Iberia (the Spanish Peninsula) and Britain. In the very successful rendering of this Greek passage by Rev. C. W. King, the contrast between the former and the latter is thus gracefully expressed:^ ^ Corpus Inscriptionum Atticarum, ii (5), 767 b, 1, 19. '^^ J. H. Marshall, " Catalogue of the Finger Rings, Greek, Etruscan and Roman, in the . . . British Museum," London, 1907, p. xxxi. '^'^ " Heliodorou Aithiopikon, biblia deka," Parisiois, 1804, pt. i, pp. 190-192. "^^ C. W. King, " The Natural History of Precious Stones and Gems," London, 1865, p. 64. 11^ RINGS For the latter blushes with a feeble hue, and is like a rose just unfolding its leaves from out of the bud, and beginning to be tinged with red by the sunbeams. But in the Ethiopian Amethyst, out of its depth flames forth like a torch a pure and as it were Spring-like beauty ; and if you turn it about as you hold it, it shoots out a golden lustre, not dazzling the sight by its fierceness, but resplendent with cheerfulness. Moreover, a more genuine nature is inherent in it than is possessed by any brought from the West, for it does not belie its appellation, but proves in reality to the wearer an antidote against intoxica- tion, preserving him sober in the midst of drinking-bouts. In his " Rape of the Lock," Pope writes of Belinda's golden hair-bodkin, that the metal had originally been worked up into rings and then into a gold buckle, thus the gold was The same, his ancient personage to deck Her great-great-grandsire wore about his neck In three seal-rings, which, after melted down, Formed one huge buckle for his widow's gown. Besides the precious metals many other materials were used in ancient times for rings. Thus a few leaden rings have been preserved, a number of them having been unearthed in a tomb at Beneventum. The casting has been roughly done, without finishing touches. It has been suggested that in view of the rarity of leaden rings, the large number found in this tomb may be taken to indicate that the deceased had been a manufacturer of rings of this kind. From Tanagra comes a leaden ring of great size; as it is too large for wear, it might be regarded as a votive offering to a shrine or temple. Glass rings were also used at times for this purpose by the poorer classes, an example of such a ring being listed among the possessions of the temple of Asklepios at Athens as early as the fourth century B.C. The manu- FORMS OF RINGS AND MATERIALS 113 facture of glass rings was quite extensively carried on in Alexandria. In one case the bezel had been adorned with a painting of a woman's head, over which was placed a translucent glass plate. This was found at the Rosetta Gate, Alexandria.'^^ An ivory ring of Roman times, later provided with a band of silver, is noted in the descriptive catalogue of the Royal Museum at Budapest. It is of oval form and artistically engraved with the seated figure of a military leader clothed with a mantle, the left hand extended as though delivering a speech ; in his right hand he holds a spear. Behind him is a trophy, and before him stands a Roman soldier fully armed. Engraved ivory rings from Greek or Roman times are rare, just as are en- graved amber rings. The trophy emblem denotes that this ring commemorated some triumph, or victory.^* A " St. Martin's ring " had become, in the seven- teenth century, a name for a brummagem ring, as is shown among other examples by the following satirical passage from a book entitled " Whimsies, or a new Cast of Characters," published in London in 1631; "St. Martin's Rings and counterfeit bracelets are commod- ities of infinite consequence; they will passe current at a may-pole, and purchase favor from their May Marian." A rare tract called " The Captain's Com- monwealth " (1617) says that kindness was not like alchemy or a St. Martin's ring, " that are faire to the eye and have a rich outside ; but if a man should breake F. H. Marshall, " Catalogue of the Finger Rings, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman, in the Departments of Antiquities, British Museum," London, 1907, pp. xxxv, xxxvi. " Cimeliotheca Musei Nationalis Hungarici sive catalogus historico-criticus antiquitatum raritatum et pretiosorum eius instituti," Bud^, 1825, p. 136. 8 114 RINGS them asunders, and looke into them, they are nothing but brasse and copper." The makers, or vendors of these rings hved within the precincts of the collegiate church St. Martin's-le-Grand, and had long enjoyed a certain immunity from prosecution under the laws pro- hibiting the manufacture of ornaments made in imita- tion of genuine gold or silver ones. The gilding or silvering of brooches or rings made of copper or latten, is prohibited by an ordinance of Henry IV (1404), and another of Edward IV (in 1464), which, while pro- nouncing it to be unlawful to import rings of gilded copper or latten, expressly declared that the act should not be construed as meaning anything prejudicial to one Robert Styllington, clerk, dean of the King's free chapel of " St. Martin le Graund de Londres " or to any person or persons dwelling within this sanctuary or precincts, or who might in after time dwell there, or more especially in St. Martin's Lane.'^^ Rings set with precious stones, other than turquoises and pearls, can be safely cleaned with warm water, white soap and a trifle of ammonia. The wash should be ap- plied with a soft old tooth-brush, so as to cleanse the spaces between the filling and the stone-setting. A little polishing off with a soft chamois will thoroughly restore the brilliancy of the stone. Turquoise or pearl rings, however, need more careful treatment and the above directions do not apply in their case. "^^ Francis Cohen, " St. Martin's rings," Archeeologia, vol. xviii, pt. i, London, 1815, pp. 55, 56. Ill SIGNET RINGS IF we pass over the scene between Judah and his daughter-in-law Tamar, related in Gen. xxxvii, 12-26, where the patriarch leaves his signet (not neces- sarily a signet ring) his bracelets and his staff, as pledges for a promised gift, the earliest Hebrew notice of a ring is in Genesis xlii, 42, where we read that in return for the interpretation of his dream and for the valu- able counsel as to laying up a stock of grain in Egypt to forestall a coming famine, the Pharaoh of the time " took oif his ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph's hand." This might refer to a period about 1600 B.C., or possibly somewhat earlier, always provid- ing the tradition be accepted as in a certain sense exact. Centuries later, in the Desert, when the Lord com- manded offerings for the Tabernacle, the Ark of the Covenant, and for the ephod and breastplate, among the gifts proffered are enumerated " bracelets, earrings, and rings " (Exodus, xxxv, 22). The Book of Daniel, written not earlier than the sixth century before Christ, and more probably, in its present form, a work of the second century B.C., relating the imprisonment of Daniel in the lions' den, states that when at the reluctant com- mand of King Darius he was shut up therein, " a stone was brought, and laid upon the mouth of the den; and the king sealed it with his own signet, and with the signet of his lords " (Dan. vi, 17). Still, these might have been of the well-known Babylonian type of " roll- ing seals " and not rings. 115 116 RINGS The Book of Esther, however, of later date than Daniel, makes definite mention of the signet ring of the Persian monarch called Ahasuerus ( Artaxerxes) in the Biblical text, and while the recital can scarcely be ac- cepted as historical in any sense, the details of custom and adornment are probably quite trustworthy. On investing Haman with a great authority, Ahasuerus " took his ring from his hand and gave it unto Haman," whereupon the latter summoned the king's scribes and had them write letters to the provincial governors — in- structing the latter to kill all the Jews in the kingdom on the thirteenth day of the month Adar; each of these letters was " sealed with the king's ring." Before this dire disaster could be consummated, the royal favor was gently swayed in an opposite direction by the grace and charm of Esther, the Hebrew favorite of the sov- ereign, and the wicked Haman was hanged on the tall gallows he had set up for Mordecai, Esther's guardian, on whom the ring stript from Haman's hand was bestowed. In spite of the somewhat confused recital, one point is always strongly brought out, that the im- pression of the royal signet imparted to letters or docu- ments the quality of royal ordinances. In Persia the power and authority attributed to the ring of the sovereign is noted by the Persian poet Unsuri (fi. 1000 A.D. ) , and in the legends of that land the f amous though fabulous hero-king, Jemshid, is said to have had a magic ring of wondrous power. Among the Persians, as in many other Oriental countries, the signet-ring was long considered to be a symbol of authority.^ ^ Communicated by Prof. A. V. Williams Jackson, of Col- umbia University, who cites G. B. Browne's " Literary History of Persia" (London and New York, 1906), vol. ii, p. 123, note 3, and Louisa Stuart Costello, " Rose Garden of Persia," London, 1887, p. 33. SIGNET RINGS 117 The gold ring of Queen Hatshepset (about 1500 B.C.), consort of Thothmes II, whose prenomen, Maat- ka-Ra, signifies " flesh and blood of Amen Ra," is set with a lapis lazuli scarab inscribed with the above words. ^ Another ring with lapis lazuli setting is that of Thothmes III, whose titles, Beautiful God, Conqueror of All Lands, Men-kheper-Ila, are inscribed on one side of the rectangular stone above a design representing a man-headed lion in the act of crushing a prostrate foe with his paw.^ A steatite scarab, set in a gold ring, bears the name of Ptah-mes, a high priest of Memphis.^ Another steatite ring-scarab is inscribed with the name and title of Shashank I, the Shishak of the Bible, who reigned about 966 b.c.^ The gold signet ring of Aah-hotep I, queen of Seqenenralll (1610-1597 B.C.) of the XVII Dynasty, was found with a wealth of other jewels at Draa-abul- Nega, the northern and most ancient part of the Theban necropolis. This queen had an unusually long and event- ful life. The records clearly indicate that she must have been one hundred years old, or very nearly that age, at the time of her death, and while her youth was passed at the end of the period of the oppressive rule of the foreign Hyksos kings, she lived to witness the glorious revival of native Egyptian rule under her husband, son and grandson. This ring is now in the Louvre Museum.^ ^ British Museum, Fourth Egyptian Room, No. 201 (Table Case J). 2 British Museum, Fourth Egyptian Room, No. 202. ^ British Museum, Fourth Egyptian Room, No. 204. ^ British Museum, Fourth Egyptian Room, No. 217. ^ W. M. Flinders Petrie, "A History of Egypt During the XVII and XVIII Dynasties," London, 1904, pp. 9, 10. 118 RINGS An interesting Egyptian signet bears the cartouche of Khufu, the second ruler of the IV Dynasty (ab. 3969-3908), the Cheops of the Greeks (Manetho's Suphis), in whose reign the greatest of the pyramids was built. The worship of Khufu continued to a late period of Egyptian history, and this signet belonged to a Ra-nefer-ab, priest or keeper of the pyramid under the XXVI Dynasty, 664-525 b.cJ The ring is of fine gold, and weighs nearly % ounce ; it was found at Ghizeh by Colonel Vyse, in a tomb known as Campbell's Tomb, and was acquired in Egypt by Dr. Abbott, who gathered together a choice collection of Egyptian antiquities dur- ing a residence of twenty years in Egypt. In 1860, this collection was given to the New York Historical Society through the liberality of citizens of New York.^ The rings of the Minoan and Mycensean periods from about 1700 B.C. to 1000 B.C. offer a great variety of engraved designs, some in relief and others in intaglio, but all destined it seems for use as signets. Undoubtedly these rings derive in the last instance from Egyptian influence, their especial characteristics, however, are early Greek, but rarely Egyptian, as in the case of a bronze ring with a sphinx in relief found in the necropolis of Zafer Papoura near Knossos in Crete. Many of the Mycensean engraved rings were evi- dently not intended to be used for sealing, as the intaglio is frequently very shallow, and as the proper position of the parts of the body would not be rightly shown in an impression. Hence these rings must have been de- signed simply for wear as ornaments. The hoop is often W. M. Flinders Petrie, "A History of Egypt from the Earliest Times to the XVI Dynasty," New York, 1895, p. 42. ^ New York Historical Society, "Catalogue of Egyptian Antiquities," New York, 1915, p. 63 ; No. 1046, figs. 1, 2 and 3, PORTRAIT OF KATHARINA AEDER, WIFE OF MELCHOW HANLOCHER, BY HANS BOCK THE ELDER Gem and serpent ring on right forefinger, and three rings on left fourth finger Art Gallery at Basel, Switzerland SIGNET RINGS 119 astonishingly small, so much so that it will not pass down onto the third finger- joint of an average man's hand, and would only fit the very slender finger of a woman.^ Some remarkably fine rings are in the Cesnola Col- lection of Cypriote Antiquities in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Among them two serpen- tine rings of gold are well worth noting. In one of these the coil has six turns which are brazed together; at either end is a ram's head. The other ring shows a serpent of two full coils, with erect head and curved neck and tail ; scales are marked at the ends. The bands of the ring are smooth and plain. Many of the rings are of the swivel type and are set with artistically engraved scarabs. In one of these the scarab is of green plasma, translucent but somewhat clouded ; the cutting is well executed. The bottom shows two wrestlers, each entirely nude with the exception of a short ribbed apron about the loins. Be- hind each is an erect urseus (the serpent emblem of Egyptian divinities and kings), with wings like those of the goddess Mut, extended in protection. Between the wrestlers, on the ground, is an object resembling a wolf's head. The bow and collet of this signet are of gold. The plasma scarab in another of these swivel rings has been pronounced to be a perfect example of this form. The stone is a pure green and the scarab has been decorated with two seated, winged andro- sphinxes (with man's head and lion's body), the paws raised before the sacred tree between them; the symbol ® Adolph Furtwangler, " Die Antiken Gemmen," Leipzig and Berlin, 1900, vol. iii, p. 31. A descriptive atlas of the Cesnola Collection of Cypriote Antiquities in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, by Louis P. di Cesnola, vol. iii, pt. i, New York, 1903, pi. xxiv, Nos. 12 and 13. 120 RINGS of lordship, nebj is placed below. The hoop is a plain, thin wire.^^ Two massive ivory rings were found in the course of excavations at Salamis, on the island of Cyprus. One was set with an oval disk of green glass, and was of the type used for sealing amphorse of wine. The other bears the head of a woman in bas-relief; this is probably a cameo of Arsinoe.^^ The story of the ring of Polycrates, tyrant of Samos (d. 522 B.C.), is related by Herodotus (b. 484 B.C.), who, writing less than a century after the death of Poly- crates, may probably give us the main facts with reason- able accuracy. According to this accoimt, Polycrates had formed an alliance with Amasis, King of Egypt, and the latter began to fear that the unbroken good fortune of the Samian ruler would arouse the jealousy of the gods; he therefore counselled Polycrates to throw away his most prized treasure. This was a splendid emerald, set in a gold ring, and engraved by Theodorus of Samos, the supreme master of the art of gem engrav- ing in that age. Acceding to the request of Amasis, Polycrates sailed out to sea on one of his ships and cast the precious ring into the waters. However, the gods refused the gift, for not long afterward the tyrant's chief cook brought him back the ring, which had just been found in cutting up a fish. News of this occurrence was sent to Amasis, who immediately broke off the alliance, since he believed that the gods were implacable, and would visit Polycrates with downfall and destruc- ^^Ibid., pi. XXV, figs. 10 and IS. Alexander Palma di Cesnola, " Salaminia (Cyprus), The History, Treasures and Antiquities of Salamis in the Island of Cyprus," London, 1884, p. 73, figs. 7 and 13 on pi. vii. ^2 Lib. iii, caps. 40-43. SIGNET RINGS 121 tion. This, indeed, proved to be the case, as a few years later the tyrant was inveigled into the power of Oroetes, a Persian satrap, and was put to death by crucifixion. The design engraved upon this ring was a lyre, if we can trust the statement to this effect made centuries later by Clemens Alexandrinus/^ Strange to say Pliny, who relates the story quite fully, asserts that in the Temple of Concord there was shown the supposed gem of the famous ring of Polycrates. This was an unen- graved sardonyx, set in a golden cornucopia, and had been dedicated to the temple by Augustus. Pliny is careful to write "if we may believe," in reporting this almost certainly spurious treasure of the Temple of Concord. Probably the attribution was nothing more than an invention of the custodians to enlist the interest of visitors. A corroboration to a certain extent of the tradition that the seal of Polycrates was cut on an emerald is given by the existence of a small engraved emerald of about this period, found in Cyprus, and evidently of Phoenician workmanship. It bears the figure of a sov- ereign holding a sceptre in one hand and an axe in the other ; on his head is a high tiara and the arrangement of hair and beard, as well as the dress and other details, are of iEgypto- Syrian type. This gem formed part of the Tyszkiewicz Collection.^^ In a recently published work, M. Salomon Reinach, of the National Museum at St. Germain-en-Laye, an archaeologist of the highest repute, makes a curious con- jecture in regard to the real significance of the story Paedagogus, lib. iii, cap. ii. Adolf Furtwangler, " Die Antiken Gemmen," Berlin, 1900, vol, ii, p. 273, vol. iii, p. 81 ; see vol. i, plate Ixi, No. 11. 122 RINGS related by Herodotus regarding this signet. M. Reinach holds that when Polycrates sailed out to sea to cast away his ring, he was engaged in the performance of a cere- mony similar to that performed annually by the Doges of Venice, when they wedded the Adriatic by casting a ring into its waters. Polycrates, as a " thalassocrat," or ruler of the sea, celebrated in this way his mastery over this element, and M. Reinach believes that this act, told as an isolated happening by Herodotus, was really a ceremony repeated each year. The conjecture is an in- genious one, although it may not be generally accepted. The signet of the Persian sovereign, Xerxes, is said to have borne the nude figure of a woman with disheveled hair.^^ This depicted Anahita, the Persian goddess of fertilization and also of war, a divinity closely resembling the Assyrian Ishtar in her attributes and functions. According to other ancient authorities, however, the de- sign was either a portrait of Xerxes himself, that of Cyrus the Great, or else a representation of the horse whose neighing legend states to have been received as an omen determining the choice of Darius Hystaspes, father of Xerxes, as King of Persia. In Greeco-Roman times, a certain Eurates is repre- sented to be the owner of a ring set with an engraved signet bearing the head of the Pythian Apollo, and to have boasted that the ring literally " spoke " to him. Of course, the satirist Lucian, who tells this tale, only offers it as a specimen of the lies told by Eurates, still the 1^ Reinach, " Cultes, Mythes et Religions," Paris, 1906, vol. ii, p. 214. Duffield Osborne, " Gem Engraving," New York, 1912, p. 287. SIGNET RINGS 123 recital indicates that such fables were credited in the second century of our era.^^ Another superstitious use of signet rings was to throw a number of them into a heap and pull out one at random, the design engraved on the signet being inter- preted as a favorable or unfavorable omen, which fore- told the outcome of any contemplated action. An in- stance of this appears in Plutarch's life of Timoleon (d. 337 B.C.), the Greek general who freed Syracuse from the tyrant Dionysius. In one of his campaigns the enemy had taken up a strong position behind a river, which the troops of Timoleon were forced to ford. A noble rivalry sprang up among the officers as to who should be the first to enter the river, and Timoleon, fear- ing that confusion would result from the dispute, decided to settle the question by lot. Therefore he took from each of the officers his signet ring, cast them into his own cloak, shook them together, and drew out one, which for- tunately bore the figure of a trophy. This was hailed as a good omen, the quarrel was forgotten, and the stream was forded so impetuously, and the attack was so vigor- ous that the enemy was overwhelmed.^^ After his Persian conquests, in 331 B.C., Alexander the Great sealed the letters he sent to Europe with his old seal, while for those sent to functionaries in his new Asiatic domains he used the seal of Darius III, Codo- mannus (reigned 336-330 B.C.), whose daughter Statira he afterwards wedded. Quintus Curtius regards this as emblematic of the idea that a single mind was not wide n IS Luciani, " Opera," vol. iii, Lipsise, 1881, pp. 119, 120. Philopseudes, 37. i^Plutarchi, "Vitse," vol. ii, Lipsi^, 1879, p. 32. Tim- oleon, 31. 124 RINGS enough to embrace two such destinies,^^ but the true reason was undoubtedly that the Asiatic officials were already familiar with the Persian sovereign's seal and were accustomed to render it due obedience. The emblem of the anchor used by the Seleucidse, the dynasty founded in Syria by Seleucus Nicator, one of Alexander's generals, is said to have originated in a strange dream of Laodicea, mother of Seleucus and wife of Antiochus. One night she dreamt that she was visited by the God Apollo, and that he bestowed upon her a ring set with a stone on which an anchor was engraved. This was to be given to the son she was to bear. As such a ring was found in the room the next morning, the dream seemed to be thoroughly corroborated, and, moreover, when Seleucus was born, he had on his thigh the birth- mark of an anchor. Subsequent to Alexander's death in 323 B.C., Seleucus founded, in 312 B.C. the kingdom of Sjo-ia, which was transmitted to a long series of his descendants, each of whom in turn is said to have borne a similar birthmark.^^ In the Hellenistic period (ca. 300 B.c.-ca. 100 B.C.) signet rings entirely of metal largely gave place to those in which the seal was engraved on a stone set in a metal ring. Chalcedony continued to be freely used for this purpose, but the employment of the choicer and harder precious stones from India, transparent and brilhant, and of deeper coloring, characterizes this period. In the front rank is the jacinth, unknown in earlier times, with its wonderful ruddy hues. This is the favorite stone of the time. U sually the gem is given a strongly convex 20 <6 j)e rebus gestis Alexandri Magni, regis Macedoniae," lib. vi, No. 6. 21 Justini, " Historiarum phillipicarum libri XLIV," lib. xv, cap. 4. CARDINAL OF BRANDENBURG, BY THE MASTER OF THE DEATH OF MARY Seal ring on index of right hand; rings set with precious stones on fourth and little fingers of the same hand Reale Galleria Nazionale, Rome PORTRAIT OF A MOTHER AND HER DAUGHTER, BY BARTHOLOMEW BRUYN Three rings on right hand, one with a pointed diamond; also three rings on left hand, two on index finger; the one on the fourth finger set with two pearls Imperial Hermitage, Petrograd SIGNET RINGS 125 form in order to bring out better the play of color. Scarcely less favored than the jacinths were the garnets, also cut in a convex shape ; in many cases the under side was cut slightly concave to enhance the effect. Evi- dently, however, garnets were less prized than jacinths, for the engravings on the former are almost without ex- ception much inferior to those on the latter. Sometimes, in this period, unengraved garnets, cut convex, are used for ring adornment. Another precious stone that makes its first appearance in the Hellenistic epoch is the beryl, which, because of its costliness, is more rarely met with than those we have already mentioned. It is only used for the very finest work, as is also the case with the topaz. The amethyst, which had almost gone out of fashion in the preceding periods, was now restored to favor, prin- cipally because of its beautiful color; like the other stones, it was cut convex. Rock crystal was still used, as were also oarnelian and sardonyx.^ ^ That cruel persecutor of the Jews, Antiochus IV, Epiphanes (175-164 B.C.), on his death-bed, confided to his most trusted councillor, Philip, the signet ring from his finger, that it might be held in trust for his son, a child but nine years old, until the latter should come of age and exercise the royal authority. In the meanwhile, the grant of the signet was equivalent to the bestowal of the regency upon Philip, as he had the power to affix the royal seal upon all edicts or ordinances. The son did not, however, live to receive the ring, as he only survived his father two years, although he was a nominal successor under the title, Antiochus V, Eupator.^^ 22 Adolf Furtwangler, " Die antiken Gemmen," Leipzig and Berlin, 1900, vol. iii, p. 150. 23 « Le Cabinet de la Bibliotheque de Sainte Genevieve," by the Rev. Father Claude du Molinet, Paris, 1692, p. 29. 126 RINGS Two Greek epigrams in the Anthology, on engraved amethysts in signet rings, express the prevailing super- stition regarding the sobering effect of this precious stone; these have been very well Englished by Rev. C. W. King.^* One, by Antipater, concerns a signet of Cleopatra and runs in King's version as follows : A Moenad wild, on amethyst I stand. The engraving truly of a skilful hand; A subject foreign to the sober stone, But Cleopatra claims it for her own; And hallow'd by her touch, the nymph so free Must quit her drunken mood, and sober be. That this was really a ring-stone is proved by the Greek words " on the queen's hand," which King has not literally translated. The image was that of Methe, goddess of intoxication. The other epigram is shorter but to the same point : On wineless gem, I, toper Bacchus, reign ; Learn, stone, to drink, or teach me to abstain. That admiration of a work of art on the part of an unscrupulous official is sometimes fraught with danger for the rightful ownership of the object, was illustrated in the case of a seal ring belonging to a Roman citizen of Agrigentum in Sicily. The arch-pilfercir Verres, Roman governor of the island from 73 to 71 B.C., being on one occasion struck by the beauty of a seal impression on a letter just handed to his interpreter Vitellius, asked whence the letter came and who was the sender. The information was of course quickly given, and there- 24 « The Natural History, Ancient and Modern, of Precious Stones and Gems," London, 1865, pp. 60, 61; Anthology ix, 752; ix, 748. SIGNET RINGS 127 upon Verres, then in Syracuse, dictated a letter to his representative in Agrigentum, requiring that the seal ring should be forwarded to Syracuse without delay, and the owner, a certain Lucius Titius, was forced to give it up to the unscrupulous Roman governor.^^ The injustice of this act must have been felt all the more keenly that the special and peculiar design on a seal was then regarded as something closely linked with the per- sonality of the owner. A strong appeal to the memories aroused by a signet bearing the effigy of a renowned ancestor, was made by Cicero in one of his orations against Catilina. He de- clared that when he submitted to Publius Lentulus Sura, who was involved in the great Catilinian conspiracy, an incriminating letter believed to be his, asking him whether he did not acknowledge the seal with which it was stamped, Lentulus nodded assent. Thereupon Cicero addressed him in these words: " In effect the seal is well known, it is the image of your ancestor, whose sole love was for his country and his fellow-citizens. Mute as it is, this image should have sufficed to hold you aloof from such a crime." When, after the decisive battle of Pharsala, Julius Caesar came to Egypt in pursuit of his defeated adver- sary, Pompey, he learned that the latter had been treach- erously assassinated by the Egyptians, who hoped thereby to gain favor with the conqueror. As proof of Pompey's death, his head was brought to Csesar, who turned away in aversion from the messenger of death. At the same time, Pompey's signet ring was given to M. Tullii Ciceronis, " In Verrem, lib. iv," Oratio nona, cap. 26. 26 Ciceronis, " In Catilinam," iii, cap. v. 128 RINGS the victor, on receiving which tears rose to his eyes,^^ for no memento could be more potent than such a ring. Csesar's manifestation of grief was absolutely free from hypocrisy for he was " of a noble generous nature," and had long had the most friendly relations with Pompey, to whom he gave his daughter Julia in marriage, until the inevitable rivalry for the control of Rome brought them into enmity. The death of Julia is said to have contributed not a little to the termination of the friend- ship between Caesar and Pompey. St. Ambrose answering the self -posed query, whether anyone having an image of a tyrant was liable to punish- ment, asserts that he remembered to have read that certain persons who wore rings bearing the effigies of Brutus and Cassius, the assassins of Cgesar, had been condemned to capital punishment.^^ Of course, the wear- ing of such a ring would imply not only an admiration of the person figured, but also devotion to his cause. The imprint of a proprietor's seal was frequently made upon his trees, and served to establish his owner- ship, so that strangers could have no excuse for cutting them down, or in case of fruit trees, for plucking the fruit. The degree of confidence reposed in the seal im- pression is strikingly illustrated by the account that when Pompey learned that some of his soldiers were committing atrocities on the march, he ordered that all their swords should be sealed, and no one should remove the impression without having obtained permission to do so.^^ Georgii Longi, " De annulis signatoriis antiquoTum," Francofurti et LipsijE, 1709, p. 24, citing Plutarch's life of Pompey. 28 Ibid., p. 40. 29 Ibid., p. 115. SIGNET RINGS 129 The symbols used as mint-marks on ancient coins are often reproductions of the seals of the chief magis- trate of the city or district, or else of the mint-master. Among these may be noted such types as: a locust, a calf's head, a dancing Satyr, a young male head, a culex (gnat), etc.^^ A ring as a mint-mark on early English coins is a clear indication that such coins were struck in one of the ecclesiastical mints. On a penny of Stephen's reign ( 1135-1154) , from the Archbishop of York's mint, this mint-mark has been made by converting the left leaf of the fleur-de-lys surmounting the sceptre into a small annulet. The ring-mark appears on the coins of York from the earliest times, and is assumed to have been especially favored for the English Primate's mint in reference to the Ring of St. Peter, or the Fisherman's Ring. A penny, probably coined after the installation of Archbishop William in 1141, appears to be one of the earliest of this type. The reverse gives Ulf as the name of the coiner or money er.^^ While none of the signet rings of Roman emperors, or even of Romans prominent in the social or political life of the centuries immediately preceding and succeed- ing the beginning of the Christian Era, have been pre- served, it is possible to learn from literary sources the devices engraved on many of them. Scipio Africanus, the conqueror of Hannibal, had his father's portrait en- graved on his signet, and his son followed the father's example in this respect. The idea seems to be an ex- 30 Edward T. Newell, " Historia numorum," Oxford, 1911, p. 159. 3^ W. J. Andrew, "A Remarkable Hoard of Silver Pennies and Halfpennies of the Reign of Stephen, found at Sheldon, Derbyshire, in 1867," in The British Numismatic Journal, 1st ser., vol. vii (1911), pp. 52, 56; see pi. ii, fig, 27. 9 130 RINGS cellent one, as both family honor and filial love could thus find expression. The gifted, but dissolute Sylla, in the first design he had cut upon his signet, sought to perpetuate the memory of his victory over Jugurtha in 107 B.c.^ the Mauritanian king Bocchus being depicted in the act of surrendering Jugurtha. Later on Sylla used a signet with three trophies, and finally selected one vi^ith a portrait of Alexander the Great. For Lucullus, the great gourmet and master of all the arts of Roman luxury, the head of Ptolemy, King of Egypt, seemed the design best fitted for his signet. The two great rivals, Pompey and Csesar, chose widely divergent symbols. The former wore a signet engraved with a lion bearing a sword, while on Caesar's ring was cut an armed Venus, the Venus Victrix, from whom the gens Julia claimed descent, and for whose statue Csesar is said to have brought pearls from Britain to be set on the statue's breastplate. The first choice made by Augustus was a sphinx, in symbolical allusion to his taciturnity ; later in his reign he wore a signet with Alexander the Great's head engraved thereon, and finally, moved perhaps by the flatteries of his adulators, he substituted his own image for that of the great Macedonian. The famous literary patron of the Aug- ustan Age, Maecenas (d. 8 a.d.), who was at the same time a very able statesman, chose the singular emblem of a frog. That the blood-thirsty Nero should select a design figuring a martyrdom seems very appropriate, and in the flaying of Marsyas by Apollo cut on his ring, he undoubtedly identified himself with the sun god and leader of the muses who took vengeance upon his would- be rival in the musical art. For Nero was a most devoted amateur of the arts as he understood them, and had sung — in a strained, high-pitched voice it is said — in the SIGNET RINGS 131 theatres of Greece, earning applause enough from the wily Greeks we may be sure. Actuated by jealousy, he is said to have had the singer Menedemus whipped, and to have warmly applauded his " melodious " cries of agony, evidently rejoicing in having forced him to " sing another song." Galba (3-69 B.C.) , Nero's immediate successor, is said to have used successively three signets, the first depicting a dog bending its head beneath the prow of a ship ; this was followed by a ring showing a Victory with a trophy, and lastly came one bearing the effigies of his ancestors. As his reign of less than a year seems too short for us to suppose that all these changes were made in that time, perhaps only the last-mentioned ring was the one he used as emperor. Commodus (161-192 a.d.), the unworthy son of the philosopher-emperor, Marcus Aurelius, had the figure of an Amazon engraved for his signet, this choice having been made, so it is said, because of the pleasure he took in seeing his mistress Martia dressed in this way. Augustus Csesar reposed such unlimited confidence in his son-in-law, Agrippa, and in his friend and finance minister, Maecenas, that he was in the habit of confiding his letters to them for correction, and gave them per- mission to send off the corrected letters, bearing the stamp of his signet which he had deposited in their charge, without submitting them again to him. Similar trust was reposed by Vespasian in Mutianus.^^ The seal was stamped on a linen band passed around the closed tablets on the inside surfaces of which the letter had been written. The impression, made when P. J. Mariette, " Traite des pierre gravees," Paris, 1750, vol. i, pp. 23, 24). 132 RINGS the ends of the band were joined, was either upon wax, soft viscous earth, or even on a mixture of chalk; this was commonly moistened with saliva before the signet was used, so that the engraved stone might not adhere to the imprint and could be easily taken off. The bearer of such a letter fully realized his responsibility for its delivery with unbroken seal, and generally took pains to have this duly recognized by the person to whom it was addressed.^^ The personal seal was also impressed, both in Roman times and later, upon all documents private or public. In the case of private documents the strictly guarded individuality of the seal really afforded a very considerable guarantee of the genuineness of a docu- ment. A survival of this is the common little red seal attached now-a-days to legal documents, necessary to their validity it is true, but giving no possible confirma- tion of the signature. This latter was in fact repre- sented by the design of the old signets. The " Dream Book " of Artemidorus relates as an especially direful vision, that of one who dreamed his signet ring had dropped from his finger, and that the engraved stone set therein had broken into many frag- ments, the result of this being that he could transact no business for forty-five days,^* presumably until he could have a new signet engraved. For the impression of the individual signet was indispensable to give validity to any order or agreement. The Jewish historian Josephus cites, as an example of absent-mindedness, that when the Roman senator Cneius Sentius Saturninus arose in the senate and pro- P. J. Mariette, " Traite des pierre gravees," Paris, 1750, vol. i, p. 20. Georgii Longi, " De anulis signatoriis antiquorum," p. 25 ; Arteraidori, " Oneirocriticon," lib. v, cap. i, 709. Two bronze rings excavated at th Borough Field, Chcsterford. Esse: 1848. Late Roman. British Museum Bone ring with grotesque mask carved on bezel. Found near the ampitheatre at Lyons, France. Roman. British Museum Ornamental gold ring from Wiston, Silver ring. On bezel engraved Sussex England, set with a dark design of a bird approaching a fallen amethyst stag. About Fifth Century a.d. British Museum British Museum SIGNET RINGS 133 nounced a fiery harangue on the death of Caligula, urg- ing the senators to regain their former liberties of which they had been robbed, he quite forgot that he wore on his hand a ring set with a stone on which the head of the detested tyrant was cut. His fellow senator, Trebellius Maximus, remarking it, however, snatched it from his finger, and the stone was crushed to pieces.^^ How common in ancient Rome was the use of a signet ring to seal up the provision rooms in a household, is shown by a passage in the " Casina " of the comic poet Plautus, written about 200 b.c.^ where Cleopatra on leav- ing her home to visit a neighbor, directs her slaves to seal these rooms and bring her ring back to her.^^ Of the betrothal ring, Clemens Alexandrinus says that it was not given as an ornament, but for sealing objects in the conjugal domicile. As the husband's signet ring was often used in a similar way, it was quite customary to bequeath it to a wife or a daughter. An example of this appears in the case of Emperor Aurelian (214-275 A.D.) who left his seal ring to his wife and daughter jointly, the Latin historian adding that in so doing he was acting just like a private citizen." A curious subject was chosen for his signet-ring by a native of Intercatia in Spain. His father had been killed in a single combat by the Roman leader Scipio iEmilius, and it was this scene that the son had engraved upon his ring. When Stilo Preconinus related this fact in Rome he laughingly demanded of his hearers what they supposed the Spaniard would have done if his father Josephus, " History of the Jews," book xix, chap. 2. Act II, sc. i, ver. 58. Vopisci, " Divus Aurelianus," in Scriptores hist. August., vol. ii, p. 184. Abbe Barrand, " Des bagues a toutes les epoques," Paris, 1864, p. 177; reprint from Bulletin Monumental, vol. xxx. 134 RINGS had killed Scipio instead of being killed by him.^^ In the Roman world the custom of removing the rings in case of death is noted by Pliny, who says that they were taken from the fingers of those in the coma- tose state of the dying; the rings were often replaced after death.^^ An instance in point is noted by Suetonius, who reports that when Tiberius became unconscious, and was believed to be about to die, his seal ring was slipped from his finger, but on regaining consciousness the emperor demanded that it should be replaced.^^ To have a ring drop from the finger was regarded as a bad omen, and when an accident of this kind happened to Emperor Hadrian, he is said to have exclaimed: " This is a sign of death." The ring which fell from his finger bore a gem engraved with his own image. The elegy of Propertius (49-15? B.C.) on the " Shade of Cynthia," gives proof that a valuable ring was often left on the hand of the corpse when it was burned on the funeral pyre. The Latin verses describing the apparition may be thus rendered in prose " She still had the same eyes and hair as when on the • funeral couch; but her garments had been burned away. The flame had destroyed the beryl which used to grace her finger, and the infernal stream had discolored her lips." The sense of intimate connection between a valued ring and the wearer, finds expression in Shakespeare's lines (Cymbeline Act I, sc. 5) : My ring I hold dear as my finger ; 'tis part of it. And if we go back 2200 years to a far distant quarter of the globe we meet with the same feeling of intimate 2^ Plinii, " Naturalis Historia," lib. xxxiii. '^^ Suetonii, " Vita Caesarum," Tiberius. Lib, iv, No. vii. SIGNET RINGS 135 connection in the inspired words of the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah (xxii, 24) : Asl live, saith the Lord, though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim King of Judah were the signet upon my right hand, yet would I pluck thee hence. The prophet Haggai (chap, ii, verse 23) uses the designation signet to indicate a specially chosen instru- ment, in the following words: In that day, saith the Lord of hosts, will I take thee, O Zerubbabel, my servant, the son of Shealtiel, saith the Lord, and will make thee as a signet: for I have chosen thee, saith the Lord of hosts. The Freemasons have adopted the signet of Zerub- babel as one of the symbols of the Royal Arch, the seventh masonic degree.^^ The monogram of Christ appears on a signet made for a Christian lady of Roman times, ^lia Valeria. Of this sacred symbol St. John Chrysostom wrote that the Christians of his time always inscribed it at the begin- ning of their letters, and he gives as a reason for this that wherever the name of God appeared there was nothing but happiness. Undoubtedly the shape of the Greek X (Ch) , forming part of this monogram, suggested a form of the cross, and gave an added significance to the mono- gram, especially in view of Chrysostom's statement that the Christians of his time painted or engraved a cross on their houses and made the sign of the cross over their foreheads and their hearts.^^ 42 Albert G. Mackey, "The Book of the Chapter: or Monitorial Instructions in the Degrees of Mark, Past and Most Excellent Master and the Royal Arch," New York, 1858, p. 128. 4^ " Le Cabinet de la Bibliotheque de Sainte Genevieve," by the Rev. Father Claude du Molinet, Paris, 1692, p. 3, pi. 8, fig. 5, impression of seal ; the letters are rather irregularly disposed, 136 RINGS Clemens Alexandrinus in the second century tells us that men were required to wear the seal ring on the little finger, as worn in this way it would interfere least with the use of the hand, and would be best protected from injury and loss/^ While, however, fashion must have dictated to a great extent the finger on which a seal ring was to be worn, we should bear in mind that any particu- lar custom in this matter was not constant, and that indi- vidual preferences must often have determined the finger chosen to bear the seal ring. This diversity is attested by the differing statements of the old writers, as well as by the rare examples offered by ancient statues and paintings. One of the rare ivory rings in the British Museum is a signet the bezel of which bears an engraved design of Christ on the Cross, with the Virgin and St. John on either side. The legend is the motto of Constantine the Great : In hoc signo vinces. The hoop of this ring, which was found in Suffolk, has been restored at the back. The figures are very rudely engraved for a production of the sixteenth century.*^ It appears to have been an ancient usage in some parts of the Christian world to use two signet rings in connection with the baptismal ceremonies. One of these was employed to seal up the font, or else the baptistry, while the other was used to affix a seal upon the pro- fession of faith made by the neophyte, this profession being later entered on a public register. Some of the ecclesiastical writers saw the origin of the first-named ring in the text (Cant, iv, 12) : Clementis Alexandrini, " P^dagogus," lib. iii, cap. ii. O. M. Dalton, " Franks Bequest, Catalogue of Finger Rings, Early Christian, Byzantine, Teutonic, Mediaeval and Later (British Museum)," London, 1912, p. 120, No. 778. Bronze signet-ring, Byzantine, two views and impression. The abbreviated Greek in- scription reads: "May the Lord help his servant Stephan" British Museum 5ronze signet ring. European. Fifteenth Century British Museum Silver ring, broken at the back. Bezel bears letter "T" crowned. Fifteenth Century British Museum Ivory signet ring, with impression. On the carved bezel, the Crucifixion, between the Virgin and St. John; legend: "In hoc signo vinces," motto of the Emperor Constantine British Museum Bronze signet. The octagonal bezel is en- graved with a greyhound's head, and a rather obscure inscription. Ring and impression of signet. Fifteenth Century British Museum Massive gold ring; bezel en- graved with a lion passant regardant, and the legend: "Now is thus." English, late Fifteenth Century. Ring and impression of signet British Museum SIGNET RINGS 137 A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse ; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.^^ A recognition that at the beginning of the sixth cen- tury A.D. bishops were in possession of signet rings is offered by a circular letter addressed by Clovis I, in 511 A.D,, after his victory over the Visigoths at Vougle, to the bishops of the many cities that came under his domination as the fruits of this success. He informs the bishops that he will free all prisoners, either clerical or lay, for whom this favor shall be asked in letters " sealed with your ring." This, however, only confirms the other testimony to the effect that the bishops had signets, but does not suffice to establish the existence at this time of rings given to them at their consecration as symbols of their office.^^ The French kings of the Merovingian age stamped upon their royal documents the design engraved on their signet rings, the accompanying formula being frequently as follows: " By the impress of our ring we corroborate {roborari fecimus)''; slightly different forms appear sometimes. The following list gives, with the dates, a number of seal impressions that have been found on such documents SS. Zenonis et Optati, " Opera omnia," in Migne's Patrologia Latina, vol. xi, Paris, 1845 ; S. Optati, "De schismate Donatistiarum," lib. i, cap. 10, note. Philippi Labbaei and Cossarti, " Sacrosancta concilia," vol. iv, col. 1403. Deloche, " Le port des anneaux dans I'antiquite romaine, et dans les premiers siecles du moyen age," Paris, 1896, pp. 108, 109; from Memoires de I'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, vol. xxxv. 138 RINGS Childebert I, 5S8 a.d. Sigebert I, 545, a.d. Chilperic I, 583 a.d. Dagobert I, 629, 631-632, 635 a.d. Childeric II, 664 a.d. Thierry III, 673 a.d. Dagobert II, 675 a.d. Charles Martel (mayor of the palace), 724 a.d. Pepin le Bref (mayor of the palace), 748 and 751 a.d. Pepin le Bref, king, 755 and 768 a.d. In the Carolingian period, Charlemagne and his suc- cessors continued the use of the same formulas. The possession of signet rings by well-born women, although not usual in Roman times, became quite com- mon in the early Middle Ages, under the influence of the Germanic peoples, which accorded to woman a much more important station than did the Romans or Gallo- Romans. Among the relics of the Merovingian period that have been preserved to our day, is the ring of Ber- teildis, one of the wives of Dagobert I ( 602 ?-638 ) It is of silver and is inscribed with the name of the queen and the monogram of the word regina,^^ A document from the time of Childeric II, dated in 637, shows im- pressions of two queenly signets, one that of Emnechildis, wife of Sigebert II, King of Austrasia and guardian of Childeric, and the other belonging to Blichildis^J, Chil- deric's wife. In the tomb of the Frankish king Childeric I (458- 481 A.D.), accidentally discovered at Tournai in 1653, M. Deloche in Revue archeologique, 3d Series, 1886, vol. ii, p. 141 and 1893, vol. i, p. 269. See also the same writer's " Etude historique et archeo- logique sur les anneaux sigillaires," Paris, 1900, p. 203, fig. This ring was found at Laon, dept. Aisne. SIGNET RINGS 139 in an ancient cemetery of the parish church of St. Brica, were found a number of valuable relics of this sovereign, among them his signet ring. After having been taken to Vienna by Archduke Leopold Wiihelm, then governor of the Low Countries, the treasure came, after his death, into the Imperial Cabinet there. In 1665 the Archbishop of Mayence secured from Emperor Leopold I permission to offer it to Louis XIV. In July of this year the precious objects were transmitted to the French king and were deposited in the Cabinet de Medailles, recently constituted in the Louvre. Shortly afterward, they were transferred to the Bibliotheque du Hoi, and were safely preserved in this institution, under its changing names, until 1831, when the ring and other of the Childeric relics, as well as a number of other historic objects, were stolen from the library. The ring was never recovered. Fortunately there exists a very exact description and a figuration of the ring in an account of the treasure pub- lished in 1655, at Antwerp, by Jean Jacques Chifflet, first physician of the Archduke.^^ The ring, which is of massive gold, bears a large oval bezel on which is en- graved the bust, full face. The sovereign is beardless, with long hair parted in the middle and hanging down to his shoulders. The bust is garbed in Roman style; on the tunic may be seen a decorative plaque. The king's right hand holds a lance which rests on his shoulder, as may be observed in the imperial medals of Constan- tine II, Theodosius II, and their successors. The legend, in the genitive case, Childerici Regis, presupposes the "Anastasis Childerici I Francorum regis, sive Thesaurus sepulchralis Tornaci Nerviorum effossus et commentario illus- tratus," Antverpis, ex officina Plantaniana Balthazaris Moreti, 1655. This is a quarto of 367 pages, with 27 plates and copper- plate engravings. 140 RINGS word signum or sigillumj, as the ring was unquestionably a signet. M. Deloche considers it probable that it was made on the occasion of Childeric's marriage with Basnia, Queen of Thuringia, who had abandoned her native land and her husband to wed the Frankish sovereign. Clovis I (481-511) was the offspring of this union. Although the original has been lost there has fortunately been preserved an imprint from it on the margin of a manu- script in the Bibliotheque de Sainte Genevieve; of the entire ring there is the carefully executed drawing made for Chifflet's work.'^ In many cases the Carolingian monarchs rendered their signets, set with antique gems, significant of their own personality by having their names engraved around the setting. In this way Carloman (741-747) utilized an antique gem showing a female bust with hair tied in a knot, while Charlemagne's choice was a gem engraved with the head of Marcus Aurelius; at a later time he substituted for this one bearing the head of the Alex- andrian god Serapis. It is noteworthy that there is a great likeness between the portraits of Antoninus Pius and the type chosen for Serapis. Louis I, le Debonnaire (814-840), selected a portrait of Antoninus Pius, and his son, Lothaire, Roman emperor, 840-855 a.d., a gem with Caracalla's head, the choice being no inappropriate one in view of Lothaire's weak and treacherous char- acter. Rev. C. W. King conjectures that the selection of the particular head may have depended upon its resem- blance, more or less close, to the features of the monarch, as even though the likeness should not be very exact, the work would surpass anything that the unskilful gem- cutters of this age could produce.^^ ^2 Deloche " Anneaux Sigillaires," Paris, 1900, pp. 192, 193. 53 C. W. King, " On the Use of Antique Gems in the Middle Ages." SIGNET RINGS 141 Of the seal of the Prophet Mohammed, we are told by Ibn Kaldoun that when he was about to send a letter to the Emperor Heraclius, his attention was called to the fact that no letter would be received by a foreign potentate unless it bore the impression of the Prophet's seal. Mohammed therefore had a seal made of silver, bearing the inscription ''Mohammed rasul Allah/' " Mo- hammed the Apostle of God " ; these three words, accord- ing to Al-Bokhari, were disposed in three lines. The Prophet made use of this seal and forbade the making of any one like it. After his death it was employed by his successors, Abu Bekr, Omar and Othman, but the last-named unluckily let it fall from his hand into the well of Aris, whose depth it had never been possible to measure. A duplicate was executed to replace the original, but its loss was greatly deplored, and was looked upon as a possible presage of ill-fortune.^^ The title inscribed upon it was prouder in its simplicity than that assumed by any other ruler, not excepting those who claimed for themselves a divine ancestry, or divine at- tributes. These could at most pretend to rank as divin- ities of a lower order, while Mohammed claimed to be the mouthpiece of the one and only God. Burton writes that it is " a tradition of the Prophet " that the carnelian is the best stone for a signet ring, and this is still the usage among Mohammedans in the Orient. In the Arabian tale entitled " History of Al Haj jaj ben Yusuf and the Young Sayyed," we read that the signet should be of carnelian because the stone was a guard against poverty. 54 « Prolegomenes Historiques," of Ibn. Kaldoun, in Notices et Extraits des Manuscripts de la Bibliotheque Imperiale, vol. XX, pt. i, pp. 61-62, Paris, 1865. 55 Burton, " Supplementary Nights,'' 1868, vol. v, p. 52, 142 RINGS Some Arabic signets bore peculiarly apt inscriptions. One of these reads: "Correspondence is only a half- joy," a delicate piece of flattery for the recipient of a letter bearing this seal. Another signet gives the follow- ing very necessary warning to the person to whom the letter is addressed, should it happen to contain something which ought not to be revealed. " If more than two know it, the secret is out." Such inscriptions are certainly more significant than a motto of less special meaning. In an essay on Arabic signets, Hammer-Purgstall ^'^ calls attention to a fundamental distinction between talis- mans and signets. With the former, the inscription is engraved so that it may be read as it stands, while with the latter the characters are reversed so that only the impression gives them in their proper order. Besides this, the talismans rarely contain the wearer's name, which is the most essential part of the signet. Nevertheless, there can be little doubt that in many cases the signet was at the same time a talisman. That lovers — even Mohammedan lovers — in the seventeenth century, had romantic designs engraved upon seal rings, is illustrated by what Garzoni relates concerning the seal ring of " Mahometh Bassa." This bore the figure of a silk- worm upon a mulberry leaf, the design commemorating the wearer's love for a Moorish girl, and signifying that he drew his life from her as did the silk- worm from the leaf.^^ 56. Hammer-Purgstall, " Abhandlung iiber die Siegel der Araber, Persen und Tiirken," Denkschriften der Kaiserl. Akad. der Wissenschaften, Phil.-Hist. Kl., Wien, 1850, p. 29. 57 Ibid., p. 1. 58 Garzoni, " Piazza Universale," German transl., Franck- furt am Main, 1641, p. 697. SIGNET RINGS 143 Tavernier relates that in his time, the last half of the seventeenth century, the secret treasure of the Sultans in Constantinople was guarded in an innermost treasure- chamber of the Serail. This chamber was only opened at intervals to receive the surplus gold that had been collected from the Empire or received in any way, when the total sum had reached 18,000,000 livres (over $7,000, 000 according to the value of the livre in Tavernier's day). The gold was contained in sacks, each of which held 15,000 ducats. When an addition to the treasure was to be deposited, the Sultan himself led the way to the treasure-chamber and stamped his seal, with his own hand, on red wax spread over the knot of the cord with which the sack was secured. This seal was engraved on the bezel of a gold ring and constituted no design, but simply the name of the reigning sovereign, the characters being probably intricately combined in the elaborate and cryptic manner used in the case of the imperial name and titles.^^ A Byzantine signet ring of the sixth or seventh cen- tury of our era, in the British Museum, shows the head of Christ, beneath which bending figures of two angels in profound adoration are depicted. Angel-figures almost exactly similar may be seen in Byzantine ivory carvings of this later period, the type evidently being one of those rigidly defined in the hieratic art of the school. With this ring were found coins of Heraclius (610-641), the Greek emperor in whose reign fell the death of Mohammed (June 8, 632) and the overthrow of the Sassanian Persian monarchy by the Mohammedans.^^ 59 Jean Baptiste Tavernier, "Relation du Serrail," Paris, 1702, pp. 480, 481. O. M. Dalton, " Byzantine Art and Archasology," Oxford, 1911, p. 540; figs. 319, 320 on p. 537. 144 RINGS How important the possession of a royal seal-ring was considered to be, as proving the title of a successor, appears in the story that at the death-bed of Alexius Comnenus (1084-1118), Emperor of the East, when the son and rightful successor, John Comnenus, per- ceived that his mother Irene was working to exclude him from the throne and to seat thereon his blue-stocking sister Anna, he took off the imperial ring from the hand of his dying father and thus ensured for himself the title to the Eastern Empire.^^ Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153) , the enthu- siastic preacher of the Second Crusade in 1147, excuses himself in some of his letters that he has failed to seal them, because he could not lay his hand on his signet. In a letter to Pope Eugene III, the saint complains that several spurious letters bearing his name have been circulated, sealed with a counterfeit seal ; he also notifies the pontiff that from this time his letters will bear a new seal, on which will be his portrait and his name.^^ Well-to-do merchants of medieval times, not en- titled to armorial bearings, often had special individual marks or symbols engraved upon their signets. This custom obtained on the continent as well as in England, and allusion is made in the Old English poem of the fourteenth century, " Piers Plowman," to " merchantes merkes ymedeled in glasse." Probably emblems of this kind came to have a certain association with the Nicetas, " Histoire de I'Empire Grec, Regne de John Comnenus," Paris, 1693, p. 7. ^2 P. J. Mariette, " Xraite des pierres gravees," Paris, 1750, vol. i, p. 21. ^3 " Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Works of Art at the South Kensington Museum, June, 1862," section 32, " Rings," by Edmund Waterton, p. 622. SIGNET RINGS 145 business which in many cases descended from father to son through a number of generations. A royal signet ring once believed to be that of Saint Louis (Louis IX, 1214-1270) and long preserved in the treasury of St. Denis, as an object of reverent care, is now in the Louvre Museum. The fact that the cres- cent is introduced as a symbol fails to connect the ring with the Crusader St. Louis, as this symbol was not used by the Saracens of his time, but was only adopted as a Mohammedan device after the Turks captured Con- stantinople, the crescent having been a recognised symbol in ancient times in Byzantium long before the city came to be called Constantinople.^^ The engraved stone in the ring is a table-cut sapphire, the monarch being figured standing, with a nimbus around his head ; he is crowned and bears a scep- tre. The letters S L on the stone have been interpreted to mean rather sigillum Ludovici than Sanctus Ludo- vicuSy and one critic suggests the possibility that it may have been executed in Constantinople, in Byzantine times, for Louis VII, who was there in 1147, and was received with high honors by Manuel Comnenus, the Greek emperor's courtesy being rather bred of fear of French aggression than of affection for the French crusader. As we have good evidence that gem-cutting was not practised at this time in France, it seems plaus- ible enough that Louis VII should have availed himself of this opportunity to have a signet engraved for him by a Greek gem-cutter.^ ^ 6^ C. W. King, " Antique Gems and Rings," London, 1872, p. 899. Jules Labarte, "Dissertation sur Pabandon de la glyptique en Occident au Moyen Age et sur I'epoque de la renaissance de cet art," Paris, 1871, pp, lS-18. 10 146 RINGS The signet ring of King Charles V of France (1337- 1380) was set with an Oriental ruby on which was en- graved " the bearded head of a king." This signet was used by King Charles to seal the letters written by his own hand. The somewhat vague description in the in- ventory suggests that this may have been an antique gem, the supposedly royal head bein^ that of some Greek divinity. The art of engraving on such hard stones as the ruby does not seem to have been practised in the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries, the revival of this art belonging to a later period. Evidently the head was not that of Charles himself or of any of his predeces- sors, for, had this been the case the inventory would hardly fail to note the fact.^^ When a certain Bratilos was sent as a messenger by the eastern emperor Cantacuzene (1341-1355) to his empress Irene, to announce the outbreak of a dangerous revolt, he bore a sealed letter from the emperor.^^ While on his journey, however, he began to fear that he might be waylaid and robbed of the important document. This peril he efF ectively provided against by memorizing the letter and then destroying it, after he had removed the wax impression of the imperial signet, which he could safely guard in his mouth, and which served to accredit him when he came before the empress.^^ Not long after- ward Cantacuzene was defeated and deposed by J ohn V, Palseologus, and retired to a monastery, where he lived until 1411, composing a history of his own times in his leisure moments; his wife also took the religious vows under the name of Eugenia. Labarte, " Inventaire du mobilier de Charles V," Paris, 1879, p. 86, No. 555. ^'^ Joannis Cantacuzeni, " Historiae," vol. i, lib. iii, cap. xlvii. Migne's Patrologia Grseca, vol. cliii, Paris, 1866. SIGNET RINGS 147 Much has been written about the ring or rather the engrave seal of Michaelangelo. This gem enjoyed such high esteem that it was very often copied, the copies sometimes acquiring the repute of being originals. Four of them, two in paste, one in amethyst, and one in carnelian, exist in Denmark, the two latter having the dimensions of the original gem. The copy in carnelian — the stone in which the original was cut — is exceptionally well executed.^^ The original seal is now in the Biblio- theque Nationale in Paris and came into the possession of Louis XIV in 1680. The king wore it set in a ring. It was brought to France in 1600 by a Sieur Bigarris, director of the Mint, and its history was at the time traced back to Agosto Tassi, goldsmith in Bologna, to whom Michelangelo had bequeathed it. The gem was the work of Pier Maria di Pescia, and bears his symbolic signature, a boy fishing {pescia^ fishing). The di- mensions are given as 15 mm. by 11 mm., the form being oval, and in this restricted space is a design embracing twelve human figures, two genii, a horse, a goat and a tree. Two of the figures appear to have been copied from a detail of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel frescoes: a woman helping another woman to place a basket of grapes upon her head. Watelet and Levesque in their "Dictionnaire des Arts/'' published in 1791, characterize this seal as " the most beautiful engraved gem known." The Royal Collection at Windsor Castle contains a gold ring set with a cameo portrait of Louis XII, of France (1498-1515), cut in a pale ruby of clear lustre. The work is believed to have been executed during the lifetime of the king, and was considered by Rev. C. W. King to be the earliest Renaissance portrait cut on a Emil Hannover in " Politikon " Kjobenhavn, April 10, 1911. 148 RINGS stone of the hardness of a ruby. He regarded it as a work of the famous Renaissance gem-cutter Domenico dei Camei, this artist having engraved a portrait of the Milanese duke Ludovico Sforza, surnamed II Moro, on the same hard material. The gold plate at the back of the bezel holding the gem bears the inscription " Loys XII""^ Roy de France deceda I Janvier, 1515," the stone having been set in the ring at some time after the monarch's death. This collection also contains an imperfect specimen of a squirt-ring. The hoop is of enamelled gold set with a garnet engraved in relief with a mask or bacchie head finely executed by a sixteenth-century artist. The hole at the base of the hoop, with its internal screw-worm, indicates that it was once provided with a squirt for projecting perfumed liquids. A sixteenth-century portrait by the German painter, Conrad Faber, depicts a well-to-do burgher, possibly a burgomaster, who wears a seal ring on the index finger of his left hand and a ring with a precious stone setting on the fourth finger of the same hand. In this hand he holds something which may be a staff of office ; it is surmounted by an octagonal block of ebony in which is inlaid a medallion figuring St. George and the Dragon. The city, as carefully delineated in the background as in the finest of engravings, appears to be one of the historic Khine cities, and is evidently that with which the sitter was identified. For signet rings, antique gems continued to be those '^^ C. Drury Fortnum, " Notes On Some of the Antique and Renaissance Gems and Jewels in Her Majesty's Collection at Windsor Castle," London, 1876, pp. 12, 13; cut double linear size on p. 13. ■^i/M., p. 15. IT B 2 c crq O Co -m W O o M :z: CTQ h-^ p H D w MAN AND WOMAN AT A CASEMENT The woman wears three rings (sapphire, ruby and some other stone) on the index of right hand, and two on the middle finger of this hand, one of them on the second joint. The young man has a large oval topaz on the little finger of his left hand. Florentine, Fifteenth Century Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York SIGNET RINGS 149 most favored until the Renaissance period, and even to a considerable extent during this period. However, the development and elaboration of the science of heraldry and the great importance accorded to the possession of armorial bearings soon induced the engraving of these upon the signets, in preference to using antique gems or copying their types. In Elizabeth's reign and in those of her immediate successors, it is believed that scarcely a gentleman was to be found who did not own and wear a signet ring on which appeared his coat-of-arms. Those not fortunate enough to have the right to display armorial bearings, sometimes sought to make their signets in- dividual by using as designs rebuses expressing more or less well the pronunciation of their names.'^^ Arms were sometimes blazoned on rings by enamel applied to the base of a setting; thus the arms engraved on a rock-crystal or a white sapphire, would appear with their proper hues, the colors showing through the trans- parent stone, and their effect being heightened by the brilliant medium. A fine example of this kind of ring is one made for Jean Sans-Peur, Duke of Burgundy (1401-1419) ; another is the signet ring of Mary, Queen of Scots, now in the British Museum. Bequests of signets to near relatives occur not in- frequently in wills of the fifteenth and sixteenth cen- turies, as for example in that of John Horton, dated 1565, wherein appears the following: " Item, I give unto my brother Anthony Horton, for a token, my golde O. M. Dalton, " Franks Bequest, Catalogue of the Finger Rings, Early Christian, Byzantine, Teutonic, Mediaeval and Later (British Museum)," London, 1912, p. xxxi. " Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Works of Art at the South Kensington Museum, June, 1862," section 32, " Rings," by Edmund Waterton, p. 623. 150 RINGS ringe w*^ the seale of myne armes, desirenge him to be good to my wiffe and my childringe as my trust is in him." Besides this seal ring, the testator willed " a golde ringe w*^ a turkes [turquoise] in it " to his " singular good Lord the Lord Eueerye," with a plea for friendship toward his wife and children. A ring set with a diamond was bequeathed in 1427 by Elizabeth, Lady Fitzhugh to her son William.'^* This was almost certainly one of the uncut, pointed diamonds used for settings at this early time. The signet ring of Mary Stuart is one of the chief treasures in the ring collection of the British Museum. It was made for her use after her betrothal to the French Dauphin, later, for a few months, King of France as Francis II (1543-1560), just before her marriage, as after that time the arms of France would have been combined with those of Scotland. The following descrip- tion is given of this ring in the exceedingly valuable catalogue of the Franks Bequest by O. M. Dalton 316. Gold ; the shoulders ornamented with flowers and leaves once enamelled; oval bezel containing a chalcedony engraved with the achievement of Mary, Queen of Scots. The shield is that of Scotland surrounded by the collar of the Thistle, with the badge, and supported by two unicorns chained and ducally gorged ; the crest, on a helmet with mantlings and ensigned with a crown, is a lion sejant affronte, crowned and holding in the dexter paw a naked sword ; in the sinister a sceptre, both bend- '^^ O. M. Dalton, " Catalogue of the Finger Rings, Early Christian, Byzantine, Teutonic, Mediaeval and Later, bequeathed by Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks, K.C.B. (British Museum)," London, 1912, p. li, footnote. '^^ Franks Bequest, Catalogue of Finger Rings, Early Christian, Byzantine, Teutonic, Mediaeval and Later (British Museum), London, 1912, p. 53. SIGNET RINGS 151 wise. Legend: In DefenSy and the letters M R. On the dexter side is a banner with the arms of Scotland ; on the sinister side, another, with three bars and over all a saltire. The metals and tinctures appear through the crystal on a field of blue. Within the hoop at the back of the bezel is engraved a cipher in a circular band and surmounted by a crown, once enamelled. The cipher is formed of the Greek letter and M, for the names Francis and Mary. In this example of sixteenth-century French gold- smithing, the colors of the arms have been applied be- neath the crystal so that they would not be effaced in using the signet for sealing. In 1792 this ring was in the possession of Queen Charlotte, wife of George III. After her death it became the property of the Duke of York, and when his plate and jewels were sold at Christie's, in London, March, 1827, it was bought by Mr. Richard Greene, F.S.A., and was acquired from him in 1856 by the British Museum. A signet ring believed by many to be that of the immortal Shakespeare, was found on March 16, 1810. It was picked up on the surface of the mill-close that adjoins Stratford churchyard; the finder was the wife of a poor laborer. How lightly it was esteemed at the out- set is shown by the low price at which it was acquired by Mr. R. B. Wheeler, who paid only thirty-six shillings ($9.00) , considered to be the value of the fifteen penny- weights of gold in the ring. In fact, the only circum- stances seeming to connect it with Shakespeare are the initials W. S., and the facts that the ring appears to be of Elizabethan workmanship and that it was found at Stratford-on-Avon, Shakespeare's home.'^^ The initial '^^ See also Catalogue of the Books, Manuscripts, Works of Art and Relics, at present exhibited in Shakespeare's Birth- place, with 61 illustrations, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1910. 152 RINGS letters are bound together with a design composed of an ornamental band with tassels, so arranged as to outline a heart. A queer coincidence, if the report be true, is that a certain William Shakespeare was at work nearby when the ring was foundJ^ One of the somewhat less well-known Shakespeare portraits depicts the poet wearing a thumb ring on his left hand. This is the work of Gerald Soest, who was born twenty-one years after Shakespeare's death ; its inspira- tion is probably to be sought in the Chandos portrait of which it is an amplification and re-arrangement. The face, however, wholly lacks the dignity and expression of the Chandos, being exceedingly weak and common- place. The hands give the eff ect of having been copied from those in some other portrait, and, of course, under all these circumstances we would scarcely be justified in assuming that Shakespeare wore a thumb ring, although he may well have done so, in view of the fact that the fashion was common enough in his time. Queen Eliza- beth, even, is depicted as wearing one in Zucchero's por- trait of her at (Hampton Court."^^ Another English poet, that master of impassioned verse, Byron, had in his possession a most interesting bloodstone signet ring, engraved with the following three family mottoes: "Tout prest " (Quite ready), motto of the families Monk, Murray and Younger; " Confido, conquiesco " (I trust and am contented), motto of the Dysart, Hodgett, Maroy, Tollmache and Turner fam- ilies; "Pour y parvenir" (In order to accomplish, or Halliwell, " Life of William Shakespeare," London, 1848, p. 834f. '^^ " Catalogue of an Exhibition Illustrative of the Text of Shakespeare's Plays," New York, The Grolier Club, 1916, plate opposite p. 96, from a mezzotint by G. F. Storm, 1847. C. GtUstoodL 1, Shakespeare's gold signet ring, found in Stratford-upon-Avon, March 16, 1810. 2, brass signet sup- posed to be that of the physician, John Hall, Shakespeare's son-in-law. 3, wax impression from Shakes- peare's ring. (Photographed expressly for this book as attested by signatures of Sir Sidney Lee, Chair- man of the Executive Committee of "Shakespeare's Birthplace," and of the Librarian, F. C. Wellstood."> 4 and 5, gold signet ring owned by Lord Byron, with impression from it. The seal shows the crests and mottoes of three families. Photographed for this book. In the possession of Judge Peter T. Barlow, New York Z\yc ZvwBtccB & (Buarbians of Sbakeepeare^a Birtbplace. Incorporated by Act of 54 and 55 Vfct., cap. iii., 1891. SIR SIDNEY LEE, D.LITT.,LL.D., Chairman of Executive Committee. F. C. WELLSTOOD, M.A., Secretary and Librarian. Telephone 48. SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHPLACE, STRATFORD-UPON-AVON. /J>' UiA/mit 191/ Qu^^ P. M^f-JX. tSL^'tU^ CK^^ ^^^^ys,A^oL 'e4>c/»%, c/.^/-tesxv