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, superstitions, symbolism, mysticism, use in protection, prevention, 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 precious stones, and references as to where the precious stones of his time came from.

Four illustrations. Square Octavo. Decorated cloth. $1.25 net.

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 of 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, 1913

RINGS
FOR THE FINGER

FROM THE EARLIEST KNOWN TIMES TO THE PRESENT, WITH FULL DESCRIPTIONS OF THE ORIGIN, EARLY MAKING, MATERIALS, THE ARCHÆOLOGY, 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, DOUBLETONE AND LINE

PHILADELPHIA & LONDON

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

1917

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.

COOPER UNION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT
OF SCIENCE AND ART EDITION

OF

RINGS

(See Dedication )

Limited to fifteen copies

[1]Miss Sarah Cooper Hewitt, Honorary Associate of the Trustees

[1]Mrs. James O. Green, Honorary Associate of the Trustees

[1]Miss Eleanor G. Hewitt, Honorary Associate of the Trustees

[1]Peter Cooper Hewitt, Vice-President of the U. S. Naval Advisory Board, Trustee

[1]]Edward R. Hewitt, Treasurer

[2]Peter Cooper Bryce, Secretary

[1]Erskine Hewitt,

R. Fulton Cutting, President

Andrew Carnegie, Trustee

J. Pierpont Morgan, Trustee

Charles W. Gould, Trustee

L. C. Levin Jordan, Assistant Secretary

Charles R. Richards, Director

One Copy for the Reading Room of the Cooper Union
for the Advancement of Science and Art

George Frederick Kunz, Former Student and Assistant in Chemistry

This copy was printed for

MISS SARAH COOPER HEWITT

With the compliments of the Author

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 wonderful 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 prevailed 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 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 mottoes 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 talismanic 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 persons; among these latter we are happy to be able to produce an illustration of the inscription of President Wilson’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 contribution 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 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 scarcely 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 talismanic 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 fiancée. 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 persons, who have courteously imparted much valuable information:

Hon. Peter T. Barlow; Miss Ada M. Barr; W. Gedney Beatty; Theodoor de Boog, Museum of the American Indian; Dr. Stewart Culin, Brooklyn Institute; Robert W. De Forrest; Mrs. Alexander W. Drake; Dr. Gustavus A. Eisen; Prof. Richard Gottheil, Columbia 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, Columbia University; William H. Jones; Minor C. Keith; Dr. F. A. Lucas, Director, American Museum of Natural 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, National 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 University; 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 Angeles, 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.; Franciscan Fathers, St. Michael’s Mission, Arizona; Prof. L. C. Glenn, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee; Dr. F. W. Hodge, Ethnologist-in-charge, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C.; Prof. W. H. Holmes, Head Curator, Dept. of Anthropology, United States National Museum, Washington, D. C.; Dr. Walter Hough, Acting Head Curator, Dept. of Anthropology, United States National Museum, Washington, D. C.; Prof. Morris Jastrow, Jr., University of Pennsylvania; Dr. Berthold Laufer, Curator of Anthropology, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago; Waldo Lincoln, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass.; Prof. George Grant McCurdy, Curator of Anthropology, Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University; Dr. William C. Mills, Curator and Librarian, Chicago Archæological and Historical Soc.; Edward S. Morse, Director, Peabody Museum, Salem, Mass.; Dr. Warren K. Moorehead, Curator, Dept. American Archæology, Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass.; Ostby & Barton Co., Providence, R. I.; Admiral Robert E. Peary, Washington, D. C.; Dr. R. Rathbun, United States National Museum, Washington, D. C.; William Riker, Newark, N. J.; Oliver A. Roberts, Librarian, Masonic Temple, Boston, Mass.; Prof. Austin T. Rogers, Leland Stanford Jr. University, 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, Assyriologist, South Berwick, Mass.

W. W. Blake, Mexico City; A. W. Feavearyear, London, England; R. Friedländer & Sohn, Berlin; Prabha Karavongu, Siamese Legation, Washington, D. C.; Mrs. Isabel Moore, Azores; M. Georges Pelissier, Paris, France; Dr. William Flinders Petrie, Egyptologist, Hampstead, England; Sir Charles Hercules Read, Curator, Dept. British and Mediæval Antiquities and Ethnography, British Museum; Dr. Leonard Spencer, Curator, Mineralogical Dept., British Museum (Natural History); C. J. S. Thompson, Curator, Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, London, England; Sir Herbert Tree, London, England; Dr. T. Wada, Tokio, Japan; Herr Leopold Weininger, Vienna, and also Dr. Albert Figdor, Vienna, and U. S. Consul W. Bardel, St. Michael, Azores.

The illustrations of rings in the British Museum are mostly from one or the other of the two exceedingly comprehensive catalogues of rings published by this museum: “Finger Rings, Greek, Etruscan and Roman,” by F. H. Marshall, and “Finger Rings, Early Christian, Byzantine, Teutonic, Mediæval, 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 York City,

November, 1916

[3]

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

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 modification 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 materials, 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 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.[4] 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.

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.

Large serpentine ring with many coils. Græco-Roman, Fourth Century B.C. to Second Century A.D.

British Museum

Græco-Roman silver ring, set with an oval engraved sardonyx. Second Century A.D.

British Museum

Greek gold ring with eye-shaped bezel. From Tarsus; Third Century A.D.

British Museum

Hellenistic bronze ring. Bezel set with a convex pale green paste. Remains of gilding on ring

British Museum

Greek silver ring. Engraved design beneath a sunk border; draped figure of a girl holding out a dove

British Museum

Roman ring of opaque dark glass. Fourth Century A.D.

British Museum]

Mycenæan gold rings. 1, from Ialysos, Rhodes; given to the British Museum in 1870 by John Ruskin; 2, from excavation at Enkomi, 1896

British Museum

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 sepulchral dolmens were discovered which yielded a considerable 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 showing from three to five spirals; in other cases the ends are overlapping, or else brought together as closely as possible.[5]

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.[6] 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 characters “Protarchus made it.” When, on visiting London, he told this to Doctor Murray, of the British Museum, the latter gave full expression to his scepticism, 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.[7]

A very interesting find was made in 1893, during the excavations conducted under the auspices of the University of Pennsylvania at Nippur. In the northwestern 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, Bêlhâtin and Bêl-nadin-shumu, whose activity seems to have been analogous to that of our counsellors-at-law. Many of the tablets bear records concerning the members 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 Artaxerxes I of Persia), in which Bêl-ah-iddina, Bêlshumu, and Hâtin give the following guarantee to Bêl-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, Bêl-ah-iddina, Bêlshumu, and Hâtin shall pay unto Bêl-nadin-shumu an indemnity of ten mana of silver.

The record bears the names of seven witnesses and that of the scribe, and is signed with the thumb-nail marks of those who guaranteed the jewel, “instead of their seals.”[8]

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 equivalent 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 likelihood, to the special talismanic virtues attributed to it.

Several gold rings of Egyptian workmanship, excavated 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, inscribed “Maāt, 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 uræi, are two other examples 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: Rā-Heru-Khuti, Rā]-Kheperu Nefer, Meri-Rā, Ptah-neb-nut-maāt.[9] 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 Mycenæ, 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 workmanship 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 chimæra, half lion, half boar.[10] Another ring of the same period from Marion-Arsinoë, Cyprus, has a silver hoop, and is set with a flat scaraboid, engraved with a female figure kneeling.

One of the largest Mycenæan 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 ordering.[11] Here we have early Greek art transforming and adapting Oriental forms of metal engraving, to be succeeded, 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 Mycenæan period, about 1000 B.C., in the British Museum, is a double gold ring which had been evidently inlaid with some vitreous substance, all but faint traces of which have now disappeared. 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.[12]

The oldest Greek ring bearing an inscription is one believed to belong to the late Mycenæan 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.[13] The similarity of the name Lanarka with the 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.[14]

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 Mycenæan 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 appealed 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 elaborately wrought shield made by Vulcan for Achilles (Il., 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 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.[15] 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.[16]

A clever use of a ring is reported to have been made by Ismenias of Thebes, when he was sent by the Bœotians 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 the Persians believed that he had satisfactorily conformed 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.[17]

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 Lacedæmonians, with true Spartan sobriety, still wore iron rings.[18] 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.[19]

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.[20]

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 received 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 emperors, many other classes of citizens were made partakers of the privilege, so that before long even some freedmen and certain of those pursuing the least reputable vocations were permitted the enjoyment of a distinction 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 Cannæ (August 2, 216 B.C.), in which the Romans were totally defeated by Hannibal, the Carthaginian leader ordered that the gold rings should be taken from the hands of the dead Romans 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 provided with steeds by the State (equo publico), had been given the right to wear gold rings.[21]

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 Cannæ in 216 B.C. and on the funeral day of Augustus Cæsar in 15 A.D. This usage is noted in one of the poet Juvenal’s satires.[22] Occasionally, as a mark of disapprobation, senators would remove their gold rings at a public sitting, as, for instance, when, in 305 B.C., the appointment as edile of Cneius Flavius, son of the freedman 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.[23]

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 punishment, 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 his fellow-tribune Lælius to withdraw the accusation, and set Gabinius at liberty.[24]

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 freeborn, they had the intimate personal satisfaction of knowing that it was really on the hand.[25]

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.[26]

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 quæstor 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 was accorded to the actor by the Lex Roscia of 67 B.C., conferring the ring upon Roscius.[27]

Although the Christian women of the early Christian centuries were taught to avoid all superfluous adornments, 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–ca. 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.[28]

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 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 Rome, 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:[29]

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 who 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 consequence 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 wearing 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 freeborn; hence, the quality of free-birth was only revived, 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 freeborn 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 engraved 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.[30]

An old Roman inscription mentions a guild of ring-makers (conlegium anularium),[31] and the denomination anularius even appears as a proper name of the engraver of a signet ring.[32] Near the Forum was a flight of steps designated scalæ anulariæ,[33] 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 virulent 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, and commanded the man to set his bench down in the Forum and to make the ring in the presence of all.[34]

Tacitus states in his Germania that the most valiant of the Cattæ, wore “like 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.[35]

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.[36] Many of the rings were incised with an ornamental design; 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 remains here also yielded a ring made out of a cone-shell, with incised decoration. The exceptionally fine specimen 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.[37] 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 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 Archæological and Historical 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.[38]

The Aztecs of ancient Mexico executed many ornamental objects of gold, silver, copper and tin, and worked in iron and lead as well. Specimens of this silversmiths’ work were sent by Fernan Cortés 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 Conquistador, 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 enormous 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 bullion.[39]

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 examples 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.[40]

Ancient Indian rings. 1, copper finger ring. From a grave in cemetery at mouth of the Wabash, Southern Indiana, 1898. 2, stone ring (?). From Red Paint Cemetery, Orland, Maine. Explored by W. K. Moorehead in 1912. 3, shell ring, broken. From adobe ruin. Mesa, Arizona, 1898. All full size

Courtesy of Mr. Warren K. Moorehead

Ancient Indian metal finger rings. 1, spiral ring from middle finger of a skeleton. Hamilton Co., Ohio. 2, broken ring taken from floor of Adana Mound, Ohio. 3 and 4, rings from middle finger of skeleton found in the Adana Mound, Ohio. Natural size

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

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 overlapped and then pounding them as closely together as possible. It is only large enough for a child’s finger, and among the remains of fifteen Indians found in this particular mound were those of a child.[41] 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.[42]

A shell ring from the adobe ruins near Phœnix, 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 discovery 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 incredulity, but since then several have been unearthed by successive explorers. Shell and bone implements with turquoise inlays occur both in Arizona and New Mexico.[43] The shell ring we have just noted, is unusually well formed, the projection at the upper part having a form suggestive of a finished bezel, thus rendering 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 copper 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.[44]

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.

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,[45] 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 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 believed to exist. As an indication of the source of the silver used, the Hopi name of this metal is shiba, the literal meaning of the word being “a little round, white cake,” an apt designation of a silver coin. In the total absence of archæological 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.[46]

Among the women of the Pueblo Indians the wearing of a great number of rings on the hand is an indication of aristocratic birth. This is illustrated in the accompanying 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 costume of the wife of a Navajo chief.[47]

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

As the Navajo silversmiths dwelt in small huts or temporary shelters which they might move away from at short notice, they were forced to build low forges directly on the ground, obliging them to crouch down while working.[48] In this respect the Pueblo artisans had a considerable advantage, since their spacious dwellings 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 following is a pretty full list of the outfit in such a workshop: 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), materials for polish (sandpaper, emery-paper, powdered sandstone, sand, ashes, and solid stone), and materials for whitening (a native mineral substance—almogen, salt and water).[49]

It has been noted that the Navajos had not acquired the art of making an air chamber of the mouth in operating 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 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 excessively 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 possess at least the charm inherent in individual work, as contrasted with the more harmonious and finished productions of merely mechanical art, where thousands of objects 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 Fé Railroad, and from its agencies. Although the art among the Navajos is generally believed to have been introduced by Spanish influence, the fact that before the Spanish Conquest the native Mexicans were able to work metals with considerable 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 outside the clan, is the orthodox code of the Navajos, a man being expected to avoid taking a wife from the clan to 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 conditions as he observed them thirty-five years ago:

“The smiths whom I have seen working had no dividers, square, measure, or any instrument of precision. 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.”

NAVAJO SILVERSMITHS OF NEW MEXICO, ENGAGED IN MAKING SILVER RINGS

1, Tsozi Bigay; 2, Atziddy Yaski

PABLO ABEITA, 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

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 blacksmith 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 Navajo 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 silversmithing dates from a later time.[50]

Borax is now generally used for soldering, but before it was brought to their country, the Navajo silversmiths 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 tarnished 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 sandstone, 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.[51] Here the nouns and verbs denoting action are grouped in the only really logical way, under the respective industries and trades, or other forms of human activity. As some of the foremost writers on the origin of language 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 coördination 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 yostsá, we have the following designations:[52]

• yostsá deshzházh, a worn down ring
• yostsá geéldo, a broken ring
• yostsá énidi, a new ring
• yostsá quastqí, an old ring
• yostsá ntqél, a broad ring
• yostsá altsósi, a slender ring
• yostsá ntsa, a large ring
• yostsá altsisi, a small ring
• yostsá náilgai, a polished ring
• yostsá yijí, a blackened, oxidized ring
• yostsá do-bikeeshchíni, a plain ring
• yostsá bikeeshchíni, a ring with a design
• yostsá alkésgiz, a twisted ring
• yostsá bitsá, a ribbed ring
• yostsá biná, the setting of a ring
• yostsá tséso biná, a ring with a glass setting
• yostsá dotlízhi biná, a ring with a turquoise setting
• yostsá tlish beélya, a snake-shaped ring

THE ARMY AND NAVY CLUB

WASHINGTON.

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.[53] Perhaps in the intense Arctic cold even the slightest pressure on the finger may have been avoided, lest it should impede circulation and increase the danger of having the fingers frost-bitten.

The Mendæans 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 completed, 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 Mendæans are sometimes called “Christians of St. John,” because of their great veneration for John the Baptist. However, they in no sense deserve the name of Christians, their peculiar, eclectic doctrine being a mixture of ancient 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 human history. However, apart from this merely ornamental 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 significant, and certain of these will be explained and illustrated here.

1, Late Roman ring; 2, gold ring set with an engraved red carnelian. Found 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 (decade ring); that for the Creed (the bezel) has the design of the Cross. Impression

British Museum

Immense ring with female head incorrectly said to be that of Plotina, wife of Trajan

Montfaucon, “L’Antiquité expliquée,” Paris, 1719

Ancient Roman Key Rings

Fairholt’s “Rambles of an Artist”

We are not apt to think the wearing of many rings especially in accord with the profession of philosophy, and yet Ælian 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.[54] 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 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 wagering 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,[55] 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 ladylove 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.[56]

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 7000 sestertii, indicating that the stone was engraved; the design probably had a symbolic significance, as in the case of most of the votive rings.[57]

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.11) Martial writes of Stella turning sardonyxes, emeralds, diamonds, and jaspers around one of his finger-joints, and King conjectures that the Ten Maidens were represented by the opal, sapphire (hyacinth), 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 counting ten Aves and a Pater. The earliest date Mr. Waterton is inclined to assign to rings of this type is the fourteenth century.[58] A so-called decade ring with twelve bosses is described in the catalogue of the Londesborough Collection.[59] 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 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.[60]

The gold and silver chaplet rings, with a cross and ten beads or bosses in relief upon the hoop, were frequently 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 matter 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.[61]

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 Woodstock, 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 John Long to William Prohume, clerk, of land and houses in St. Martin’s Street, Exeter, at a rent of 6s 8d, which sum was to be donated to St. John’s Hospital 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.[62]

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 immediately expired.[63] The great Hannibal, also, had recourse 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 Cannæ, 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 Rabbinical commentary on Deuteronomy occurs the following curious passage:

Hast thou then no ring? Suck it out and thou wilt die.

This has been explained as referring to a hollow ring filled with liquid poison.[64]

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.[65]

The poison-rings of the Borgias are not fabulous, for some of them still exist, one bearing the date 1503 and the motto of Cæsar 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.[66]

While these Borgia rings represent an extreme of diabolical ingenuity, the perfumed rings, the use of which has been revived to a certain extent of late, constitute a refinement of civilization. This ring is generally 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 disinfectants 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.[67]

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 be confirmed by the alleged finding in Egmont’s lodgings of a hollow ring filled with poison.[68]

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.[69] However, in the British Museum Catalogue of Rings 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 harmless perfume.”[70]

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 taken; this being done the figure on the inside upon which the sun’s ray would fall would give the approximate time of day.[71]

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-lustre 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.R. 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.[72]

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 somewhat 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.

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.[73] 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 26s 8d 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 English 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 sad event and to obey the last injunction of the unfortunate monarch, “remember,” a great number of memorial 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 representations 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 extending to about 1774, the fashion gradually changed, and the inscriptions, instead of being engraved, were in raised letters, thrown into greater relief by the application of white and black enamel. This style is said to have been brought from France, and the earliest specimens 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 exceptionally fine specimen of the rings of this period is that in memory of Richard Pett, who died February 23, 1765, aged 76 years.[74] 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 to rather grewsome decorations, and the bezel of some rings has the form of a coffin, within which lies 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 emblematic 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 enclosed 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[75] is a memento of the death of seven children, the eldest not over nine years, who perished in a fire in Leadenhall Street, London. 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.”[76] There is a touching story regarding this ring. On her death-bed the princess ordered that it should be 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 complicity 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 mori.”[77]

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.

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 l’Egaré; early part of reign of Louis XIV. 2, English 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^me Roy de France deceda 1 Janvier, 1515. Latter part of Fifteenth or beginning of Sixteenth Century. Double linear size

C. D. Fortnum’s “Antique Gems and Jewels in Her Majesty’s Collection 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 Bronté

British Museum

Napoleon memorial ring of gold, said to be one of six given those concerned in his escape from Elba in 1815. Portrait concealed beneath hinged lid

British Museum

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.[78] 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 the former and B beneath the latter, indicating his titles Viscount Nelson of the Nile and Duke of Bronté. 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.[79]

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 inscription: “dort couat,” (rest in peace); it was found at Huy, near Statte, Belgium, and represents work of the fifteenth 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 Ruhe,” (Here is rest). When the lid is lifted, a heart is disclosed in the coffin.[80]

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 Holofernes’ 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.”[81]

The ruthless executions carried out after the suppression 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, executed on Kensington Common in the same year, are marked on the hoop of the ring.[82]

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^ble I. Winslow Esq^r., ob. 14 Dec^r. 1738 Æ 68.”[83] 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 New 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 flat 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.”[84] The Beefsteak Club, formed early in the eighteenth century, was Tory in politics, an opponent 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 and the restoration of the Bourbons, many of his faithful 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’ attachment 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.[85]

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 serjeant 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 examination 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 according to the rank of the recipient.

So strictly was this purely traditional custom construed that a close watch was kept to prevent any cheapening of the quality or intrinsic value of these obligatory rings. As it had been laid down by a leading authority 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.”[86] 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 “Suæ quisque fortunæ faber,” 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 “Lex regis præsidium” (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 telling 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 eighteenth century, but even in 1856 rings were given, some of them bearing the motto “Cedant arma togæ” (Arms will give place to the Gown) in allusion to the approaching peace with Russia after the Crimean War.[87]