History and Legends About Rings and Seals

The evolution of the ring from the cylindrical seal is of course purely a matter of conjecture. Here, as is often the case in a chain or series of fossil remains, we have a succession of types which may be connected with one another genetically, but which must not be so connected. That is to say, we cannot prove the affirmative and can only point to a probability.

Many cut and engraved stones, some of which had evidently been used as talismans, have been washed up on the shore at Alexandria, Egypt. Not all of these are completed, some being only half worked, as though the engraver had become dissatisfied with his design, or had found a flaw in the material, or that they had been lost from boats or ships. It has been conjectured that these half-completed gems were the work of household jewellers employed in the palaces of Alexandria. In Mas'udi's "Meadows of Gold" we read that in his time, in the tenth century A.D., there was what he terms "a fishery for precious stones" on the seacoast near Alexandria, Egypt. To account for this he relates two bits of legend. One of them represents these fragments of precious stones as having originally adorned the richly decorated vases and vessels of Alexander the Great, which were broken up and cast into the sea by Alexander's mother after his death. The other tale was to the effect that Alexander himself had gathered together a mass of jewels and ordered them to be thrown into the sea near the Pharos, so that its neighborhood should never be deserted; for, Mas'udi remarks, wherever precious stones are to be found, whether in mines or in the depths of the sea, men are sure to assemble to seek for them.

The prophet Isaiah in his third chapter, where he scores the wantonness and vanity of the Daughters of Zion (vs. 16-26), enumerates in detail the various adornments of a Hebrew mondaine toward the end of the eighth century before Christ. Among the jewels and trinkets, amulets (lehashim; v. 20) are expressly mentioned, and also "crescents," these being probably of gold. While it is not possible to determine the material of the amulets, the fact that they are named together with rich ornaments of various kinds, rings, nose-jewels, bracelets, anklets, etc., indicates that they were of precious material, and were possibly engraved precious stones or seals of some sort. In the Song of Songs, which can scarcely be assigned to a later date than Isaiah, and may have been written earlier, the seal is named in what is perhaps the most beautiful passage of this unique poem, Chapter VII, verse 6:

Set me as a seal upon thine heart;

as a seal upon thine arm.

For love is strong as death;

passion is unyielding as Hades,

The flashes thereof are flashes of fire;

an all-consuming flame.