Ancient Roman Celtic Engraved Horse Rider Ring Size 5 1/2 $349.99

Size 5 1/2 Genuine Ancient Horse + Rider Engraved Bronze Romano-Celtic Ring 300 AD.

CLASSIFICATION: Ancient Romano-Celtic Bronze Ring with Primitive/Archaic/Abstract Engraved Horse and Rider.

ATTRIBUTION: Eastern Roman Empire (Provincial Pannonia - present-day Hungary), Third Century A.D.

SIZE/MEASUREMENTS: Fits ring size 5 1/2 (U.S.).

Diameter: 21mm * 19mm (overall dimensions); 16 1/2mm (inner diameter).

Bezel: 9mm (breadth). 7 1/2mm (height). 2 1/2mm (thickness)

Tapered Width Band: 7 1/2mm (at bezel) * 5 1/2mm (at sides) * 4 1/2mm (at back).

Weight: 5.00 grams.

CONDITION: Excellent! Completely intact, very light wear, little porosity (surface pitting caused by contact with earth while buried). Professionally conserved.

DETAIL: An exceptionally nicely crafted, heavily constructed, and remarkably well preserved ancient Romano-Celtic bronze ring circa 300-400 A.D. The ring is of one-piece construction, much like a contemporary ring. The more archaic rings produced by Roman artisans were characteristically made in two pieces; an incomplete ring (a "shank") with a separately crafted bezel which was brazed to the shank in order to assemble the ring. The engraved design present on the bezel is a rather primitive, perhaps intentionally abstract horse and rider (see images below which point out pattern). The depiction seems very crude, primitive, even unskilled and one presumes at first that it was done very clumsily by an ancient artisan with very limited skills, perhaps an apprentice. And indeed that might be the case.

However there are several considerations which point towards an intentional, perhaps abstract depiction. First, the ring possesses a hallmark characteristic of the bronze rings produced within the Roman Empire by Celtic artisans. That is the very distinctive "knob" at the back of the band. The Romans highly regarding Celtic workmanship, and articles of jewelry produced by Celtic artisans were highly prized, and by the time of Imperial Rome, Celtic artisans could be found scattered throughout the empire. Given the fact that the ring bears an almost unmistakable Celtic signature, one can then further consider the fact that since well before the rise of the Roman Empire, horse and rider depictions were another hallmark of Celtic artisans and art, almost a thematic element of the culture's art work. And last, highly stylistic, oftentimes abstract, and frequently seemingly almost primitive or child-like depictions were also quite characteristic of Celtic art.

Although to modern eyes the depiction almost seems buffoonish, it is quite clear that the depiction is that of a galloping horse and rider, the horse possessing four stick legs, a stick tail, a stick ear, rider mounted atop (see the rider's head?). The ring's size is a bit small for modern populations, however it is not at all an uncommon size for a Roman ring, even a ring worn by a man. Take into account that primitive populations were generally of slighter build than today's robust populations - and the Italians then and even today were typically smaller than say their German/Celtic contemporaries. Romans also oftentimes wore rings on all ten fingers (including their thumbs), and oftentimes wore the rings on the second, smaller joint of their finger rather than the first, uppermost joint. So smaller ring sizes, even "pinkie" ring sizes, would have been much more common than they are today.

Another quite handsome embellishment which might be noted is that the entire periphery of the bezel, the "downsloping" bezel skirt, is engraved in a series of what looks like a series of Latin "M's" within a a boundary line top and bottom. The ring does evidence some light all-over wear. However this should not be a source for disappointment. You must keep in mind that the ring was produced by an artisan and sold to a patron or consumer with the idea that the ring would be enjoyed and worn by the purchased. And without any regard to twenty-first century posterity, that precisely what happened! The original Roman owner of this ring wore it, enjoyed it, and probably never could have in his most delusional moment ever dreamed that almost 100 generations later the ring would still exist.

As you can see, the design is quite handsome and bold in character and execution. A horse and rider though a common theme to Celtic art work, is nonetheless a fairly uncommon engraved depiction for a ring, and the level of preservation of this specimen is quite exceptional. Due to the bold and handsome features, as well as the one-piece construction, the ring has a character which is quite modern and distinctive - a classic and timeless design. The ring has a very nice medium golden brown tone so wonderfully characteristic of ancient bronze. You have to look closely to see any of the telltale signs indicating the ring was buried for millennia. Most small artifacts such as this suffer extensive degradation from porosity, which is fine surface pitting (oxidation) caused by prolonged burial in caustic soil.

This ring spent seventeen centuries buried, yet by good fortune the amount of porosity (light surface pitting caused by prolonged burial in soil) is extremely light. You really have to use a jeweler's loupe to see the evidence that this ring spent almost two millennia buried - although in these digital photo enlargements you can see the very light porosity the ring evidences. Obviously the ring happened to come to rest in fairly benign soil conditions. The ring is quite sturdy and substantial, its integrity is undiminished by the passage of time, and it has been professionally conserved. It is a very handsome artifact, eminently wearable, and a very exceptional piece of ancient jewelry, a memento of that ancient world which was Rome. The Romans were of course very fond of ornate personal jewelry including bracelets worn both on the forearm and upper arm, brooches, pendants, hair pins, earrings intricate fibulae and belt buckles, and of course, rings. This ring could easily be worn and enjoyed on a daily basis for many, many years to come.

HISTORY: Bronze is the name given to a wide range of alloys of copper, typically mixed in ancient times with zinc or tin. The Bronze Age followed the Neolithic, and as the name implies, saw the production of bronze tools, weapons and armor which were either hard or more durable than their stone predecessors. Traditionally archaeology has maintained that the earlier bronze was produced by the Maikop, a proto-Indo-European, proto-Celtic culture of Caucasus prehistory around 3500 B.C. Recent evidence however suggests that the smelting of bronze might be as much as several thousand years older. Shortly after the emergence of bronze technology in the Caucasus region, bronze technology emerged in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Levant (Eastern Mediterranean), Anatolia (Turkey) and the Iranian Plateau.

By the late fourth to early third millennium B.C. many Bronze Age Cultures had emerged. Some of the more notable were the Celtic cultures of Middle Europe stretching from Hungary to Poland and Germany, including the Urnfield, Lusatian, and (Iron Age Transitional) Hallstatt Cultures. The Shang in ancient China also developed a significant Bronze Age culture, noted for large bronze burial urns. Britain's Bronze Age cultures included the Beaker, Wessex, Deverl, and Rimbury. Cornwall was the principle source of tin not only for Britain but exported throughout the Mediterranean, and copper was produced from the Great Orme mine in North Wales. Though much of the raw minerals may have come from Britain (and to a lesser extent Spain), it was the Aegean world which controlled the trade in bronze. The great seafaring Minoan Empire appears to have controlled, coordinated, and defended the Bronze Age trade.

Tin and charcoal were imported into Cyprus, where locally mined copper was mined and alloyed with the tin from Britain. It appears that the Bronze Age collapsed with the Minoan Empire, to be replaced by a Dark Age and the eventual rise of the Iron Age Myceneans. Evidence suggests that the precipitating event might have been the eruption of Thera and the ensuing tsunami, which was only about 40 miles north of Crete, the capital of the Minoan Empire. It is known that the bread-basket of the Minoan empire, the area north of the Black Sea lost population, and thereafter many Minoan colony/client-states lost large populations to extreme famines or pestilence. Thus with the end to the shipping of tin throughout the Mediterranean the Bronze Age trade network is believed to have failed, and the end of the Bronze Age and the rise of the Iron age is normally associated with the disturbances created by large population movements in the 12th century B.C.

The end of the Bronze Age saw the emergency of new technologies and civilizations which heralded the new Iron Age. Although iron was in many respects much inferior to bronze (steel was still thousands of years away), iron had the advantage that it could be produced using local resources during the dark ages that followed the Minoan collapse. Bronze also resists corrosion and metal fatigue better than iron. Bronze was still used during the Iron Age, but for many purposes the weaker iron was sufficiently strong to serve in its place. As an example, Roman officers were equipped with bronze swords while foot soldiers had to make do with iron blades.

One of the greatest civilizations of recorded history was the ancient Roman Empire. In exchange for a very modest amount of contemporary currency, you can possess a small part of that great civilization in the form of a 2,000 year old piece of jewelry. The Roman civilization, in relative terms the greatest military power in the history of the world, was founded in the 8th century (B.C.). By the 4th Century (B.C.) the Romans were the dominant power on the Italian Peninsula, having defeated the Etruscans and Celts. In the 3rd Century (B.C.) the Romans conquered Sicily, and in the following century defeated Carthage, and controlled the Greece. Throughout the remainder of the 2nd Century (B.C.) the Roman Empire continued its gradual conquest of the Hellenistic (Greek Colonial) World by conquering Syria and Macedonia; and finally came to control Egypt in the 1st Century (B.C.).

The pinnacle of Roman power was achieved in the 1st Century (A.D.) as Rome conquered much of Britain and Western Europe. For a brief time, the era of "Pax Romana", a time of peace and consolidation reigned. Civilian emperors were the rule, and the culture flourished with a great deal of liberty enjoyed by the average Roman Citizen. However within 200 years the Roman Empire was in a state of steady decay, attacked by Germans, Goths, and Persians. In the 4th Century (A.D.) the Roman Empire was split between East and West. The Great Emperor Constantine temporarily arrested the decay of the Empire, but within a hundred years after his death the Persians captured Mesopotamia, Vandals infiltrated Gaul and Spain, and the Goths even sacked Rome itself. Most historians date the end of the Western Roman Empire to 476 (A.D.) when Emperor Romulus Augustus was deposed. However the Eastern Roman Empire (The Byzantine Empire) survived until the fall of Constantinople in 1453 A.D.

At its peak, the Roman Empire stretched from Britain in the West, throughout most of Western, Central, and Eastern Europe, and into Asia Minor. Valuables such as coins and jewelry were commonly buried for safekeeping, and inevitably these ancient citizens would succumb to one of the many perils of the ancient world. Oftentimes the survivors of these individuals did not know where the valuables had been buried, and today, two thousands years later caches of coins and rings are still commonly uncovered throughout Europe and Asia Minor. Roman Soldiers oftentimes came to possess large quantities of "booty" from their plunderous conquests, and routinely buried their treasure for safekeeping before they went into battle. If they met their end in battle, most often the whereabouts of their treasure was likewise, unknown.

Throughout history these treasures have been inadvertently discovered by farmers in their fields, uncovered by erosion, and the target of unsystematic searches by treasure seekers. With the introduction of metal detectors and other modern technologies to Eastern Europe in the past three or four decades, an amazing number of new finds are seeing the light of day 2,000 years or more after they were originally hidden by their past owners. And with the liberalization of post-Soviet Eastern Europe, new markets have opened eager to share in these treasures of the Roman Empire.

SHIPPING: These antiquities come from a number of collections which by and large originated here in Eastern Europe. As well, additional specimens are occasionally acquired from other institutions and dealers, principally in Eastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean. All of these artifacts are now in the United States and are available for immediate delivery via U.S. Mail. All purchases are backed by an unlimited guarantee of satisfaction and authenticity. If for any reason you are not entirely satisfied with your purchase, you may return it for a complete and immediate refund of your entire purchase price. A certificate of authenticity (COA) is available upon request.

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