Rings for the finger

by George Frederick Kunz

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Hands from Botticini’s “St. Jerome with St. Damasius and other Saints”

National Gallery, London

METHODS OF WEARING

A striking illustration of the large number of rings that some of the noblewomen of ancient Egypt wore on their fingers is given by the crossed hands of the wooden image on a mummy case in the British Museum. The left hand is given a decided preference in this respect over the right, there being no less than nine rings on the former against but three on the latter. These left-hand rings comprise one thumb-ring (the signet), three for the index, two for the middle finger, two for the “ring-finger,” and one for the little finger. The thumb of the right hand bears a ring and two are on the middle finger.

In the tomb of a king of the Chersonesus, discovered at Nicopolis in the Crimea, two rings were on the king’s hand and ten on that of the queen. The style of workmanship indicated that these rings were productions of the Greek art of the fourth century B.C.,[89] a period when in the Greek world rings were usually worn more sparingly, in contrast with the fashion that prevailed during the latter part of the first Christian century in Rome.

The fine Egyptian collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City offers an illustration of Egyptian ring wearing at the beginning of our era. This appears in the mummy-case of Artemidora, daughter of Harpocradorus, who died in her twenty-seventh year. The wooden case figures the form of the deceased woman. The index, fourth and little fingers of the left hand, each bear a ring; the fingers of the right hand have been broken off. The hands are of stucco and the rings are gilded.

In the Golden Age of Greek gem-engraving, from about 480 B.C. to 400 B.C., the scarab, never used by the Greeks of Asia Minor, came into general disuse in the Greek world, and a type of ring-stone appeared, destined to become very popular. In these the engraving was often done on the convex side of a scaraboid form, the convexity having been much flattened out, while with the true scarab the flat underside bore the engraved design or characters. Occasionally ring-stones had been originally pierced for suspension. The flattened scaraboid marked a transition to the flat ring-stones; but few, if any, examples of these antedate the beginning of the fourth century B.C.

One of the theories given by Macrobius to explain the wearing of rings on the fourth finger, attributes this usage to the desire to guard the precious setting of the ring from injury. He states that rings were first worn, not for ornament, but for use as signets, and in the beginning were made exclusively of metal. However, with the increase of wealth and luxury, precious stones were engraved and set in the metal ring, and it became necessary to place such a ring on the best-protected finger. The thumbs were most constantly used; the index was too exposed; the third finger was too long, and the little finger too small, while the right hand was much more frequently used than the left hand. Hence the choice fell upon the fourth finger of the left hand as the best fitted to receive a precious ring.[90] Pliny declares that while at first, in the Roman world, the ring was worn on the fourth finger, as was shown in the statues of the old kings Numa Pompilius and Servius Tullius, it was later on shifted to the index and finally to the little finger,[91] this being in accord with our modern custom, for men’s seal-rings especially.