1877-1878.] 3 i5 



On 23rd January, a paper was read by Mi. Robert Day, 

 F.S.A., M.R.I.A., entitled, " Something about Old Finger Rings." 



The reader commenced by saying — While glancing at the an- 

 tiquity of such memorials, and at their value as links in the chain 

 of not merely national, but family, histories, we will come down the 

 stream of time to those days of the nineteenth century in which 

 the ring is still of so much importance that, when the humblest 

 peasant weds his chosen wife, it too poor to purchase a golden 

 circlet, he marries her with a simple ring of plaited rushes. In the 

 circle of a ring we have the old and favourite emblem of eternity 

 — without beginning or ending — something that clasps the finger 

 closely round, true emblem of the union which should subsist 

 where friends have joined their hands and pledged their troth, some- 

 thing that sticks close to you through evil report and good report, 

 and that is capable of being made, not merely from the associa- 

 tions suiTounding its reception, but from its delicate workmanship 

 and artistic merit, a thing of beauty and of joy. After referring to 

 several passages in the Old Testament in which signets are men- 

 tioned, Mr. Day stated that those passages did not refer to finger 

 rings as now understood, but were more properly seals of stone, 

 of cylindrical form, upon which various devices were engraved. 

 Whenever signets are mentioned in the Old Testament it is always 

 as borne upon the hand, not upon the finger. Thus Tamer de- 

 manded her lover's " seal and twisted cord " — chotham and pethill 

 — incorrectly rendered "ring and bracelet." This seal and twisted 

 cord was a seal cylinder, through which a thick, coloured, twisted 

 cord was passed, and secured to the hand or wrist. 



Ancient rings have been preserved in the Egyptian tombs, and 

 may be seen in any of our great public museums ; they are. met 

 with in gold, bronze, porcelain, and painted ivory, and with set- 

 tings of engraved gems and scarabei. The Egyptians made this 

 scarabeus, or beetle, the emblem of valour and manly power; hence 

 they forced all the soldiers to wear a ring upon which a beetle was 



