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A Lost Roman Ring from Suffolk

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

C. Frances Mawer
C. Frances Mawer
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Newcastle upon Tyne
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Britannia , Volume 20 , November 1989 , pp. 237 - 241
Copyright
Copyright © C. Frances Mawer 1989. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

33 Photographed by Robert Wilkins of the Oxford Institute of Archaeology (negative nos. Q547 and Q553). I am grateful to the Ashmolean Museum for making the ring available. Britannia xix (1988), 507 notes its rediscovery.

34 Cowen, J.D., Arch. Ael.4 xiii (1936), 310–319Google Scholar, esp. 312.

35 Wall, J., Arch. Ael.4 xliii (1965), 218Google Scholar; Johns, C., Antiq. Journ. lxi (1981), 344Google Scholar; Thomas, C., Christianity in Roman Britain to AD500 (London, 1981), 130.Google Scholar

36 A letter from Thomas Green dated 5 June 1811: Gentleman's Magazine 81 (Pt 2) (1811), 516 and plate II, fig. 6. The ring is also illustrated in Jones, W., Finger Ring Lore, Historical, Legendary and Anecdotal (2nd ed., London, 1898), 256.Google Scholar

37 Henig, M., A Corpus of Roman Engraved Gemstones from British Sites, BAR Brit. Ser. 8 (2nd ed., Oxford, 1978), 38–9Google Scholar and fig. I.viii. The type is henceforward referred to as Type VIII.

38 See Johns, op. cit. (note 35), 343–5 for references and a discussion of the class.

39 See Fox, G.E., Arch. Journ. lvii (1900), 160–1Google Scholar for summary and references.

40 Smedley, N. and Owles, E.J., Procs. Suff. Inst. Arch. xxx (1966), 221–233.Google Scholar

41 See note 36.

42 Archaeological Institute, Catalogue of Antiquities … exhibited in the Museum of the Archaeological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland during their Annual Meeting held in Edinburgh, July, 1856 [ed. Way, A.] (Edinburgh, 1859), 60Google Scholar; CIL vii, p. 234 (no number); Jones, op. cit. (note 36).

43 Acc. no. 1933.1693. I am grateful to Mr A. MacGregor for providing details from the Ashmolean Museum Department of Antiquities accession register.

44 Taylor, G. and Scarisbrick, D., Finger Rings from Ancient Egypt to the Present Day, The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths (London, 1978)Google Scholar, no. 158.

45 The gem was described by Taylor and Scarisbrick, op. cit. (note 44), as a blue amethyst, but S.E.M. analysis by Monica Price of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History gave aluminium (oxide).

46 There are signs of repair on the damaged shoulder suggesting that the hoop was broken through at one stage, presumably through pressure – the profile of the ring in the nineteenth-century illustrations appears flatttened, but has now been restored.

47 X.R.F. analysis by Catherine Mortimer, Oxford University Research Laboratory for Archaeology.

48 Bushe-Fox, J.P., Fourth Report on the Excavations of the Roman Fort at Richborough, Kent, Soc. of Antiq. Res. Rep. xvi (Oxford, 1949), 126Google Scholar , no. 92 and pl. xxxv. 92.

49 Henig, op. cit. (note 37).

50 Charlesworth, D., Arch Ael.4 xxxix (1961), 13.Google Scholar

51 Wheeler, R.E.M. and Wheeler, T.V., Report on the Excavation of the Prehistoric, Roman, and Post-Roman Site in Lydney Park, Gloucestershire, Soc. of Antiq. Res. Rep. ix (Oxford, 1932), 82Google Scholar, no. 54 and fig. 16.54.

52 Marshall, F.H., Catalogue of the Finger Rings, Greek, Etruscan and Roman, in the Departments of Antiquities, British Museum, British Museum (London, 1907)Google Scholar, no. 201.

53 Boardman, J. and Scarisbrick, D., The Ralph Harari Collection of Finger Rings (London, 1977)Google Scholar, no. 36.

54 ibid., no. 39.

55 For parallel types see Henkel, F., Die römischen Fingerringe der Rheinlande (Berlin, 1913)Google Scholar, nos. 81, 244, 245, 454. I am grateful to Ms C.M. Johns for information about this unprovenanced ring, which she examined as a Treasure Trove case in 1980 and which was subsequently acquired by the Colchester and Essex Museum.

56 Ogden, J., Jewellery of the Ancient World (London, 1982), 94.Google Scholar

57 See note 53.

58 Zήσαις is the 2nd person singular aorist optative of ζáω (‘I live’). The present subjunctive vivas is the nearest Latin equivalent.

59 cf. a ring from Castellani Collection inscribed OLYMPI VIVAS (Marshall, op. cit. (note 52), no 626). Way, op. cit. (note 42) and Wall, op. cit. (note 35), rendered the nominative as ‘Olympia’, and Cowen, op. cit. (note 34), as ‘Olympeus’. Spellings and terminations are notoriously inconsistent at this period but it seems likely that here Oλυμπει is the vocative of Oλυμπις with an etacised ending. I am grateful to Mr P.M. Fraser and Dr J. Powell for their helpful comments on the inscriptions. The conclusions reached are my own responsibility.

60 EVr////ATA VIVE VIVAS PIE ZESES on a fondo d'oro in the British Museum: Dalton, O.M., Catalogue of Early Christian Antiquities and Objects from the Christian East in the Department of British and Medieval Antiquities and Ethnography of the British Museum, British Museum (London, 1901)Google Scholar, no. 605.

61 Haverfield, F., Arch. Ael.3 xv (1918), 33.Google Scholar

62 It has also been suggested that the occurrence of transliterated Greek formulae in Latin had more to do with fashion or intellectual pretension than with the indication of a specific religious belief: Harries, E. in Henig, M. and King, A. (eds.), Pagan Gods and Shrines of the Roman Empire, Oxford Univ. Cttee. for Arch. Monograph 8 (Oxford, 1986), 110.Google Scholar

63 e.g. [AN]TQNINOC [ACN]XPEITOC ZH ENSulzberger, M., Byzantion ii (1925), 399Google Scholar; IVSTINE VIVAS IN DEO ΛM: Toynbee, J.M.C. in Cunliffe, B.W. (ed.), Fifth Report on the Excavations of the Roman Fort at Richborough, Kent, Soc. of Antiq. Res. Rep. xxiii (Oxford, 1968), 98–09Google Scholar, no. 160, pl. XLII, 160.

64 Johns, C.M. and Potter, T.W., The Thetford Treasure, British Museum (London, 1983)Google Scholar , nos. 62–3, 68–9, 70, 72.

65 Ibid., nos. 51–8, 66, 71, 73–4. Interestingly, Martin Henig (pers. comm.) now feels that the well-known SENICIANE VIVAS UN DE ring from Silchester (see Toynbee, op. cit. (note 63)), usually accepted as Christian, may in fact denote Venus, depicted on the bezel.

66 Johns, C., Antiq. Journ. lxiv (1984), 393–4.Google Scholar

67 Painter, K.S., The Mildenhall Treasure, British Museum (London, 1977)Google Scholar , nos. 29–31.

68 West, S.E., ‘The Romano-British site at Icklingham’, East Anglian Arch. Rep. iii (Suffolk C.C., 1976), 63–125.Google Scholar

69 This is also true of the unprovenanced ring mentioned above (note 53), inscribed πбοε // бεσι, implying ‘goodwill’ or ‘devotion’.

70 Henig, op. cit. (note 37), no. 743.

71 Ibid., App. 30.

72 A similar inscription, now illegible, is very likely to have existed on an onyx cameo of the same type in a gold ring from Bradwell, Essex: ibid., no. 742.

73 Britannia ix (1978), 481, no. 66.

74 Pace Charlesworth, op. cit. (note 50), 9. ΦIΛTPON may have the sense of ‘charm’ or ‘spell’ but see Cowen. op. cit. (note 34), 315–6.

75 Cowen, ibid. Openwork rings may be of earlier date than the other examples: Henig, M. in King, A. and Henig, M. (eds.), The Roman West in the Third Century, BAR Int. Ser. 109(1) (Oxford, 1981). 129Google Scholar; Johns, op. cit. (note 35).

76 Charlesworth, op. cit. (note 50), 24, no. 5.

77 Collingwood Bruce, J., Lapidarium Septentrionale (London, 1875), 344Google Scholar , no. 655; Haverfield, F. in Craster, H.H.E., A History of Northumberland, Vol X, The Parish of Corbridge (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1914), 515.Google Scholar

78 The most commonly cited type of Christian betrothal or marriage ring, with a Latin cross above confronting busts, in fact appears to date to the fifth century A.D., e.g. the APICTOΦANHS OVIГIΛATIA ring in the Gutman Collection: Parkhurst, C., Allen Memorial Art Museum Bulletin xviii (1961)Google Scholar, no. 128.

79 RIB, p. 728.

80 e.g. the fragmentary Rhenish glass from Caerleon and Exeter with inscriptions which Boon has expanded to ZHCAIC KAAωC and IIIE [ZHCAIC] respectively: Boon, G.C., Journ. Glass Studies xxvii (1961), 1117Google Scholar

81 Birley, A., The People of Roman Britain (London, 1979), 65, 109.Google Scholar

82 Mainly on pottery but also, for example, on wall-plaster (Britannia iii (1972), 361, no. 53) and on the reverse of an intaglio bearing a satyr (Britannia xvii (1986), 422, no. 44).

83 RIB 461.

84 Nutton, V.. Journ. Chester Arch. Soc. iv (1988), 7–13Google Scholar; JRS lix (1969), 235, no. 3

85 A dedication in Latin to the Greek deities rather than to Aesculapius and Salus (RIB 609, 808) might also have had an eastern medical connection, as might an intaglio bearing a possible Greek inscription and figures accordingly identified as Asklepios and Hygeia (Henig, M., Britannia xvi (1985), 241–2).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

86 See notes, 34, 74–76.

87 R.I.B. 1124, 1129. Cowen, op. cit. (note 34), 318 reports in a footnote Richmond's observation that, maybe significantly, the silver ‘Corbridge hoard’ was also ‘of oriental inspiration’.

88 See note 73. Brandon is nearly twenty-eight miles from Stonham Aspal as the crow flies.

89 I am extremely grateful to Arthur MacGregor for arranging the testing of the ring and for providing much essential information, and to Martin Henig for supplying valuable references, for reading and commenting on the draft of the note, and whose recognition of the ring in the Ashmolean enabled the note to be written.