MIDDLE IRON AGE V‐SHAPED PRECIOUS METAL FINGER‐RINGS IN BRITAIN

Abstract

Summary The first V‐shaped finger‐ring reported from Britain was a silver specimen found in 1921–26. No more came to light until discoveries of gold examples by metal detectorists from 1997 onwards. There are now ten such gold rings from Britain, a third of the European total. There is no trail of these gold rings known between their Central European homeland and the English Channel, making those in Britain a distinctly anomalous phenomenon. They first appear c. 400 BC in Austria‐Slovakia. Their popularity peaked at the end of the fourth and in the early third centuries BC. Afterwards, there was a steep decline, and they were not made at all later than c .200 BC. Although none from Britain has a context or definite associations, they can be proposed as ritual offerings of jewellery worn by elite women. Their currency in Britain spanned the period between the first arrivals of continental gold torcs and the development of insular schools of gold jewellery.