File:RING (FindID 965482-1073129).jpg

Decorative gold ring with a projecting oval bezel of lunate form, set with a small uncut (en cabochon) turquoise. There is a small transverse gold ledge on each side of the bezel at the junction with the hoop, decorated with parallel engraved lines ('combed' fashion). The shoulders are also cast with two small zoomorphic heads, snouts pointing towards the bezel. Each head, seen from above, has pointed ears, almond-shapes eyes and a short snout.

The raised bezel measures 5.4 x 7mm, and the thickness including stone is 3.4mm. The hoop has an internal diameter of 18mm, and external diameter of 19.6mm. The hoop cross-section varies, but has a flattened oval cross-section (flatter on the inside); it tapers slightly from the bezel to a width of 1.1mm to 0.95mm. Weight 1.56g.

The decorative ring from Llanbadoc Community has engraved steps either side of the bezel - a feature found on rings dated to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries (for example, a ring from Llanfair in the Vale of Glamorgan; Treasure Case 2007.18; PA&TAR 2007, no. 238). The fine casting recalls the finely modelled clasped hands on a decorative thirteenth-century gold ring from Penhow (Treasure Case 2003.13; TAR 2003, no. 417).

The colour of turquoise has long been widely admired, but it is not found frequently on medieval jewellery from Wales. An oval cabochon turquoise was set in an octagonal bezel in a fourteenth-century ring from Pinhoe, Devon (TAR 2003, no. 172). The lunate form is unusual, but paralleled by a slender decorative ring with semi-circular bezel set with cabochon garnet in the V&A (thirteenth or fourteenth-century; Oman 1930, no. 256).

The conceit of biting animals on the shoulders can be found on several decorative rings, one set with hexagonal sapphire and one with an almandine garnet, from the Colmar hoard, deposited in 1349 but containing earlier jewellery (Leroy 1999, no. 13). Another, set with cabochon sapphire, and beast heads, has a setting comparable to that on a ring associated with Henry of Blois, Cardinal and Bishop of Winchester, providing a rough date for the popularity of such animal decoration (Dalton 1912, no. 18128.

The style of animal and bezel indicates a late twelfth- or thirteenth-century date for the Llanbadoc ring.