Wow, Look at All These Beautiful Ancient Rings That Should Belong to Me 

By Kelly Faircloth  |  June 26, 2018 | 8:30pm
In Depth

A collection of 54 rings—Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Viking, and medieval in origin—is coming up for auction. They look great and I need to own all of them.

The BBC pointed the way to this sale, at Hanson Auctioneers in the UK. “These rings are between 2,200 and 1,800 years old and many are exceptional and extremely rare,” explained James Brenchley, the company’s head of the Ancient Art, Antiquities and Classical Coins department. Apparently they were all collected by an engineer in the 1950s and 1960s, who clearly had a very good eye for a nice piece of bling.

Frankly, I’ve just really got to have this 4th to 1st Century BC East Greek Hellenistic gold ring with cabochon garnets, which was “crafted in the time after the death of Alexander the Great in the context of events such as the wars of the Diadochi, which ended in 275 BC, witnessing the fall of Argead and Antipatrid dynasties; The Cretan war between the Macedonians and alliance led by Rhodes in 221-179 BC and the Ptolemaic period in Egypt where Macedonian Greeks ruled Egypt.”

Yup, gotta have it! I also need this Roman ring from the 2nd century AD “with carnelian intaglio bust of Vibia Sabina, the wife of Emperor Hadrian.”

Brenchley explained that it “features a finely inscribed bust of Empress Vibia Sabina with elaborate hairstyle and chlamys over her shoulders. It would have been worn by a high-status individual within the Roman empire.”

And now, it should be worn by me, a high-status individual in my own mind.

 
Join the discussion...