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Ch. 2: Forms and Materials of Rings

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100
RINGS
and another of rock-crystal, and a carnelian ring was dis­covered in a tomb in southern Russia. Each of these bears an engraved design. Two carnelian rings are in the British Museum.
Chalcedony rings, that is, rings entirely formed of this stone, while quite rare, are represented by a few specimens. We describe elsewhere the so-called be­trothal ring of the Virgin at Perugia,52 and the British ' Museum has a large example of a chalcedony ring, with the hoop rounded on the outer side, and a raised bezel that has been roughly cut so as to indicate a human head, some scratches marking the hair. The work is late Roman and the inscription shows that it was made for some adherent of the Gnostic sect.53
A large ring, entirely of rock crystal, shows on the oval flattened surface of the upper part a curious com­bination of the " Tau Cross," with superposed " chrisma," and with a serpent twined about it, recalling the brazen serpent of Moses, the view of which restored health to the diseased; the Greek letters, alpha and omega,, " the beginning and the end," complete this in­terlacing of Old and New Testament emblems; the doves facing the cross are the faithful to whom the Cross of Christ brings salvation.54 Another entire crystal ring bears on its flat face a design of somewhat similar im­port, with, however, the curious difference that the lower
52 See pp. 222, 258-261 of present work, and plate opposite p. 316 of the writer's, " The Curious Lore of Precious Stones," Philadelphia and London, 1913.
53  F. H. Marshall, Catalogue of the Finger Rings, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman, in the Departments of Antiquities, British Museum, London, 1907, p. 110, No. 654, pi. xvii.
54 Bosio, " Roma Sotteranea," Romiae, 1672, vol. i, p. 211.
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