File:Early Medieval Probable Bracelet Fragment (Viking) (FindID 394236).jpg

English: Surface metal analysis conducted at the British Museum indicated an approximate silver content for the ring of 95%, the remainder being copper with traces of gold and lead; it weighs 2.62 grams.

The find consists of a thin strip of silver which has been sharply folded approximately in half and has one slightly constricted, rounded end, while the other end is square and may be original, or has perhaps been cut short; length, 28 mm (extant), or 53 mm (surviving); width, 9 mm. The strip is decorated with four horizontal rows of punched triangles, which point apex to apex along one side, appear more circular at the rounded end and have been much worn away, except at this end and along the edges. There appears to be a lightly incised median line on the less worn side. There are two testing nicks in the folded end and the ring may have been folded up for use as bullion or for recasting. An unconnected fragment of iron is gripped between the two halves of the strip.

Viking rings of similar strip form and style of decoration are recorded from a number of sites in Scandinavia, e.g. on Gotland, Sweden (M. Stenberger, Die Schatzfunde Gotlands der Wikingerzeit, vol. 2, KVHAA, Lund 1947, figs. 38: 6, 87, and 109: 2). A complete, punch-decorated silver finger-ring, but with a broader band and knotted ends, has previously been reported as Treasure from Great Finborough, Suffolk (Treasure Annual Report 2002, no. 52) and the testing nicks on the present piece further confirm a date in the Viking period, around the 9^th-10^th century.

The ring from the Shaftesbury area would therefore qualify as Treasure under two of the stipulated criteria of the Treasure Act: it is more than 300 years old and the precious metal content exceeds 10%.

Note: I am grateful to Prof. J. Graham-Campbell for assistance with the identification of the ring.

B.M. Ager