Roman 23K Gold Ring | Jupiter in Temple Intaglio, Eagle and Altar

Roman, Imperial period. A Roman signet ring of high-karat gold (tested at 96.1 percent, about 23.1 karat), its oval bezel engraved in intaglio with a god standing inside his own sanctuary. A slender flat hoop widens to meet the face, and the engraver has filled that face with architecture. Two columns, each with base and capital, hold up a gabled pediment marked by a radiant sunburst. Inside this frame the deity faces forward with the stiff frontality of a cult statue. One arm is raised to grip a scepter and the other reaches down toward an altar, perhaps pouring a libation from a patera. A lesser creature, likely his eagle, stands guard at his feet. Pressed into wax, the design would have left a crisp raised image of the shrine and its god. The composition borrows the visual language of civic coinage in the Roman East. Cities from Asia Minor to Syria advertised their great sanctuaries as a temple front with the cult image shown inside. The scepter and patera suggest Jupiter in his most familiar role, both sovereign and sacrificer. The solar burst crowning the pediment invites a more local reading, perhaps Jupiter Heliopolitanus, the sun-lord of Baalbek, whose temple ranked among the largest in the Roman world. A signet did practical work. Its impression guaranteed the owner's word on letters, contracts, and wills, and sealing under a god's own roof may also have placed those affairs under his protection. Gold rings had once been reserved for senators and knights. Under the empire they spread steadily down the social ladder, to the lasting irritation of Pliny the Elder, who wrote that whoever first put gold on his finger had committed the worst crime against mankind. The ring's fine proportions suggest a woman's ring, or one worn high on the finger in the Roman fashion. Its owner plainly did not share Pliny's scruples. Item # 205329

Estimate:$900

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