FORVM`s Classical Numismatics Discussion Board
Antiquities Discussion Forums => Ancient and Medieval Finger Rings => Topic started by: Rugser on December 20, 2011, 09:36:14 am
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Hi everyone
Rings from my collection…
I ask to know the meaning of the depicted and the allegory.
Your opinions is greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance for each news.
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Still rings
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more act...
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more att.
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more...
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more - end
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I don't have the answers you are seeking but I enjoyed looking at your rings. You have a very nice collection.
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Nice collection.
I'd be interested to read some answers here too. I believe I can offer something on 016 (the Christogram - Chi crossing the stem of a Rho, the first two letters of the name Christos in Greek - is famous enough) and 0017. The inscription on the latter reads (to me) "PATRICI VIVAS", with a ligature on the VA, so "Patricius, may you live". While technically the vocative in -us nouns of this declension should be -e, -i occurs occasionally (notably in "fili"). Patricius as a cognomen is attested from the Late Empire. So perhaps the ring was owned by a Patricius, given to a Patricius, or born by someone of the household and/or clientela of Patricius. The inscription "VIVAS" also seems to be rather common on Late Empire rings: the context has been tied to Christianity (largely if extended to vivas in deo, may you live in God) (cf. Ch. Thomas, Christianity in Roman Britain to AD 500).
As to the others, all I could offer would be guesses. I'm not sure whether depictions on rings always have to mean something, though they often could: there are the famous signets of Pompey and Sulla showing their victories, there are puns, birth-signs (Augustus' Capricorn, although he wasn't a Capricorn...), and a few are tied to gnosticism and magical protection (if they contain protective spirits like Abraxas/Abrasax or characteres magicae), but I would not exclude people wore a ring with a hare because they liked rabbits. Pliny does tell us a bit about such rings (fancifully attributing their invention to Prometheus). He tells us Augustus began by using a sphinx, not of his own choice, but because he found two such rings in his mother's possessions (Pliny, NH.37.10), but discarded them to avoid jokes about the riddles of the sphinx; the interpretation came thus after the ring, not the other way around (if there Attia had a reason to make rings with a sphinx, we aren't told them); Maecenas apparently used a frog: again, Pliny does not tell us whether there is a story behind this, or whether Maecenas liked frogs.
0024 and 0026 also seem to bear inscriptions, but I offer much help with them. The first looks like a mother-bird feeding her chick or two birds fighting over a worm, together with the legend AVA. I would think it rather risky to give in to the temptation of linking it, even if only on the level of a pun with avis, bird. 0026 seems to carry the letters CTTVS, although I'm having difficulty distinguishing them clearly. 002 might be letters, S.R. (?). All of this might be abbreviations of names, sentences... or something else. For 003, one avenue to explore might be characteres magicae, but really, that's only desperation at the moment.
I hope the first paragraph helped somewhat, and that the speculative and tentative proposals in the last do the job of getting someone else to have a closer look.
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Thanks Joe
Thanks Syltorian
026 - Silver ring - Antelope nurses its little one - legende SPECTATVS.
Best regards.