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Barnebys HQ
Brahegatan 10
BOX 5038
114 37 Stockholm
All auctions / Jewellery & Gems / Roman 20K Gold Ring | Lapis Lazuli Cabochon, Engraved Bezel
Roman, Imperial period. A band of warm, high-purity gold swells toward the shoulders and rises into a raised bezel cradling an ovoid lapis lazuli of deep ultramarine. The setting is framed by two finely engraved borders that repeat the oval of the stone and sharpen the contrast between blue and metal. The gold tests at 84.2 percent purity, roughly 20.2 karats, a richness typical of hand-refined ancient alloys rather than modern standardized stock. The hammered surface retains a softly undulating texture from forming. Lapis, imported from the mines of Badakhshan, carried prestige in Roman jewelry well beyond its color, and rings of this weight and form were worn as personal ornaments and markers of standing, the uncarved stone serving as a polished display rather than a sealing device. Lapis lazuli reached the Mediterranean along one of antiquity's longest supply lines. The principal ancient source, and effectively the only one exploited at scale, lay in the Sar-i Sang mines of Badakhshan in northeastern Afghanistan, from which the stone traveled thousands of miles by caravan to Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and ultimately Roman workshops. Pliny the Elder discusses it under the name sapphirus, describing a blue stone "sprinkled with specks of gold," a clear reference to the pyrite inclusions that freckle better-quality material. Roman finger rings of this bezel-set type occupy the ground between signet and pure ornament. Where an engraved intaglio would be pressed into wax to authenticate documents, an uncarved cabochon such as this one announced wealth and taste alone. The high gold content is itself informative: ancient goldsmiths worked with metal refined by cupellation and cementation rather than to a legal fineness, and purities in the low-to-mid 80th percentile are consistent with material of this period. Item # 205276
Estimate:£565.47
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Estimate:
£565.47
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Medieval Emerald and Gold Ring (c. 1300-1400), gold finger-ring with
10/02/2025
£1,400
Est: £1,000
