A HIGH KARAT VIKING TWISTED GOLD RING, CIRCA 9TH-10TH CENTURY A.D.

拍品描述

A HIGH KARAT VIKING TWISTED GOLD RING, CIRCA 9TH-10TH CENTURY A.D. Of circular form, the hoop constructed from two thick gold rods twisted together around the upper two-thirds of the band and tapering to plain rounded sections at the lower terminals, where the ends are bound together by tightly coiled gold wire forming two ribbed collars set side by side at the base of the ring. The twisted section retains the crisp definition of its spiralling grooves, and the surface carries the soft matte lustre characteristic of high-purity gold that has lain undisturbed for centuries. The construction is wholly typical of Viking Age finger rings of the wealthier class, in which two or more rods of gold or silver were heated and twisted around one another to produce a strongly modelled, light-catching surface without recourse to applied ornament. The binding collars at the base are both structural and decorative, securing the join of the rods and providing a visual counterpoint to the regular diagonal rhythm of the twist above. The form belongs to a wider Scandinavian repertoire of twisted, plaited and braided rings, arm-rings and neck-rings produced across the North Sea world during the ninth and tenth centuries. Gold of this purity was not the usual medium of Viking personal ornament. Silver, obtained in vast quantities through trade, tribute and the dirham flow from the Abbasid east, dominates the surviving corpus. Gold rings of this weight and karatage are correspondingly scarcer and signal a wearer of standing within the warrior aristocracy or mercantile elite, or a piece commissioned from melted-down dinars and Byzantine solidi reaching Scandinavia along the eastern river routes. Such rings functioned simultaneously as portable wealth, calibrated against the bullion economy of the hacksilver and hackgold hoards, and as visible markers of status, oath-binding and personal allegiance. This ring exemplifies the Viking goldsmith's preference for structural ornament over applied decoration, where the twisting of the metal itself is made to carry the entire decorative argument. Its survival in high-karat gold, with the binding collars intact and the twist undeformed, places it among the more substantial examples of a form normally encountered in silver. Diameter: 2.4cm

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