Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
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| Gold and Emerald Ring Find. |
This emerald ring is an old find. I thought I'd show it again since I'm talking about determining the date of finger rings. This one always seemed strange to me. For a while I thought it might be a hybrid. The strange mount seems to have a modern look.. It looks like maybe somebody took a piece of something, maybe a brooch or something, and mounted on a band to be used as a ring. It just always looked like it didn't go together.
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I decided to add to what I said yesterday about finger rings found at Spanish colonial archaeological sites of Florida and the Caribbean. I'll refer to the Deagan book on Spanish colonial artifacts again.
Deagan states, A common style of finger ring during the seventeenth century was a simple, thin, copper-alloy band with a raised square bezel, set with a colored glass or paste stone...
These rings, reported from several seventeenth-century contexts, are very similar in form to examples made from gold and precious gems known from the sixteenth century and earlier (see, for example those from the Armada wrecks in Stenuit 1972:274... )
I've shown some gold emerald ring finds of that basic design before.
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Seventeenth Century Spanish Colonial Finger Rings with Box Bezel
From Deagan (Fig. 6.8)
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She mentions that a lot of the copper-alloy rings were brought as gifts for the natives. I've wondered if their presence on shipwreck beaches might have something to do with early native or other salvage workers.
18th century sites show a wider variety of rings. You might have noticed that I have not mentioned silver rings yet, but here is something else in the Deagan book. She says, Several eighteenth-century sites have produced silver or copper-ally rings featuring a large central stone set in a serrated bezel, flanked by from one to three smaller stones on each side.
So the archaeological record seems to show the appearance of silver finger rings from Spanish Colonial Florida archaeological sites during the eighteenth century.
The following figure from the same book shows a design that is similar to the ring with turquoise stone that I showed yesterday, even though those shown in the figure 6.9 are made of copper alloy rather than silver.
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Source: Deagan Spanish Colonial Artifacts Book.
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As you can see, unlike many other types of artifacts, finger rings have not change drastically over the centuries. There are trends and clues though. In many cases it will take a detailed examination to tell the difference, and often there will be no conclusive evidence.
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| Dug Claddagh Ring. |
Claddagh rings are common in both silver and gold. This one is not a precious metal and did not come from a beach. This one came from an area in West Virginia where 19th century as well as items centuries older were found, so it is hard to tell what its age might be.
There are no stamped markings on it. Perhaps I'll clean it off and look at it more closely.
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The National Hurricane Center map is showing a system in the Caribbean that could develop into a cyclone before long.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
