Yorkshire Philosophical Society

Event Information

This joint YPS/Festival of Ideas event is one of the many within the Festival of Ideas’s theme of ‘Eoforwic: A Celebration of Anglian York’.  The ring was found at Escrick, near York, in 2009 and is now one of the treasures of the Yorkshire Museum.  Leslie Webster will explore its exotic origins and significance, who might have owned it and how it might have come to be lost in Escrick.  An enigma indeed!

Leslie Webster joined the British Museum as an Assistant Keeper in the then Department of British and Medieval Antiquities at the British Museum, curating the Anglo-Saxon, Viking and Celtic and Continental early medieval collections. She became a Deputy Keeper in 1984, and Keeper (Head of Department) in 2002. Since 2002, she has also been an Honorary Visiting Professor at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London.

This joint event is free but ticketed.  Booking is via the Festival of Ideas website www.yorkfestivalofideas.com – and if you email ‘subscribe’ in the title line to yorkfestivalofideas@york.ac.uk you can be one of the first to find out when the programme is online.

Report

Before the lecture, some YPS members attended a private viewing of both the Escrick Ring and, for contrast, an 11th-century gold ring found in Fishergate. Natalie McCaul, Curator of Archaeology at the Yorkshire Museum, answered questions and allowed everyone the privilege of handling the rings, which provided an enhanced insight into the details described in the subsequent lecture.

The Escrick Ring was found in 2009 by metal detectorist, Michael Greenhorn. Like many such treasures, it was lost by its owner on a main road, in this case the main route south from York. The ring is robust, about 25mm across, gold of 90% purity, with filigree work, and cloisonné cells containing red glass, which may have replaced original garnets – indeed small pieces of garnet were found with the ring. There are also small-cell inlays which may be garnets, gold rivets set in gold tubes, and a central cabochon containing a round polished sapphire.

Sapphires were rare in the early medieval period, but sometimes late Roman jewellery was cannibalised for the gems. Sapphires have been associated with bishops, but were not exclusive to senior clergy. Comparisons with examples of 6-7th century Merovingian-Frankish jewellery from Saint Denis, and also from high-status Kentish graves of the period, suggest that the Escrick Ring is also likely to date from this period, and not the 9th or 10th century as first thought. Its lobed square shape, the features of the bezel, the colours, are all characteristic of the earlier period. The workmanship is not as fine as, say, the Sutton Hoo finds, but the ring must have been highly esteemed – the edges show that it was worn regularly by its owner. He or she must have mourned its loss.

Carole Smith