Archaeologists excavating a medieval town in southern Norway had an “out-of-body” experience when they stumbled upon a dreamlike find: a delicate gold ring with a dazzling blue gemstone.
“I was completely shaken up and had to ask the people at the construction site if they were messing with me,” Linda Orsheim, an archaeologist at the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU), said in a translated statement.
Last summer, Osheim was working in the center of Tonsberg, Norway’s oldest city. Over two seasons, archaeologists began excavating the houses, streets and other ruins of medieval Tonsberg, which was founded in the 9th century. This medieval town was located just below the royal castle complex built by the Ingrin dynasty of Scandinavian kings.
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The gold ring is set with an oval stone. It’s probably a sapphire because of its deep blue color. Thin gold threads twisted in an intricate pattern lie on the sides of the stone, and small gold beads are soldered as additional decoration.
Marianne Wederer, an archaeologist at the University of Oslo, said in a statement that the combination of spirals and gold balls suggests the ring was made between the 9th and 11th centuries. This style of goldsmithing came to Norway from the Byzantine Empire in the early Middle Ages.
The researchers said that because of its size, Tonsberg’s ring likely belonged to a woman of high status. They estimate that the ring will fit people with a finger circumference of 50 to 55 millimeters, which is equivalent to a U.S. women’s ring size 5 1/2 to 7 1/2.
Wearing a ring may have been a symbol of a woman’s wealth and status, but the jewelry may have had additional meanings. According to NIKU, it is not yet clear whether the gemstone is a real sapphire or an imitation made from cobalt-colored glass, but blue sapphires were known in the Middle Ages to symbolize divine power and have properties such as maintaining the wearer’s chastity and curing boils.
“It’s been 15 years since we last discovered a gold ring in Tonsberg, and this is a wonderfully beautiful and rare specimen,” said Hanne Ekström Jordal, archaeologist and project manager at NIKU.
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