The porcelain finger-rings of ancient Egypt are extremely beautiful, the band of the ring being seldom above one eighth of an inch in thickness. Some have a plate in which in bas-relief is the god Baal, full-faced, playing on the tambourine, as the inventor of music; others have their plates in the shape of the right symbolical eye, the emblem of the sun, of a fish of the perch species, or of a scarabæus. Some few represent flowers. Those which have elliptical plates with hieroglyphical inscriptions bear the names of Amen-Ra, and of other gods and monarchs, as Amenophis III., Amenophis IV., and Amenmest of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties. One of these rings has a little bugle on each side, as if it had been strung on the beaded work of a mummy, instead of being placed on the finger. Blue is the prevalent colour, but a few white and yellow rings, and some even ornamented with red and purple colours, have been discovered. It is scarcely credible that these rings, of a substance finer and more fragile than glass, were worn during life, and it seems hardly likely that they were worn by the poorer classes, for the use of the king’s name on sepulchral objects seems to have been restricted to functionaries of state. Some larger rings of porcelain of about an inch in diameter, seven-eighths of an inch broad, and one-sixteenth of an inch thick, made in open work, represents the constantly-repeated lotus-flowers, and the god Ra, or the sun, seated and floating through the heavens in his boat.
At the Winchester meeting of the Archæological Institute in 1845 a curious swivel-ring of blue porcelain was exhibited, found at Abydus in Upper Egypt; setting modern. It has a double impression: on the one side is the king making an offering to the gods, with the emblems of life and purity; on the other side the name of the monarch in the usual ‘cartouche,’ one that is well known, being that of Thothmes III., whom Wilkinson supposes to have been the Pharaoh of Exodus. It is worthy of remark that this cartouche is ‘supported’ by asps, which are usually considered to be the attributes of royalty.
Egyptian Porcelain Ring.
The annexed engraving represents an Egyptian ring, en pâte céramique, from M. Dieulafait’s ‘Diamants et Pierres Précieuses.’
The signet of Sennacherib in the British Museum is made of Amazon stone, one of the hardest stones known to the lapidary, and bears an intaglio ‘which,’ observes the Rev. C. W. King, ‘by its extreme minuteness, and the precision of the drawing, displays the excellence to which the art had already attained.’
On a mummy-case in the British Museum is a representation of a woman with crossed hands, covered with rings; the left hand is most loaded. Upon the thumb is a signet with hieroglyphics on the surface, three rings on the forefinger, two on the second, one formed like a snail shell, the same number on the next, and one on the little finger. The right hand carries only a thumb ring, and two upon the third finger.
Rings on the fingers of a Mummy.
Sir J. G. Wilkinson observes: ‘The left was considered the hand peculiarly privileged to bear these ornaments; and it is remarkable that its third finger was decorated with a greater number than any other, and was considered by them, as by us, par excellence, the ring-finger, though there is no evidence of its having been so honoured at the marriage ceremony.’