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Description: | A gold finger-ring of the Viking period. Surface metal analysis conducted at the British Museum indicated an approximate gold content for the ring of 35-40% and a silver content of 55-60%, the remainder being copper; it weighs 3.84 grams. The hoop of the ring is made of a lozenge-section rod which tapers to the back where the ends are drawn into wires which overlap and are wound once round each other; diameter, 26 mm (max). Both outer faces are decorated most of the way round with a row of punched circles and there is also a single circle on one of the inner faces next to the knot. The ring may be compared with a gold ring of similar section and decoration from an 11th-century hoard at Soberton, Hampshire, in the British Museum (registration no. P&E 1851,3-13,2), while its knotted ends can be paralleled by a plain Viking ring from Great Wratting, Suffolk (Bury St. Edmunds Museum). Plain rings of this form were occasionally strung on bracelets in Scandinavia, e.g. from GullgÄrda and Karls, Gotland, but single finds are also recorded (M. Stenberger, 1947, Die Schatzfunde Gotlands der Wikingerzeit, part 2 [Lund], figs. 105, 108-9, and 181, 5). This ring would therefore qualify as Treasure under two of the stipulated criteria of the Treasure Act: it is more than 300 years old and the precious metal content exceeds 10%.B.M. Ager Curator Department of Prehistory & Europe 11 July 2008
Original Image | Publisher: | http://finds.org.uk | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | http://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/r... | Go to resource |
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