Ancient gold ring which shows the 'power and emotion' of love enters Scotland's national collection
The precious posy ring was found my a metal detectorist in Argyll and Bute.
A gold posy ring which depicts the “power and emotion” of love and was discovered buried in a field at least 400 years after it was made has entered the national collection.
The posy ring, which dates from the 16th to 17th Century, was discovered by a metal detectorist in Cardross, Argyll and Bute.
It has now been acquired by National Museums Scotland after the ring was allocated by the Treasure Trove system, which determines where ownerless artefacts should be held.
Dr Georgia Vullinghs, curator of Renaissance and Early Modern Scottish History at NMS, said the ring carried a rare inscription of two overlapping hearts that was embedded between the words ‘Gife parted in paine’ - if parted, in pain.
Dr Vullinghs said: “Posy rings overall are really beautiful personal objects that give us a glimpse of the emotional lives of people in Scotland from the past
“Posy rings are very much objects associated with love, with courtship , with relationships between two people and that inscription is usually loving.
“We don’t see the illustration of hearts very often, we do have a posy ring with a single heart in the collection.
“A lot of them have the undertone of pain and sadness and I think they really emphasise the power of the emotion of love.”
Dr Vullinghs said the ring would join other posy rings in the collection with the items coming up “fairly frequently” due to metal detecting.
The finder will be paid £1,100 for the posy ring, which was likely decorated with traces of a light blue enamel.
Dr Vullinghs said: “They are precious objects, they are made of gold, they are certainly a form of luxury.
“They are owned by people such as wealthy merchants, burgesses, landowners so we are not talking about the most noble or aristocratic parts of society.
“We are talking about a wider spread of Scottish society and because they are often found by metal detectorists, we know that the spread of these finds is pretty wide across the country , especially through the southern parts and up the east coast.
“When we are talking about these objects, we are talking about a shared experience across Scotland.”
Dr Vullinghs said the rings were usually inscribed with “often fairly standard phrases” which may have come from poems or texts of the time.
However, it remains unclear what stage of a relationship a posy ring was gifted.
Dr Vullinghs said: “It is not clear if it is specifically to do with marriage . Especially post-Reformation, the exchange of rings is not mentioned in the liturgy around the marriage ceremony. It doesn’t seem to be presented at a legal moment, but it doesn’t mean it wasn’t customary.
“It is something that I would like to do a bit more work on, to understand the actual moment of use of these objects.
“I think the rings served as a type of promise. Even if it is not necessarily presented in the ceremony of marriage, it could still be around a moment of bethroyal or promises made.
“The institution of marriage in Scotland was understood publicly and socially but it wasn’t defined by moments like engagement and marriage ceremonies as is it today.”
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