The rings found with remains of chariots at Hamden Hill,[1513] near Montacute, Somersetshire, appear to be of Late Celtic date, and to be hollow. A hollow ring, however, 1⅜ inch in diameter, and made from a strip of bronze, fashioned into a tube and left open on the inner side, was found with a socketed celt, a gouge, and other objects of bronze, at Melbourn,[1514] Cambridgeshire. Many of those from the cemetery at Hallstatt are of this kind, wrought from a thin plate of metal. Some hollow rings from Ireland will subsequently be mentioned.
Near Trillick,[1515] Co. Tyrone, a pin passing transversely through the body of two rings (see Fig. 496) was found, and with it two large rings about 3½ inches in diameter, and four smaller, about 2 inches. These latter appear to be hollow, with probably a clay core inside. With these objects a socketed celt and a bronze hammer were found.
Nearly six hundred bronze rings are in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy.
Some of the Irish rings are cast in pairs, like a figure of 8.[1516] Others of large size have smaller rings cast upon them. That shown in Fig. 487, borrowed from Wilde,[1517] is 4¼ inches in diameter, with rings of 1½ inches diameter upon it. Sir W. Wilde was inclined to regard it as a bangle with two rings by which to suspend it, but this appears to me very doubtful. I have an almost identical example of the form from Ballymoney, Co. Antrim.
A gold ring, 4¼ inches in diameter, with a single small ring playing upon it, from the great Clare find, is figured by Wilde.[1518] He states that “similar articles are occasionally observed sculptured upon the breasts of the statues of ancient Roman generals, the small ring being attached to the dress.”
Some few bronze ornaments, which have been thought to be finger rings, have from time to time been found associated with other objects of the same metal, such as armlets, torques, &c.
One found with the armlets and palstaves in Woolmer Forest,[1519] Hants, as already mentioned, is shown in Fig. 488. It has been formed from a small quadrangular bar of metal, cylindrical at the ends, twisted after the manner of an ordinary torque, and subsequently coiled into a spiral ring. Mr. Bateman[1520] describes it as a finger ring. With it was also another twisted bronze ring of the same kind, but of only one coil. It appears doubtful whether these rings were not more of the nature of ornamental beads. It will be remembered that three spiral rings of the same kind, but plain and of about four coils each, were found on the extremities of the torque discovered at Hollingbury Hill,[1521] Sussex. They were considerably too large to fit on the torque, and were regarded as intended in some way to fasten the garment. Some rings of this kind were found with torques near Amesbury, as already mentioned. A ring of a single coil, but made from a twisted bar like that in the figure, was in the hoard found at Camenz,[1522] Saxony, in which also were fragments of torques.
Fig. 488.—Woolmer Forest. 1/1 —— Fig. 489.—Dumbarton.
I have three small twisted penannular rings of gold which were found with a small torque of the same metal near Carcassonne, Aude. They are of different sizes and weights, but are all too small for the finger or for ear-rings. One of them is indeed too small to pass over the recurved end of the torque, but the ends may possibly have been pinched together since it was found. I am not aware that any of the rings were ever actually upon the torque, though I have reason to believe they were found with it.