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

拍品描述

A VIKING GOLD RING, CIRCA 9TH-10TH CENTURY A.D. Of broad band form, the hoop widening at the front into a flat bezel-like face and tapering towards the reverse, worked from a single sheet of gold. The exterior is decorated with three horizontal registers of stamped ornament: an upper and lower band of pendant and upright triangles, each filled with a triangular arrangement of three or six raised bosses, framing a central band of ring-and-dot punches set in a continuous row. The stamps are pressed cleanly into the metal, producing a crisp relief that reads clearly against the burnished ground. The edges of the band are gently irregular where the sheet has been cut and shaped, and the interior is left plain. The ornament belongs to a well-established Scandinavian decorative repertoire in which simple punched geometric units, most often triangles of granules or their stamped imitation, and ring-and-dot motifs, are arranged in disciplined horizontal registers. The triangular clusters of bosses recall the tradition of true filigree and granulation practised in Viking Age goldsmithing, here reproduced through stamped work on sheet metal, a technique that allowed the visual language of granulated jewellery to be extended to lighter and more economical forms. The ring-and-dot band, ubiquitous across Viking bone, antler, and metalwork, provides the horizontal spine around which the triangular registers are organised. Gold objects from the Viking world are considerably rarer than their silver counterparts, silver being the dominant precious metal of the Scandinavian bullion economy in the 9th and 10th centuries. Gold circulated at the highest social level, often reaching Scandinavia through trade, tribute, and raiding contacts with the Carolingian and Byzantine worlds and the Islamic Caliphates, whose dinars were a significant source of the metal. A gold finger ring of this weight would therefore have signalled considerable status, worn by a person of rank within a warrior aristocracy in which arm rings, neck rings, and finger rings functioned simultaneously as personal ornament, portable wealth, and a visible marker of allegiance and gift exchange. This ring exemplifies the Viking goldsmith's translation of the granulated aesthetic into stamped sheet gold, retaining the disciplined register-based ornament of the tradition while adapting it to a broader, flatter form. Its combination of triangular bosswork and ring-and-dot punchwork places it firmly within the mainstream of 9th to 10th century Scandinavian personal ornament, and its material lifts it into the small group of Viking rings executed in gold rather than silver. Dimensions: Internal diameter 2 cm

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