824 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1895. 



of such characters from Macedonia, from which the coins were obtained, 

 and which furnished the designs upon the Philippus for the British and 

 Gaulish engravers. Nevertheless, other of the Macedonian coins bear 

 upou the reverse concentric rings, between which are serrations, so as 

 to almost appear like circular saws of various sizes laid one upon the 

 other, diminishing in size toward the upper or last one. On a coin of 

 Herod I., bearing a Macedonian shield, Avhile upon the obverse of the 

 same piece is a helmet, with cheek pieces, surrounded by a legend. 

 The helmet, which appears to form the chief emblem upon the piece, 

 greatly resembles the smaller headpiece upon the obverse of the stater 

 shown in plate 46, fig. 1 . 



Mr. Gardner,^ in his paper on "Ares as a sun god, and solar symbols 

 on coins of Thrace and Macedon," shows that the Macedonian shield 

 is of astronomical pattern, and belongs specially to a deity who is 

 worshiped as the sun, and the interior device of this shield on the 

 coins of Herod I. is identical with that adopted as the whole type on 

 certain coins of Uranopolis of Macedon. 



The occurrence of circles to denote ring money is found in the l^jgyp- 

 tian hieroglyphs, and it is barely possible that such characters upon 

 obelisks, or in other petroglyi)hs, may have had some reference to ring 

 money in the various countries with which the l^^gyptians were in com- 

 mercial relations, extending possibh' to INIacedonia, Phcenicia, and other 

 of the peoples of the northern sliores of tlie Mediterranean. 



The Egyptians used rings of gold and silver, and the Hebrew expres- 

 sion for the heaviest unit in weight, the talent, originally meant a circle. 

 Gold rings, says Mr. Madden,^ were also used as a means of exchange 

 in Britain, in the interior of Africa, among the Norwegian sea kings, 

 and in China disks with central perforations are employed. The brass 

 cash is an illustration of the latter, and the sacred writings make 

 frequent reference to rings of metal and strings of gold, the latter 

 evidently being tied in bundles of certain specified weights and values. 



Interesting as this subject may be, it would be inapinopriate in the 

 present paper to continue the study of types of rings and variants 

 and their signification in the various localities throughout the world 

 in which they occur as originals, and as the result of intrusion by 

 intertribal traffic or otherwise. 



The wooden tablet represented in plate 33 is reproduced from 

 Doctor Stolpe's monograph, published in "Ymer,"^ and illustrates one 

 characteristic type of wood carving found in Polynesia, or, to be more 

 exact as to location, in the Tubuai Islands. The circles are rather 

 infrequent, but the triangular decoration is more common, and occurs 

 upon various ceremonial implements and weapons in various forms and 

 combinations. In some examples the designs are very complicated 



'Num. Chroii., new series, 1880, XX, quoted from Madden's Jewish Coinage. 

 2 Coins of the .Tews, F. W. Madden, London, 1881. 

 sstockholra, 1890, fig.l6. 



