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Cypriot Finger Rings

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

John Boardman
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Extract

The Role of Cyprus as intermediary between the cities of the Near East and the Aegean world can be studied in many different ways. This article is devoted to Cypriot metal signet rings of Iron Age (pre-Roman) date and the part they play in the story of east and west. It comprises a full publication of the metal rings in Nicosia museum, which I was invited to undertake by Drs. V. Karageorghis and K. Nikolaou, but it includes consideration of other finds from Cyprus now in other collections, and a few other probably Cypriot pieces. For the latter, less-detailed descriptions and references are given.

Since the continuity of culture between the Bronze Age and the Iron Age in Cyprus is more easily demonstrated than it can be in most other areas of the eastern Mediterranean, it is necessary to begin with a brief account of the all-metal signet rings in use in the island at the end of the Bronze Age, and token illustration is given here to supplement published photographs. The main influence in the shapes of these rings is Egyptian and not Aegean, since the long oval bezels of the rings run with the hoop and not across it, and the rings are all intended for wearing on the fingers, as some have been found in tombs, which is not true of most Aegean signet rings. Three different styles of decoration may be observed. The first is thoroughly Egyptianizing and some pieces are of high quality. The hoops of the rings are stirrup-shaped but occasionally have rounded shoulders, and the bezels are long ovals like cartouches. In these respects they follow Egyptian forms very closely, and it is possible that some are in fact of Egyptian origin. The shape and style of any made in Cyprus may, of course, not have been derived directly from Egypt, but via the Palestine—Syria coast.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 65 , November 1970 , pp. 5 - 15
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1970

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References

The photographs of rings and impressions in Nicosia are by Robert L. Wilkins; the drawings by Marion Cox. Other photographs have been kindly provided by museums in Berlin, Oxford, New York. The bezel lengths in millimetres are recorded of Iron Age rings and illustrated pieces. Some rings are illustrated in impression only, some in original only, some in both, depending on their condition and the importance of the device. For facilities to study the rings I am indebted to the curators and staffs of the Nicosia Museum, the Greek and Roman Department in the British Museum, and the Ashmolean Museum.

Abbreviations other than thoie in common use:

AFRings = Boardman, , ‘Archaic Finger Rings’ in Antike Kunst x (1967) 3 ff.Google Scholar

Cesnola Atlas = L. P. di Cesnola, A descriptive Atlas of the Cesnola Collection of Cypriot Antiquities, New York.

LondonR = Marshall, Catalogue of the Finger Rings, Greek, Etruscan and Roman, in the British Museum.

Murray = Murray et al., Excavations in Cyprus.

Myres, Cat. = Myres and Richter, A Catalogue of the Cyprus Museum.

Myres, Cesnola = Myres, Handbook of the Cesnola Collection, New York.

1 Cf. Åström, L., Studies in the Arts and Crafts of the Late Cypriot Bronze Age 26 f., 31, 94 f., 100 f.Google Scholar Rings in London from Cyprus are summarized in BMC Jewellery 48–50. Our nos. 25 and 46, recorded as from Late Bronze Age tombs at Enkomi, are unquestionably Archaic, and can hardly be from Enkomi. There must have been confusion in the registration of the finds.

2 For Egyptian examples see Williams, , Gold and Silver Jewellery (N.Y. Hist. Soc.) nos. 27–33Google Scholar (the last a double bezel); Schäfer, , Goldschmiede-arbeiten (Berlin Cat.) pl. 13. 78–82.Google Scholar

3 Murray, pl. 2, no. 872. On the scheme and its later history see Boardman, , Archaic Greek Gems 122 and n. 6.Google Scholar

4 For the ringstone and enamel bezels see the Kouklia, Evreti T.8, find (L.C. IIIA), BCH xcii (1968) 159, figs. 1, 2; 167, fig. 2. Other ringstones of this type and date: LondonR 103, pl. 2; Hesperia Suppl. viii, pl. 41. 15.

5 Compare the practice of mounting scarabs in pairs in Cyprus: Nicosia J. 393, from Marion (Myres, Cat. no. 4193) with enamelled tongues on the settings, the scarabs missing; LondonR 702, pl. 18; and cf. the setting for a double scarab from an eighth-century tomb at Eretria, , Antike Kunst ix (1966) pl. 26, 2, 3.Google Scholar

6 See AFRings 5 and n. 9 for some references. For finds with the ring, LondonR 15, pl. 1, see BMC Jewellery 85. For a summary of Iron Age rings in Cyprus see SCE iv. 2 156, 162–4, 219, 221 f.

7 See AFRings 5 f. and A. 9.

8 AE 1937. i. 378, fig. 1. This was not noticed in AFRings.

9 On the earliest Cypriot Iron Age inscriptions see now Masson, in Atti e Mem. I. Congr. Int. di Micenologia 417–19Google Scholar.

10 AFRings 6 and 16 (C. 5) for dated example from the Menelaion.

11 As Archaic Greek Gems pl. 30. 424 and p. 131—monkey, lion, and cock; and cf. the ‘hieroglyph’ of falcon and basket on a Greek painted situla fragment from Defenneh, Tell, CVA London viii. IIDm pl. 2. 2.Google Scholar Dr. J. R. Harris kindly commented on the figures on our ring no. 3.

12 Cf. Archaic Greek Gems 129.

13 Cf. AFRings 8.

14 As Coll. de Clercq vii pl. 19. 2796 from Amrit. For these rings see AFRings 6, n. 10.

15 Compare the lions on late Island gems, as Boardman, , Island Gems pls. 3, 4, nos. 78–95Google Scholar. The long-necked sphinxes are a comparatively primitive—seventh-century or early sixth-century—feature.

16 MissRichter, , in Engraved Gems of the Greeks and Etruscans 173 f.Google Scholar, clings to the earlier date, late seventh to early sixth century, comparing contemporary Etruscan jewellery; but this is not in the style of the gold work on the rings (which can be matched in Cyprus), and the similarity to ‘Pontic’ vases, which she acknowledges, is the decisive indication of date.

17 AFRings 7 ff.; 9 on the chimaera wing; 8 on the birds and branch; pictures on pls. 1–3.

18 See Archaic Greek Gems ch. iii and 170 f.

19 LondonR 702, 703, pl. 18, fig. 102, from Amathus, T. 256 and Marion respectively.

20 There are several plain silver rings of this shape, without intaglios, in Nicosia.

21 See Archaic Greek Gems 29 f., 36, and especially pl. 4, nos. 55, 64, and no. 56; for the helmet-hair, pl. 13, nos. 206, 210 and passim.

22 As Ex Oriente Lux ii (1939–42) 685, fig. 63; Israel Exploration Journal xvi ( 1966) pl. 4c.

23 Cf. the filigree palmettes on LondonR 906, from Kourion, T. 73 (fifth century), but this is a common Greek type.

24 Coll. de Clercq vii, pl. 19. 2446; cf. Archaic Greek Gems130–2, Group of the Cyprus Lions.

25 This recalls the ovolo edge to the bezels of two mid-fifth-century Greek gold rings: Leningrad Π. 1877. 1 and Paris, Louvre Bj. 1094. There is a superficial resemblance to the form of the Etruscan Fortnum Group rings, BSR xxxiv (1966) 10 ff.Google Scholar

26 Cf. the gold fly on a silver hoop, from Marion, , LondonR 1014Google Scholar, pl. 26.

27 There is one with an intaglio in a rather odd style from a third-century grave: Nicosia, from Kountoura Trachonia, T. 8. 22; SCE i, pl. 74. 3. Bronze. Oval bezel. A sphinx seated on an Ionic column.

28 LondonR 52 and 61, pl. 2; 67, pl. 3; Boardman, , Greek Gems and Finger Rings pls. 688, 683, 715.Google Scholar

29 LondonR 1057; cf. 1316 and gilt relief inscriptions on silver rings as Olynthus x, pl. 27. 474 and Oxford 1921. 864.

30 LondonR 1649, pl. 35, with the Apis bull on a boat.

31 See Westholm, , The Temples of Soli 159Google Scholar; LondonR pls. 6. 253, 35. 1640–1.