Genuine Elegant Roman-Celtic Bronze Ring Size 8 AD100

Very Elegant and Bold Size 8 Genuine Ancient Roman Bronze Ring 100 A.D.

CLASSIFICATION: Ancient Roman Bronze Ring. Antique Handcrafted Nineteenth Century Burmese Jade Semi-Precious Gemstone .

ATTRIBUTION: Eastern Roman Empire (Provincial Dalmatia – present-day Croatia), First or Second Century A.D.

SIZE/MEASUREMENTS: Fits ring size 8 (U.S.).

Diameter: 22mm * 20mm (outer dimensions – without gemstone); 18 1/2mm * 17 1/2mm (inner diameter).

Bezel: 16mm breadth x 10mm height x 2mm thickness.

Gemstone: 7mm (breadth) * 5mm (height) * 2mm (thickness). 0.72 carats (approximate weight).

Tapered Width Band: 5 1/2mm (at bezel) * 3 1/2mm (at sides) * 2mm (at back).

Weight: 5.59 grams.

CONDITION: Excellent. Intact, moderately heavy wear, light porosity (surface pitting caused by contact with earth while buried). Professionally conserved.

DETAIL: A handsome, nicely constructed Roman bronze ring with understated but very elegant features. The ring sports a large bezel which at one time would have been engraved. However the ring was worn for such an extended period of time that though the ring is entirely intact and its integrity undiminished, nonetheless whatever engraved design it once bore was worn smooth. It is quite likely that the ring was worn most of a lifetime, as it would take most of a life time to wear an engraved bezel smooth. In fact the extent of the wear is significant enough that it suggests that the ring might have been worn during the lifetime of more than one owner. Perhaps it was a family heirloom handed down between generations.

Though the ring was not originally produced to hold a gemstone, the large, flat bezel seemed to invite a gemstone. So we mounted a large, natural, antique, handcrafted jade semi-precious gemstone. Jade was extremely valuable in ancient China, there are records of an entire city being traded for a carved ornamental jade piece. Jade jewelry can be found in the tombs of Ancient China's emperors dating back to the 4th millennium B.C. Many classical scholars believe that some jade reached Rome from China, Burma and India via the “silk route”. However during the twentieth century archaeologists determined that most of the jade in the classical world of the Mediterranean had sources reaching back even into the Neolithic, and came principally from Egypt, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Italy.

The gemstone was mounted using jeweler’s epoxy, and is quite secure. Nonetheless if you at some time in the future wished to remove it, this could easily be accomplished using some thinner or nail polish remover. The gemstone was produced in nineteenth century Burma, and was handcrafted into this polished cabochon gemstone by a nineteenth century Russian artisan near Yekaterinburg, Russia, home of one of Russia’s most famous gemstone and jewelry production centers, famous for producing the elaborate jewelry of Czarist Russia. It’s a very beautiful gemstone, and seemed an appropriate choice. Though the gemstone is not as old as the ring, given the fact that many cultures of the classical Mediterranean world (including the Romans and Greeks) made use of jade in their jewelry, and that the gemstone in itself is historically significant, it seemed an appropriate gemstone to enhance this ring’s beauty, a choice which preserves historical continuity.

The ring is of one-piece construction, much like a contemporary ring. The more archaic rings produced by Roman artisans were characteristically made in two pieces; an incomplete ring (a “shank”) with a separately crafted bezel which was brazed to the shank in order to assemble the ring. The specimen possesses a hallmark characteristic of the bronze rings produced within the Roman Empire by Celtic artisans. That is the very distinctive “knob” at the back of the band. The Romans highly regarding Celtic workmanship, and articles of jewelry produced by Celtic artisans were highly prized, and by the time of Imperial Rome, Celtic artisans could be found scattered throughout the empire.

Fate has been kind to this ring. Though the ring does evidence a substantial amount of wear, it is nonetheless of very heavy construction, and the integrity of the ring remains entirely undiminished despite the passage of two thousand years. The fact that the ring evidences a significant degree of wear from ancient usage should not, however, be a source of disappointment. You must keep in mind that the ring was produced by an artisan and sold to a patron or consumer with the idea that the ring would be enjoyed and worn by the purchased. And without any regard to twenty-first century posterity, that precisely what happened! The original Roman owner of this ring wore it, enjoyed it, and probably never could have in his most delusional moment ever dreamed that almost 100 generations later the ring would still exist.

It should likewise come as no surprise that also detectable are the telltale signs that the ring spent thousands of years in the soil. The evidence is known as “porosity”, which is fine surface pitting (oxidation, corrosion) caused by extended burial in caustic soil. Many small ancient metal artifacts such as this are extensively disfigured and suffer substantial degradation as a consequence of the ordeal of being buried for millennia. It is not at all unusual to find metal artifacts decomposed to the point where they are not much more substantial than discolored patterns in the soil. Actually most smaller ancient artifacts such as this are so badly oxidized that oftentimes all that is left is a green (bronze) or red (iron) stain in the soil, or an artifact which crumbles in your hand.

However this specimen is not so heavily afflicted, and certainly has not been disfigured. To the cursory inspection of the casual admirer, it simply looks like an ancient ring, nicely surfaced, no immediately discernible blemishes. You have to look closely to detect the telltale signs indicating the ring was buried for millennia. No denying, there is oxidation, you can clearly see the evidence in these photo enlargements, or if in hand you inspect the ring intently. However the extent is very mild. This ring spent almost 2,000 years buried, yet by good fortune there is only a very modest degree of porosity evidenced. It happened to come to rest in reasonably gentle soil conditions. Consequentially, the integrity of the artifact remains undiminished, and despite the very modest porosity, the ring remains quite handsome, and entirely wearable.

The ring’s overall integrity is exceptional, it has not been significant degraded, and the ring remains sturdy and entirely wearable. The ring has been professionally conserved. The ring is quite sturdy, beautifully toned with a medium golden color very characteristic of ancient bronze, and quite handsome. The Romans were of course very fond of ornate personal jewelry including bracelets worn both on the forearm and upper arm, brooches, pendants, hair pins, earrings intricate fibulae and belt buckles, and of course, rings. This is an exceptional piece of Roman jewelry, a very handsome artifact, and eminently wearable. Aside from being significant to the history of ancient jewelry, it is also an evocative relic of one of the world’s greatest civilizations and than ancient world’s most significant military machine; the glory and light which was known as the “Roman Empire”.

HISTORY: Bronze is the name given to a wide range of alloys of copper, typically mixed in ancient times with zinc or tin. The Bronze Age followed the Neolithic, and as the name implies, saw the production of bronze tools, weapons and armor which were either hard or more durable than their stone predecessors. Traditionally archaeology has maintained that the earlier bronze was produced by the Maikop, a proto-Indo-European, proto-Celtic culture of Caucasus prehistory around 3500 B.C. Recent evidence however suggests that the smelting of bronze might be as much as several thousand years older. Shortly after the emergence of bronze technology in the Caucasus region, bronze technology emerged in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Levant (Eastern Mediterranean), Anatolia (Turkey) and the Iranian Plateau. By the late fourth to early third millennium B.C. many Bronze Age Cultures had emerged. Some of the more notable were the Celtic cultures of Middle Europe stretching from Hungary to Poland and Germany, including the Urnfield, Lusatian, and (Iron Age Transitional) Hallstatt Cultures.

The Shang in ancient China also developed a significant Bronze Age culture, noted for large bronze burial urns. Britain’s Bronze Age cultures included the Beaker, Wessex, Deverl, and Rimbury. Cornwall was the principle source of tin not only for Britain but exported throughout the Mediterranean, and copper was produced from the Great Orme mine in North Wales. Though much of the raw minerals may have come from Britain (and to a lesser extent Spain), it was the Aegean world which controlled the trade in bronze. The great seafaring Minoan Empire appears to have controlled, coordinated, and defended the Bronze Age trade. Tin and charcoal were imported into Cyprus, where locally mined copper was mined and alloyed with the tin from Britain. It appears that the Bronze Age collapsed with the Minoan Empire, to be replaced by a Dark Age and the eventual rise of the Iron Age Myceneans. Evidence suggests that the precipitating event might have been the eruption of Thera and the ensuing tsunami, which was only about 40 miles north of Crete, the capital of the Minoan empire.

It is known that the bread-basket of the Minoan empire, the area north of the Black Sea lost population, and thereafter many Minoan colony/client-states lost large populations to extreme famines or pestilence. Thus with the end to the shipping of tin throughout the Mediterranean the Bronze Age trade network is believed to have failed, and the end of the Bronze Age and the rise of the Iron age is normally associated with the disturbances created by large population movements in the 12th century B.C. The end of the Bronze Age saw the emergency of new technologies and civilizations which heralded the new Iron Age. Although iron was in many respects much inferior to bronze (steel was still thousands of years away), iron had the advantage that it could be produced using local resources during the dark ages that followed the Minoan collapse. Bronze also resists corrosion and metal fatigue better than iron. Bronze was still used during the Iron Age, but for many purposes the weaker iron was sufficiently strong to serve in its place. As an example, Roman officers were equipped with bronze swords while foot soldiers had to make do with iron blades.

The highest quality and rarest form of jade is known as “jadeite”, and is found almost exclusively in Burma (as was this gemstone), Tibet and southern China. Nephrite, the more common and less valuable form of jade is found in many parts of the world from California to Siberia. Jade was used in ancient times for weapons, utensils, and ornaments, and has always been especially valued by the Chinese and Japanese as the most precious of all stones. Many beautiful hand carved jade vases, bowls, tablets, and statues produced in ancient China now reside in museums world wide. Records of the use of jade in China in the production of jewelry goes back 5,000 years, and can be found in emperors' tombs dating back to the 4th millennium B.C. Jade was extremely valuable in ancient China, there are records of an entire city being traded for a carved ornamental jade piece.

Throughout the Orient jade was believed to help one access the spiritual world. The less valuable form of jade was widely used by primitive peoples as tools and weapons in the Neolithic, especially in Europe, Mexico, Asia, New Zealand, and North Africa (including ancient Egypt). Both nephrite jade and jadeite jade artifacts have been unearthed on the European continent, in such places as Holland, France, Germany, Poland, Belgium, Switzerland and Finland, and in Great Britain. Some scholars contend that some of the finest jade came to Rome from China via the “silk route”. However much of the jade found by archaeologists in the artifacts of the ancient Mediterranean came from Egypt, the Netherlands, Poland, Italy, Serbia, Russia, Germany and Switzerland. Jade was used for gemstones as well as for ornamental purposes in the classical Mediterranean, but it was more extensively used in Neolithic Europe for weapons and tools.

One of the greatest civilizations of recorded history was the ancient Roman Empire. In exchange for a very modest amount of contemporary currency, you can possess a small part of that great civilization in the form of a 2,000 year old piece of jewelry. The Roman civilization, in relative terms the greatest military power in the history of the world, was founded in the 8th century (B.C.). In the 4th Century (B.C.) the Romans were the dominant power on the Italian Peninsula, having defeated the Etruscans and Celts. In the 3rd Century (B.C.) the Romans conquered Sicily, and in the following century defeated Carthage, and controlled the Greece. Throughout the remainder of the 2nd Century (B.C.) the Roman Empire continued its gradual conquest of the Hellenistic (Greek Colonial) World by conquering Syria and Macedonia; and finally came to control Egypt in the 1st Century (B.C.).

The pinnacle of Roman power was achieved in the 1st Century (A.D.) as Rome conquered much of Britain and Western Europe. For a brief time, the era of “Pax Romana”, a time of peace and consolidation reigned. Civilian emperors were the rule, and the culture flourished with a great deal of liberty enjoyed by the average Roman Citizen. However within 200 years the Roman Empire was in a state of steady decay, attacked by Germans, Goths, and Persians. In the 4th Century (A.D.) the Roman Empire was split between East and West. The Great Emperor Constantine temporarily arrested the decay of the Empire, but within a hundred years after his death the Persians captured Mesopotamia, Vandals infiltrated Gaul and Spain, and the Goths even sacked Rome itself. Most historians date the end of the Western Roman Empire to 476 (A.D.) when Emperor Romulus Augustus was deposed. However the Eastern Roman Empire (The Byzantine Empire) survived until the fall of Constantinople in 1453 A.D.

At its peak, the Roman Empire stretched from Britain in the West, throughout most of Western, Central, and Eastern Europe, and into Asia Minor. Valuables such as coins and jewelry were commonly buried for safekeeping, and inevitably these ancient citizens would succumb to one of the many perils of the ancient world. Oftentimes the survivors of these individuals did not know where the valuables had been buried, and today, two thousand years later caches of coins and rings are still commonly uncovered throughout Europe and Asia Minor. Roman Soldiers oftentimes came to possess large quantities of “booty” from their plunderous conquests, and routinely buried their treasure for safekeeping before they went into battle. If they met their end in battle, most often the whereabouts of their treasure was likewise, unknown.

Throughout history these treasures have been inadvertently discovered by farmers in their fields, uncovered by erosion, and the target of unsystematic searches by treasure seekers. With the introduction of metal detectors and other modern technologies to Eastern Europe in the past three or four decades, an amazing number of new finds are seeing the light of day two thousand years or more after they were originally hidden by their past owners. And with the liberalization of post-Soviet Eastern Europe, new markets have opened eager to share in these treasures of the Roman Empire.

Domestic shipping is $3.99 for first class mail or $6.99 for Priority Mail. Domestic rates include USPS Delivery Confirmation (you might be able to update the status of your shipment on-line at the USPS Web Site). Canadian shipments are $3.99 for Air Mail; International shipments are $4.99 for Air Mail (and generally are NOT tracked; trackable shipments are EXTRA). I can add most other items I sell to the shipment for only $0.99 each. Your purchase will ordinarily be shipped within 48 hours of payment. We package as well as anyone in the business, with lots of protective padding and containers. Insurance is available for both domestic and international shipments ($6 for domestic shipments; $12 for international shipments; ONLY required when PayPal is used.

We do NOT recommend uninsured shipments, and expressly disclaim any responsibility for the loss of an uninsured shipment. Unfortunately the contents of parcels are easily “lost” or misdelivered by postal employees – even in the USA. If you intend to pay via PayPal, please be aware that PayPal Protection Policies REQUIRE insured, trackable shipments. We do offer U.S. Postal Service Priority Mail, Registered Mail, and Express Mail for both international and domestic shipments, as well United Parcel Service (UPS) and Federal Express (Fed-Ex). Please ask for a rate quotation. We will accept whatever payment method you are most comfortable with. If upon receipt of the item you are disappointed for any reason whatever, I offer a no questions asked return policy. Send it back, I will give you a complete refund of the purchase price.

Most of the items I offer come from the collection of a family friend who was active in the field of Archaeology for over forty years. However many of the items also come from purchases I make in Eastern Europe, India, and from the Levant (Eastern Mediterranean/Near East) from various institutions and dealers. Though I have always had an interest in archaeology, my own academic background was in sociology and cultural anthropology. After my retirement however, I found myself drawn to archaeology as well. Aside from my own personal collection, I have made extensive and frequent additions of my own via purchases on Ebay (of course), as well as many purchases from both dealers and institutions throughout the world – but especially in the Near East and in Eastern Europe. I spend over half of my year out of the United States, and have spent much of my life either in India or Eastern Europe. In fact much of what we generate on Yahoo, Amazon and Ebay goes to support The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, as well as some other worthy institutions in Europe connected with Anthropology and Archaeology.

I acquire some small but interesting collections overseas from time-to-time, and have as well some duplicate items within my own collection which I occasionally decide to part with. Though I have a collection of ancient coins numbering in the tens of thousands, my primary interest is in ancient jewelry. My wife also is an active participant in the “business” of antique and ancient jewelry, and is from Russia. I would be happy to provide you with a certificate/guarantee of authenticity for any item you purchase from me. There is a $2 fee for mailing under separate cover. Whenever I am overseas I have made arrangements for purchases to be shipped out via domestic mail. If I am in the field, you may have to wait for a week or two for a COA to arrive via international air mail. But you can be sure your purchase will arrive properly packaged and promptly – even if I am absent. And when I am in a remote field location with merely a notebook computer, at times I am not able to access my email for a day or two, so be patient, I will always respond to every email. Please see our "ADDITIONAL TERMS OF SALE."