Ring, and on his left hand two great Emeralds." 105 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 forbidden 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 "Jerusalem." 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.106 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 degree 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 gathered together by an old gentleman in the seventeenth century, so that without changing the gold ring to which

105 John Ogilby, Africa, London, 1671, p. 559.

106 Vogelstein and Rieger, "Geschichte der Juden in Rom," vol. i, p. 337.

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 Türk, 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

MONG ancient gold rings, one of Egyptian work

weight as well as for its design. It is 1⁄2 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.1

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 Meroë. 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 extend 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.

1 Sir John Gardner Wilkinson, "Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians," vol. iii, p. 373,

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 civilization 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.2 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.

3

The ancient rings in the British Museum offer examples of nearly all the different types favored in early times. Some, from the Mycenæan period, exhibit a long shield-shaped bezel, convex above and concave beneath, 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

2 F. H. Marshall, Catalogue of the Finger Rings Greek, Etruscan and Roman, in the Departments of Antiquities, British Museum, p. 50, Nos. 278-281; pl. vii, No. 281.

3 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.

of a scarab-setting; another type has elliptical hoops, either plain or ornamental, the scarab being in a filigreedecorated 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, flat 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 tapering upward, with ornamental extremities, occasionally appears in fine examples, the ends of the hoop representing 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.