Ring with eyelet

The finger-ring with a gem discovered during a 1962 achaeological excavation in the Old Town in Kamień Pomorski, made of a non-ferrous metal alloy. It belongs to the category of hands accessories, commonly referred to as finger-rings with gems. The thin ring features an ornate disc, which was adorned with a piece of glass. To this day, only bits of glass remain on the ring. Finger-rings of this kind, with discs of various shapes and different-coloured gems, are dated back to the end of the 11th and 12th centuries. These finger-rings were made of various alloys, usually bronze. Some were decorated with engraved circles, vertical or diagonal grooves, pseudo-granulation, or grooves imitating small granules, as well as floral and animal motifs. The glass pieces were attached in various ways. The simplest and also the oldest way of achieving that, used since the beginning of the 11th century, was fixing it to the disc with an adhesive. Later, the finger-rings included additional protection in the form of an oval or quadrangular setting, which we can see on the finger-ring from Kamień Pomorski. In the 12th-century jewellery, the method of setting the eyelet in the hollow formed in the much-thickened central part of the disc became widespread.

Ewa Górkiewicz-Bucka