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A Gold Ring with Runes from Central Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2012

Extract

The collection of continental European and Anglo-Saxon jewellery dating from the second half of the first millennium of our era in the Ashmolean Museum, though of no great size, has for many years been noted for its quality, including, as it does, the fine series of ornaments and rings collected by Sir John Evans and presented in 1908 by Sir Arthur Evans, together with such outstanding pieces as the Alfred Jewel and the Minster Lovel jewel. To these have more recently been added important gold rings, a further gift from Sir Arthur Evans, and the magnificent brooch from Sarre, Kent, purchased in 1934.

In the early half of this year an unexpended balance of a grant from the bequest of Mr. George Flood France, allotted by the Visitors of the Museum for the purchase of objects of art, allowed the Department of Antiquities to contemplate the acquisition of yet another important jewel, and by the help of a supplementary grant which the Trustees of the National Art-Collections Fund generously promised to contribute if needed, there has now been added to the collection a gold ring of the finest quality, its interest enhanced by the presence of a runic inscription engraved on the inside of the hoop (pl. L).

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1940

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References

page 330 note 1 See Antiq. Journ. xix, 183, pl. xlii. 3.

page 331 note 1 Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprogvidenskap, iii (1929), 78.

page 331 note 2 Magnus Olsen and Haakon Shetelig, Runekammen fra Setre (Bergens Museum Aarbok, 1933, Historiskantikvarisk rekke, Nr. 2), p. 46.

page 331 note 3 I am indebted to Dr. O. Mackeprang of the National Museum, Copenhagen, for supplying the photographs of the three Danish bracteates and for permission to use them to illustrate this paper.

page 331 note 4 For an extensive list of inscriptions containing alu, see W. Krause, Runeninschriften im älteren Futhark.

page 332 note 1 Arntz, Runenkunde, p. 267, calls it ‘ein reinigendes und konservierendes Heilmittel,’ and (ibid., p. 266) quotes W. Krause's (Beitrage zur Runenforschung, ii. 5–17) interpretation of the word as signifying ‘Gedeihen oder Gesundheit.’

page 332 note 2 As Helmut Arntz, op. cit., p. 257 citing H. Brix, Nye Studier i Nordisk Runemagi (Aarsberetning, 3 R., 19 (1929), 1–188) says, ‘Was vielfach als Fehlschreibung angesehen wurde, ist Folge eines kunstreichen bewussten Aufbaus.’

page 332 note 3 Bugge, Sophus in Aarbøger (1905), 182Google Scholar, 237 ff.

page 332 note 4 After I had written this, I found subsequently that Arntz in Runenkunde, p. 267, actually mentions the further abbreviation of laukaR to 1R, apparently referring to Krause, Beiträge, &c, which I have not been able to see.

page 333 note 1 If regarded in this light, von Friesen's rendering of alu (Reallexikon f. deutsche Altertumskunde, iv, 13) as ‘Zuwachs’, ‘Gedeihen’ based on the verb alan would be pleonastic, when laukaR, the significance of which is universally agreed, appears to have the same meaning.

page 333 note 2 Antiq. Journ., xix, 182–4.

page 333 note 3 A.M. 1909, 661 b.

page 334 note 1 Ashmolean Museum, Report of the Visitors for 1934, p. 12, pl. ii a(A.M. 1934, 1).

page 334 note 2 Op. cit., fig. 548.

page 335 note 1 Sarre: E. T. Leeds, The Archaeology of the Anglo-Saxon Settlements, fig. 21; Finglesham: Leeds, Early Anglo-Saxon Art and Archaeology, pl. xiv.

page 335 note 2 Arch. Journ. lxvii, 241 ff., pl. ii.

page 335 note 3 Op. cit., fig. 596.