A MEDIEVAL SILVER FINGER RING, PROBABLY EMERALD, CIRCA LATE 12TH-13TH CENTURY A.D.

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A MEDIEVAL SILVER FINGER RING SET WITH A GREEN STONE, PROBABLY EMERALD, CIRCA LATE 12TH-13TH CENTURY A.D. Of stirrup form, the hoop rising from a plain, tapering shank to a raised bezel flanked by broadening shoulders. The shoulders are engraved on each side with a triangular panel of scrolling ornament, the design organised around paired spirals and hatched borders framed by a stepped edge. At the centre, a circular collet set flush with the shoulders holds a faceted green stone, probably emerald, cut with a shallow point and retained within a plain silver bezel. The surface of the silver retains extensive cuprous and earthen deposits across the shoulders and inside the hoop, with traces of gilding or copper-alloy residue clinging within the engraved recesses. The decorative programme belongs to a long tradition of engraved shoulder ornament on medieval European and Near Eastern rings, in which the setting is emphasised by symmetrical panels of foliate or scrolling design that direct the eye toward the stone. The spirals here, arranged in mirrored pairs and enclosed within a stepped triangular field, are consistent with the vocabulary of engraved silverwork of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when the stirrup-form ring became one of the standard settings for a single prominent gem. The choice of a green stone at the centre of such a ring is not incidental. In the medieval lapidary tradition, emerald was regarded as among the most powerful of stones, credited with protective and prophylactic virtues, associated with the preservation of chastity, the strengthening of memory, and the ability to reveal falsehood. Its high value and restricted supply — reaching Europe and the Islamic lands through long-distance trade from Egyptian and, later, Central Asian sources — meant that a securely mounted emerald in a silver ring of this size signalled the status of its wearer. Faceting of the stone, rather than the more common cabochon cut, is unusual for the period and would repay closer gemmological examination. Rings of stirrup form set with a single stone are among the most widely distributed items of medieval personal jewellery, worn across a broad geography from the Latin West through Byzantium and into the Islamic east, where their function overlapped with that of the seal ring and the amuletic gem-mount. The engraved shoulders, gilded highlights, and central prophylactic stone belong equally to devotional, matrimonial, and status-marking contexts, and it is often difficult to distinguish these uses in the surviving material. This ring exemplifies the medieval stirrup-form setting at the moment when the single faceted stone begins to dominate the design of the piece, the engraved shoulders subordinated to the frame of the gem. Its combination of silver hoop, gilded engraved ornament, and a substantial green stone places it within the small group of medieval rings in which material, form, and lapidary belief converge on a single point at the centre of the bezel. Dimensions: Internal Diameter: 1.9 cm; Weight: 11 g

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