FINGER-RING LORE
LONDON: PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
AND PARLIAMENT STREET
FINGER-RING LORE
HISTORICAL, LEGENDARY, ANECDOTAL
BY
WILLIAM JONES, F.S.A.
WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS
London
CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1877
TO
MY WIFE:
Bon Cœur: Sans Peur.
PREFACE.
I had intended to confine my observations exclusively to the subject of ‘ring superstitions,’ but in going through a wide field of olden literature I found so much of interest in connection with rings generally, that I have ventured to give the present work a more varied, and, I trust, a more attractive character.
The importance of this branch of archæology cannot be too highly appreciated, embracing incidents, historic and social, from the earliest times, brought to our notice by invaluable specimens of glyptic art, many of them of the purest taste, beauty, and excellency; elucidating obscure points in the creeds and general usages of the past, types for artistic imitation, besides supplying links to fix particular times and events.
In thus contributing to the extension of knowledge, the subject of ring-lore has a close affinity to that of numismatics, but it possesses the supreme advantage of appealing to our sympathies and affections. So Herrick sings of the wedding-ring:
And as this round
Is nowhere found
To flaw, or else to sever,
So let our love
As endless prove,
And pure as gold for ever!
It must be admitted that in many cases of particular rings it is sometimes difficult to arrive at concurrent conclusions respecting their date and authenticity: much has to be left to conjecture, but the pursuit of enquiry into the past is always pleasant and instructive, however unsuccessful in its results. One of our most eminent antiquarians writes to me thus: ‘We must not take for granted that everything in print is correct, for fresh information is from time to time obtained which shows to be incorrect that which was previously written.’
My acknowledgments are due to friends at home and abroad, whose collections of rings have been opened for my inspection with true masonic cordiality.
I have also to thank the publishers of this work for the liberal manner in which they have illustrated the text. Many of the engravings are from drawings taken from the gem-room of the British, and from other museums, and from rare and costly works on the Fine Arts, not easily accessible to the general reader. Descriptions of rings without pictorial representations would (as in the case of coins) materially lessen their attraction, and would render the book what might be termed ‘a garden without flowers.’
In conclusion I will adopt the valedictory lines of an old author, who writes in homely and deprecatory verse:
FOR HERDE IT IS, A MAN TO ATTAYNE
TO MAKE A THING PERFYTE, AT FIRST SIGHT,
BUT WAN IT IS RED, AND WELL OVER SEYNE
FAUTES MAY BE FOUNDE, THAT NEVER CAME TO LYGHT,
THOUGH THE MAKER DO HIS DILIGENCE AND MIGHT.
PRAYEING THEM TO TAKE IT, AS I HAVE ENTENDED,
AND TO FORGYVE ME, YF THAT I HAVE OFFENDED.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE I. Rings from the Earliest Period 1 II. Ring Superstitions 91 III. Secular Investiture by the Ring 177 IV. Rings in connection with Ecclesiastical Usages 198 V. Betrothal and Wedding Rings 275 VI. Token Rings 323 VII. Memorial and Mortuary Rings 355 VIII. Posy, Inscription, and Motto Rings
ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE Egyptian gold signet-ring 2 Egyptian bronze rings 4 Egyptian signet-rings 6 Egyptian porcelain ring 9 Egyptian mummy, rings on the fingers of an 10 Egyptian gold ring from Ghizeh 11 Etruscan ring with chimeræ 15 Roman-Egyptian ring 15 Modern Egyptian rings 17 Modern Egyptian ring with double keepers 17 Etruscan ring representing the car of Admētus 19 Etruscan rings with serpents and beetle 19 Etruscan ring with scarabæus 20 Etruscan ring with representation of two spirits in combat 20 Etruscan ring with intaglio 21 Greek and Roman rings 22 Late Roman rings 23 Ring found at Silchester 24 Ring of a group pattern 24 Ancient plain rings 24 Iron ring of a Roman knight 25 Roman ring, crescent-shaped 26 Roman ring of coloured paste 28 Gallo-Roman ring representing a cow or bull 29 Roman thumb-ring 29 Roman ring, with a representation of Janus 32 Roman ring, with figures of Egyptian deities 32 Roman ring, with busts; from the Musée du Louvre 33 Roman ring, with head of Regulus 34 Roman rings from Montfaucon
FINGER-RING LORE.
CHAPTER I.
RINGS FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD.
The use of signet-rings as symbols of great respect and authority is mentioned in several parts of the Holy Scriptures, from which it would seem that they were then common among persons of rank. They were sometimes wholly of metal, but frequently the inscription was borne on a stone, set in gold or silver. The impression from the signet-ring of a monarch gave the force of a royal decree to any instrument to which it was attached. Hence the delivery or transfer of it gave the power of using the royal name, and created the highest office in the State. In Genesis (xli. 42) we find that Joseph had conferred upon him the royal signet as an insignia of authority.[1] Thus Ahasuerus transferred his authority to Haman (Esther iii. 12). The ring was also used as a pledge for the performance of a promise: Judah promised to
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:
The porcelain finger-rings of ancient Egypt are extremely beautiful, the band of the ring being seldom above one eighth of an inch in thickness. Some have a plate in which in bas-relief is the god Baal, full-faced, playing on the tambourine, as the inventor of music; others have their plates in the shape of the right symbolical eye, the emblem of the sun, of a fish of the perch species, or of a scarabæus. Some few represent flowers. Those which have elliptical plates with hieroglyphical inscriptions bear the names of Amen-Ra, and of other gods and monarchs, as Amenophis III., Amenophis IV., and Amenmest of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties. One of these rings has a little bugle on each side, as if it had been strung on the beaded work of a mummy, instead of being placed on the finger. Blue is the prevalent colour, but a few white and yellow rings, and some even ornamented with red and purple colours, have been discovered. It is scarcely credible that these rings, of a substance finer and more fragile than glass, were worn during life, and it seems hardly likely that they were worn by the poorer classes, for the use of the king’s name on sepulchral objects seems to have been restricted to functionaries of state. Some larger rings of porcelain of about an inch in diameter, seven-eighths of an inch broad, and one-sixteenth of an inch thick, made in open work, represents the constantly-repeated lotus-flowers, and the god Ra, or the sun, seated and floating through the heavens in his boat.
At the Winchester meeting of the Archæological Institute in 1845 a curious swivel-ring of blue porcelain was exhibited, found at Abydus in Upper Egypt; setting modern. It has a double impression: on the one side is the king making an offering to the gods, with the emblems of life and purity; on the other side the name of the monarch in the usual ‘cartouche,’ one that is well known, being that of Thothmes III., whom Wilkinson supposes to have been the Pharaoh of Exodus. It is worthy of remark that this cartouche is ‘supported’ by asps, which are usually considered to be the attributes of royalty.
Egyptian Porcelain Ring.
The annexed engraving represents an Egyptian ring, en pâte céramique, from M. Dieulafait’s ‘Diamants et Pierres Précieuses.’
The signet of Sennacherib in the British Museum is made of Amazon stone, one of the hardest stones known to the lapidary, and bears an intaglio ‘which,’ observes the Rev. C. W. King, ‘by its extreme minuteness, and the precision of the drawing, displays the excellence to which the art had already attained.’
On a mummy-case in the British Museum is a representation of a woman with crossed hands, covered with rings; the left hand is most loaded. Upon the thumb is a signet with hieroglyphics on the surface, three rings on the forefinger, two on the second, one formed like a snail shell, the same number on the next, and one on the little finger. The right hand carries only a thumb ring, and two upon the third finger.
Rings on the fingers of a Mummy.
Sir J. G. Wilkinson observes: ‘The left was considered the hand peculiarly privileged to bear these ornaments; and it is remarkable that its third finger was decorated with a greater number than any other, and was considered by them, as by us, par excellence, the ring-finger, though there is no evidence of its having been so honoured at the marriage ceremony.’
The same author mentions that rings were a favourite decoration among the Egyptians; women wore sometimes two or three on the same finger. They were frequently worn on the thumb. Some were simple, others had an engraved stone, and frequently bore the name of the owner; others the monarch in whose time he lived, and they were occasionally in the form of a snail, a knot, a snake, or some fancy device. A cat—emblem of the goddess Bast, or Pasht, the Egyptian Diana—was a favourite subject for ladies’ rings.
Egyptian Gold Ring, from Ghizeh.
One of the oldest, if not the most ancient ring known, is supposed to be that in the collection of Dr. Abbot, of Cairo, now preserved with his other Egyptian antiquities at New York. It is thus described by him:—‘This remarkable piece of antiquity is in the highest state of preservation, and was found at Ghizeh, in a tomb near the excavation of Colonel Vyse, called Campbell’s tomb. It is of fine gold, and weighs nearly three sovereigns. The style of the hieroglyphics within the oval make the name of that Pharaoh (Cheops, Shofo) of whom the pyramid was the tomb. The details are minutely accurate and beautifully executed. The heaven is engraved with stars; the fox or jackal has significant lines within its contour; the hatchets have their handles bound with thongs, as is usual in the sculptures; the volumes have the strings which bind them hanging below the roll—differing in this respect from any example in sculptured or painted hieroglyphics. The determinative for country is studded with dots, representing the land of the mountains at the margin of the valley of Egypt. The instrument, as in the larger hieroglyphics, has the tongue and semi-lunar mark of the sculptured examples; as is the case also with the heart-shaped vase. The name is surmounted with the globe and feathers, decorated in the usual manner; and the ring of the cartouche is engraved with marks representing a rope, never seen in the sculptures; and the only instance of a royal name similarly encircled is a porcelain example in this collection, inclosing the name of the father of Sesostris. The O in the name is placed as in the examples sculptured in the tombs, not in the axis of the cartouche; the chickens have their unfledged wings; the cerastes its horns, now only to be seen with a magnifying glass.’
In a lecture to the deaf and dumb in St. Saviour’s Hall, Oxford Street, London (October 1875), on ‘Eastern Manners and Customs,’ amongst various relics exhibited was the hand of a female mummy, on one finger of which was a gold ring, with the signet of one of the Pharaohs.
A gold ring exhibited at the exhibition of antiquities at the Ironmongers’ Hall, in 1861, had hieroglyphics meaning ‘protected by the living goddess Mu.’
Among some interesting specimens of Egyptian rings exhibited at the South Kensington Loan Exhibition of 1872 I may mention an antique ring of pale gold, with a long oval bezel chased in intaglio, with representation of a sistrum (timbrel, used by the Egyptians in their religious ceremonies), the property of Viscount Hawarden; an antique ring of pale gold (belonging to Lady Ashburton), formed of a slender wire, the ends twisted round the shoulders, upon which is strung a signet, in form of a cat, made of greenish-blue glazed earthenware.
From the collection of R. H. Soden Smith, Esq. F.S.A., an ancient pale gold ring, with revolving cylinders of lapis-lazuli, engraved with hieroglyphics; the shoulders of the hoop wrapped round with wire ornament.
The Waterton Collection contains Egyptian rings of various descriptions: one of silver, with revolving
Several of the Egyptian rings in the Museum of the Louvre at Paris date from the reign of King Mœris. One of the oldest rings extant is that of Cheops, the founder of the Great Pyramid, which was found in a tomb there. It is of gold, with hieroglyphics.
The Egyptian glass-workers produced small mosaics of the most minute and delicate finish, and sufficiently small to be worn on rings.
Dr. Birch, in a very interesting paper communicated to the Society of Antiquaries, at the meeting of November 17, 1870, observes, with regard to the scarabæi and signet-rings of the ancient Egyptians, that the use of these curious objects (the exhibition comprising upwards of five hundred scarabs from the collection of Egyptian antiquities formed by the late R. Hay, Esq., of Sinplum, N.B., to which I have alluded) dates back from a remote period of Egyptian history. ‘As it is well known, they were not merely made in porcelain, but also in steatite, or stea-schist, and the various semi-precious stones suitable for engraving, such as cornelian, sard, and such-like.’ In the time of the twelfth dynasty the cylindrical ring, also found in use among the Assyrians and Babylonians, came into vogue. The hard stones and gems were of later introduction, probably under the influence of Greek art, for the ancient Egyptians themselves do not appear to have possessed the method of cutting such hard substances. A few, however, exist, which are clearly of great antiquity—as, for example, a specimen in yellow jasper now in the British Museum.