Roman seal ring

[folkert]

On Sunday I found this nice roman seal ring, dating to the 3rd or 4th century AD.

 

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[bomber]

WOW!take your time and think about,but i'll trade u ALL of my hi-grade liquid containers finds 4 that ring

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Nice find Folkert, I envy you for all the ancient history and thus potential finds waiting to be found in your area.

All of my ancient artifacts are from the American indian, except for one pot from the iron age out of what is now the Iraq area.

 

[MalteseFalcon]

Must be nice to live in an area with several THOUSAND years of "civilization history" (if you catch my meaning).

I mean, obviously here in the states we are not going to find many (if any) metal artifacts older than 500 years or so...

 

[mlw67]

I mean, obviously here in the states we are not going to find many (if any) metal artifacts older than 500 years or so...

LOL! If I find something 150 years old, I am kicking butt. Anything older than that here would be almost miraculous.

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Nice find folkert. I like how you showed the impression.

 

[The Seeker]

Nice job Folkert..........Now that is a piece of History! Excellent!

 

[Boobydoo]

Very nice treasure you have found, congrats and thank you for sharing this.

Smiles!
BDoo

 

[SolomonKey]

On Sunday I found this nice roman seal ring, dating to the 3rd or 4th century AD.

3rd or 4th century...the Roman fort at Wiesbaden was captured by the Alamanni in 260 CE, who later allied themselves with the Romans ca 370. It may be possible the ring was lost at the same time as the fort, as it became less likely over the following century.

 

[Charles Miller]

Must be nice to live in an area with several THOUSAND years of "civilization history" (if you catch my meaning). I mean, obviously here in the states we are not going to find many (if any) metal artifacts older than 500 years or so...

Well, don't sell the North American continent short. There is overwhelming evidence that Viking explorers reached North America about 500 years before the Spanish and Italians even began planning their voyages to the New World. Rune-inscribed stones (probably anchors and tombstones) have been found from New England to the Great Lakes, indicating that the Vikings made a pretty good start of exploring this continent.

Most interesting are the enormous number of ancient open-pit copper mining sites all around Lake Superior --- excavations so old that even the local Indians don't know who originally dug them (possibly the Vikings?). Very few identifying tools or other artifacts are found at these small mines. Geologists who have investigated the mines have calculated that about 100 million pounds of native copper could have been extracted from the sites.

The big question is, Where did all the copper go? If you took all of the ancient copper jewelry and tools found thus far in North America, it wouldn't add up to a fraction of 100 million pounds (that's 50,000 tons). So, where the devil is it? Was it mined out in prehistory and somehow redistributed to other continents? Did the Vikings carry it all out across the North Atlantic? Or is it still here in North America somewhere, in giant treasure troves of copper artifacts, stashed in caves or lakes or burial mounds?

With the price of copper going up as it has, I think this could be one of the great treasure mysteries of all time.

 

[SolomonKey]

There is overwhelming evidence that Viking explorers reached North America about 500 years before the Spanish and Italians even began planning their voyages to the New World. Rune-inscribed stones (probably anchors and tombstones) have been found from New England to the Great Lakes, indicating that the Vikings made a pretty good start of exploring this continent.

L'Anse aux Meadows is proof of Vikng settlement.
http://www.cdli.ca/CITE/v_lanse.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'Anse_aux_Meadows

The rune stones are a different matter. Visitation and maybe some settlement in Newfoundland, Baffin Island, Labrador, certainly, but much further south, or inland? Personally I doubt it.

Norse colonization of the Americas:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norse_colonization_of_the_Americas

Perhaps you could provide an example of a genuine Viking rune stone outside those areas I mentioned?

 

[folkert]

The site where I found the seal ring was settled in the early 1st century AD (roman bronze coins with countermarks by Varus; roman republican denarii) as a roman fortress , then continued in the 2nd and mid 3rd century AD as roman farm and was taken over by Germans in the 2nd half of the 3rd century AD. Up to now I have found more than 250 roman coins there, more than 75% dating to the time between 270-350 AD).

 

[Charles Miller]

The rune stones are a different matter. Visitation and maybe some settlement in Newfoundland, Baffin Island, Labrador, certainly, but much further south, or inland? Personally I doubt it... Perhaps you could provide an example of a genuine Viking rune stone outside those areas I mentioned?

Well, admittedly, Viking presence as far south and inland as Lake Superior has been a bone of contention amongst historians and researchers for a good long time. I could point out the existence of the Kensington runestone, found in Minnesota in 1898; however, you may or may not accept it as a "genuine" Viking artifact.

http://www.und.nodak.edu/dept/library/Collections/og1040.html

 

[SolomonKey]

It's possible. Wikipedia has a good entry on it, which ends:
In a joint statement for a 2004 exhibition of the stone at the Museum of National Antiquities in Stockholm, Nielsen and Henrik Williams, a professor of Scandinavian Languages at Uppsala University and a proponent of the forgery theory, noted there were linguistic discrepancies for both 14th and 19th century origins of the inscription and that the runestone "requires further study before a secure conclusion can be reached."
And this for what is perhaps the most reliable example.

 

[digman]

Very beautifull ring, I wish I found one too.
What is it on it, a horse?
Digman.

 

[folkert]

I would say it's a lion or a dog.

 

[Charles Miller]

The first thing I thought of was a horse --- something about it reminds me of the Uffington Horse, the ground effigy of Berkshire Downs. Strange, though, the figure on the signet ring almost appears to be two different figures, depending on how you look at it (horizontal or vertical orientation).

Horizontally, it does sort of resemble a bristling canine (wolf?) or dragon facing right. A wolf would be appropriate for Roman origin, I guess.

Vertically, it looks like a more benign animal (horse, maybe?) rearing up and facing left. The green image is simply color-inverted to change the lighting angle and make it easier to see.