A RARE JEWISH GOLD "MENORAH" RING, EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN, CIRCA 4TH-6TH CENTURY A.D., LATE ROMAN OR

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A RARE JEWISH GOLD "MENORAH" RING, EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN, CIRCA 4TH-6TH CENTURY A.D., LATE ROMAN OR EARLY BYZANTINE PERIOD Of substantial form, the hoop constructed as a closely ribbed cylindrical band tapering gently towards the shoulders, where it meets a horizontal tubular element chased with radiating linear ornament and terminating in open collar-mouths at either side. Rising from this transverse bar, the bezel is set at right angles to the hoop and takes the form of a rectangular openwork plaque: at its centre stands a seven-branched menorah, each arm rendered as a squared bracket springing symmetrically from a central shaft, the whole enclosed within a plain rectangular frame. Above the frame runs a register of seven rectangular cells, each retaining or originally retaining a small inlay, suggesting the flames of the seven lamps set upon the branches below. The iconography is unambiguous. The seven-branched menorah, the lampstand of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, became after the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. the principal visual sign of Jewish identity across the diaspora, appearing on tomb plaques, oil lamps, glass gold-sandwich medallions, synagogue mosaics, and personal seals. Its rendering here, with the seven upright cells filled with coloured inlays above the branches, translates the lamp itself into miniature: the branches carry the flames, and the ring becomes a wearable image of the Temple menorah in use. Personal ornaments of this type were worn as declarations of faith and belonging within the wider late antique world. The choice of gold is significant beyond its material value. In the late Roman and early Byzantine east, gold finger rings of substantial weight were the preserve of persons of standing, and their use as vehicles for religious identity, whether Christian, Jewish, or pagan, was well established. Comparable Christian rings of the same centuries carry crosses, monograms, or images of saints in closely related openwork bezels, and the technical vocabulary of the present ring, ribbed hoop, transverse tubular shoulder, architectural openwork bezel, belongs to the shared jewellers' repertoire of the eastern Mediterranean workshops that served all three communities. For a Jewish patron, the use of gold to carry the menorah invests the sign of the destroyed Temple with the material dignity once accorded to its furnishings, of which the menorah itself, according to Exodus, was fashioned of pure beaten gold. Surviving gold rings bearing the menorah are few, and the survival of the upper register of inlays, even where reduced, is rarer still. The three-dimensional treatment of the bezel, in which the menorah is not engraved on a flat plate but constructed in openwork as a small architectural object in its own right, places this ring among the more ambitious productions of its type. This ring exemplifies the late antique Jewish adaptation of Roman goldsmithing to devotional and communal ends, in which the standard vocabulary of the imperial finger ring is turned to carry the central sign of post-Temple Judaism. Its openwork bezel, treating the menorah as a miniature architectural object rather than a flat emblem, marks it as a considered commission rather than a generic amuletic type. Dimensions: Length of top 2.1 cm; internal diameter 2.1 cm.

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