Ring

Thick, cast rings of varying sizes were common offerings in Greek sanctuaries during the later Geometric and Archaic periods. These heavy rings cannot be explained as finger rings or bracelets, nor do the find contexts suggest other practical functions. When found in burial contexts, they do not form part of the adornment of the dead. Like the oversized dress pins of the Geometric period (compare 1947.33.4), the rings appear to have been deposited in sanctuaries and graves for their metal value. It has been suggested that they constituted a pre-monetary form of currency (1). The rings in the Harvard collection do not confirm the standardized ratio of diameter to weight assumed in the relevant study. As their findspots are not known, it cannot be excluded that the one or the other was in fact a ring handle or part of a buckle. Some credibility may be given to their reported provenance from the Argive Heraeum, since three out of the four rings were presented to the museum by family members of one of the Heraeum excavators (2). The ring has a slightly beveled, octagonal section. NOTES: 1. See C. Waldstein, ed., The Argive Heraeum 1 (Boston, 1902) 61-62; and P. Dakoronia, “Rings – Pre-Monetary Forms of the Geometric Period,” Archaiologik­ē Ephēmeris 1989: 115-20 [in Greek]. 2. Compare the “innumerable” rings excavated at the Argive Heraeum published by H. F. de Cou, “The Bronzes of the Argive Heraeum,” in The Argive Heraeum 2, ed. C. Waldstein (Boston, 1905) 191-332, esp. 251-63, nos. 975-1524, pls. 90-91. Susanne Ebbinghaus