Description

The reported object is a silver decorative ring with a circular bezel with retains three small fragments of pink stone set in mastic. The band is decorated with a transverse band of decoration (?floral, very worn) at junction with the bezel, and pairs of incised lines on each side of the hoop flanking a worn single pellet line around its circumference

In terms of design and style of the iconography, the ring belongs to the late fifteenth- to early sixteenth century (the shoulder design being typical). The drum-shaped bezel occurs as early as the twelfth century (for example, a silver finger ring from Harling, Norfolk: TAR 2002, no. 85), but the circular bezel design with worn pellet motif in the manner of a rope pattern, is closer to sixteenth-century rings with toadstone settings, one with scalloped setting, in the collections of Salisbury & South Wiltshire Museum (Cherry 1991, 41, nos 9, 10). Similar features occur on a later, seventeenth-century, gold decorative ring from Faddiley, Cheshire (TAR 2002, no. 165).

The internal diameter of the hoop is 18.6mm; bezel diameter 11.4mm; bezel height 3.4mm; thickness 3.2mm; minimum band width 3.1 mm; band thickness 2.1mm; weight 6.83g.