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

拍品描述

A VIKING GOLD RING, CIRCA 9TH-10TH CENTURY A.D. Formed of a broad hoop composed of three parallel gold bands held together at the shoulders by transverse gold wire wrappings, the outward-facing surface of each band worked in relief with a continuous register of lentoid cells, each enclosing a raised central boss, arranged between opposed triangular fields. The inner face of the hoop is left plain and smooth, retaining the impressions of wear. At the shoulders the three bands taper slightly and are gathered beneath double loops of drawn wire, which cross the hoop laterally and secure the composite band into a single structure. The gold retains a warm, matte surface with pale earthen deposits caught in the recesses of the ornament. The decoration belongs to a repertoire of stamped and punched ornament widely current in Viking-age goldsmithing, in which repeated geometric cells, ring-and-dot motifs, and lozenge fields were built up along a band to produce a dense, textile-like surface. The lentoid or vesica-shaped cells with central bosses that run along each of the three bands are a characteristic Scandinavian variant of the eye-and-lozenge pattern seen on rings, arm-rings and neck-rings recovered from silver and gold hoards across the Viking world. The doubled wire collars at the shoulders are a constructional feature typical of the period, where separate rods or bands were bound together by finer wire rather than soldered flush, producing the characteristic segmented profile of Scandinavian composite rings. Gold is comparatively rare in Viking material culture, where silver was the dominant precious metal of both ornament and exchange. Gold rings of this weight and construction were high-status objects, associated with elite gift exchange, oath-swearing, and the personal wealth of leading figures within the warrior and mercantile classes. The bullion value of the ring would have been readily understood: Viking gold and silver ornaments served simultaneously as personal adornment and as portable, weighable wealth, and many surviving examples show cuts or nicks where their purity was tested. The present ring is intact and unmarked, suggesting it remained in continuous use as jewellery rather than entering the economy of hacksilver and hackgold. This ring exemplifies the Viking preference for structural, built-up ornament in which the form of the object and its decoration are inseparable, the three stamped bands bound by wire collars producing a piece that is at once a single ring and a legible composite of parts. It stands within the small corpus of gold finger-rings that survive from a culture whose precious-metal work is otherwise dominated by silver, and represents the goldsmith's tradition at its most confident and disciplined. Dimensions: Internal Diameter: 11cm

图片