send Tamar, his daughter-in-law, a kid from his flock, and for fulfilment left with her (at her desire) his signet, his bracelet, and his staff (Genesis xxxviii. 17, 18).

Darius sealed with his ring the mouth of the den of lions (Daniel vi. 17). Queen Jezebel, to destroy Naboth, made use of the ring of Ahab, King of the Israelites, her husband, to seal the counterfeit letters ordering the death of that unfortunate man.

The Scriptures tell us that, when Judith arrayed herself to meet Holofernes, among other rich decorations she wore bracelets, ear-rings, and rings.

The earliest materials of which rings were made was of pure gold, and the metal usually very thin. The Israelitish people wore not only rings on their fingers, but also in their nostrils[2] and ears. Josephus, in the third book of his ‘Antiquities,’ states that they had the use of them after passing the Red Sea, because Moses, on his return from Sinai, found that the men had made the golden calf from their wives’ rings and other ornaments.

Moses permitted the use of gold rings to the priests whom he had established. The nomad people called Midianites, who were conquered by Moses, and eventually overthrown by Gideon (Numbers xxxi.), possessed large numbers of rings among their personal ornaments.

The Jews wore the signet-ring on the right hand, as appears from a passage in Jeremiah (xxii. 24). The words of the Lord are uttered against Zedekiah: ‘though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, King of Judah, were the signet on my right hand, yet would I pluck thee thence.’

We are not to assume, however, that all ancient seals, being signets, were rings intended to be worn on the hand. ‘One of the largest Egyptian signets I have seen,’ remarks Sir J. G. Wilkinson, ‘was in possession of a French gentleman of Cairo, which contained twenty pounds’ worth of gold. It consisted of a massive ring, half an inch in its largest diameter, bearing an oblong plinth, on which the devices were engraved, 1 inch long, ⁶⁄10ths in its greatest, and ⁴⁄10ths in its smallest, breadth. On one side was the name of a king, the successor of Amunoph III., who lived about fourteen hundred years before Christ; on the other a lion, with the legend “Lord of Strength,” referring to the monarch. On one side a scorpion, and on the other a crocodile.’

This ring passed into the Waterton Dactyliotheca, and is now the property of the South Kensington Museum.

Egyptian Bronze Rings.

Rings of inferior metal, engraved with the king’s name, may, probably, have been worn by officials of the court. In the Londesborough collection is a bronze ring, bearing on the oval face the name of Amunoph III., the same monarch known to the Greeks as ‘Memnon.’ The other ring, also of bronze, has engraved on the face a scarabæus. Such rings were worn by the Egyptian soldiers.

In the British Museum are some interesting specimens of Egyptian rings with representations of the scarabæus,[3] or beetle. These rings generally bear the name of the wearer, the name of the monarch in whose reign he lived, and also the emblems of certain deities; they were so set in the gold ring as to allow the scarabæus to revolve on its centre, it being pierced for that purpose.

Colonel Barnet possesses an Egyptian signet-ring formed by a scarabæus set in gold. It was found on the little finger of a splendid gilded mummy at Thebes. In all probability the wearer of the ring had been a royal scribe, as by his side was found a writing-tablet of stone. On the breast was a large scarabæus of green porphyry, set in gold.

The Rev. Henry Mackenzie, of Yarmouth, possesses an Egyptian scarabæus, a signet-ring, set with an intaglio, on cornelian, found in the bed of a deserted branch of the Euphrates, in the district of Hamadân in Persia. The engraving is unfinished, the work is polished in the intaglio, and the date has therefore been supposed not later than the time of the Greeks in Persia, circa 325 B.C.

Egyptian Signet-rings.

The representations here given illustrate the large and massive Egyptian signet-ring, and also a lighter kind of hooped signet, ‘as generally worn at a somewhat more recent period in Egypt. The gold loop passes through a small figure of the sacred beetle, the flat under-side being engraved with the device of a crab.’

In the British Museum, in the first Egyptian Room, is the signet-ring of Queen Sebek-nefru (Sciemiophris). ‘Sebek’ was a popular component of proper names after the twelfth dynasty, probably because this queen was beloved by the people. On Assyrian sculptures are found armlets and bracelets; rings do not appear to have been generally worn.

At a meeting of the Society of Biblical Archæology, in June 1873, Dr. H. F. Talbot, F.R.S., read an interesting paper on the legend of ‘Ishtar descending to Hades,’ in which he translated from the tablets the goddess’s voluntary descent into the Assyrian Inferno. In the cuneiform it is called ‘the land of no return.’ Ishtar passes successively through the seven gates, compelled to surrender her jewels, viz. her crown, ear-rings, head-jewels, frontlets, girdle, finger- and toe-rings, and necklace. A cup full of the Waters of Life is given to her, whereby she returns to the upper world, receiving at each gate of Hades the jewels she had been deprived of in her descent.

Mr. Greene, F.S.A., has an Egyptian gold ring, formerly in the possession of the late Mr. Salt, belonging to the nineteenth dynasty, probably from the Lower Country, below Memphis. It is engraved with a representation of the goddess Nephthis, or Neith. Another gold ring of a later period, from the Upper Country, dates, probably, from the time of Psammitichus, B.C. 671 to 617.

In the collection of Egyptian antiquities formed by the late R. Hay, Esq., of Limplum, N.B., were two Græco-Egyptian gold rings, found, it is conjectured, in the Aasa-seef, near Thebes. One of these is of the usual signet form, but without an inscription; the other is of an Etruscan pattern, and is composed of a spiral wire, whose extremities end in a twisted loop, with knob-like intersections. Both these objects are of fine workmanship, and are wrought in very pure gold. Sir J. G. Wilkinson, in ‘Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians,’ remarks: ‘The rings were mostly of gold, and this metal seems always to have been preferred to silver for rings and other articles of jewellery. Silver rings are, however, occasionally to be met with, and two in my possession, which were accidentally found in a temple at Thebes, are engraved with hieroglyphics, containing the name of the royal city. Bronze was seldom used for rings; some have been discovered of brass and iron (of a Roman time), but ivory and blue porcelain were the materials of which those worn by the lower classes were usually made.’

The Rev. C. W. King observes: