ARCHAIC PERIOD, CIRCA EARLY 5TH CENTURY B.C.

Engraved on this unusual pointed oval ringstone is Nike flying to the right with her wing upraised, wearing a voluminous chiton, proffering a fillet and a branch, symbols of victory. Most Greek gems of the Archaic and Classical periods were perforated to be mounted in swivel rings. Only rarely during this period did the Greeks bezel-mount their seal stones to be set immobile in a finger ring, the normal practice of the following Hellenistic and Roman periods. The shape of this gem recalls that of a group of contemporary all-metal rings, usually of gold, some of which bear the same motif (see the gold ring from Nymphaeum, now in St. Petersburg, pl. 658 in Boardman, Greek Gems and Finger Rings). The subject was also common on coins, where the goddess usually flies above a quadriga (see for example the coins of Syracuse, including no. 801 in C. Kraay, Archaic and Classical Greek Coins), and on Attic vases, such as the contemporaneous red-figured lekythos attributed to the Brygos Painter in the Getty Villa in Malibu (see fig. 1).