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 from three parallel gold rods of lentoid section, bound together at the shoulders by tightly coiled gold wire wrapping that secures the hoop and provides its structural closure. The outer face of each rod is worked with a continuous register of crescent-shaped indentations, produced by punched or chased impressions that catch the light in staggered rhythm across the band. The bindings at either shoulder are formed of several turns of drawn wire, neatly aligned, gathering the three strands into a single unit. The metal retains a warm, slightly variegated tone, with the paler yellow of the higher-purity surface visible against the deeper reddish cast of the interior rods. The decorative scheme belongs to the wider Norse repertoire of rhythmic, non-figurative surface ornament, in which visual interest is generated through the repetition of a single motif across a plastically worked ground rather than through applied filigree or granulation. The crescent punchwork here reads as a stylised scale or feather pattern, a treatment found on Viking-age gold and silver rings, arm-rings, and neck-rings across Scandinavia and the wider Norse diaspora. The triple-rod construction, bound at the shoulders and left open at the interior, is a characteristic form of Viking finger-ring, related structurally to the larger twisted and plaited arm-rings that circulated as bullion and as marks of status within the hack-silver and hack-gold economies of the ninth and tenth centuries. Gold rings of this weight and workmanship carried significance beyond personal adornment in the Norse world. Precious metal in the Viking economy functioned simultaneously as currency, as a store of value, and as an instrument of social bond, exchanged in oaths, gifts between lords and retainers, and marriage settlements. Gold, considerably rarer than silver in Scandinavian contexts, was reserved for the highest tier of such objects, and its presence indicates a wearer of standing. At approximately ten grams, this ring represents a substantial deposit of bullion in a wearable form, its value legible at a glance to any contemporary who handled it. The construction, in which three separately worked rods are held by wire bindings rather than soldered into a single band, is characteristic of Viking goldsmithing practice, which favoured mechanical assembly and cold-working over the fused constructions preferred in contemporary Byzantine and Carolingian workshops. The result is an object whose making remains legible on its surface, the joins and bindings openly displayed as part of the design. This ring exemplifies the Viking approach to personal gold ornament, in which structural clarity, rhythmic surface treatment, and the display of raw bullion weight are held in balance. It belongs to a small group of triple-rod gold finger-rings that translate the vocabulary of the larger Norse arm-ring into a scale suitable for the hand, and it preserves in a single object both the aesthetic and the economic logic of the Scandinavian precious-metal tradition. Dimensions: Internal Diameter: 1.9 cm

图片