Casgliadau Arlein

Stirrup-shaped finger ring of copper alloy with undecorated shoulders and raised bezel containing a purplish coloured cabachon stone. The material of the stone has not been identified. The ring is worn. A very similar ring, set with a glass cabachon, was found unstratified in excavations in London (Egan & Pritchard 1991, 326-7, fig. 215.1609) and two further examples, made from gold and set respectively with a sapphire and an emerald, are illustrated in the Salisbury Museum medieval catalogue (Cherry in Saunders and Saunders 1991, 41, fig. 10.1 &2). The Sailsbury rings are dated to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but this type of ring had a long life.