Someone lost this ring on a Roman road and ended up missing it –

An excavation in Pest, northwest France, has uncovered remains dating from the Late Bronze Age to the Middle Ages, including a Roman road and an exquisite gold intaglio ring that was lost along the way by a traveler. The site was excavated by the National Institute of Preventive Archeology (INRAP) ahead of development, revealing

Featuring an intricate carved gold setting and Niccolò intaglio, this ring is engraved with Venus Victrix (Venus the Conqueror, the Roman goddess of love who won the golden apple and defeated Jupiter at the Judgment of Paris). Statue of Queen Minerva. Niccolò intaglios are made from onyx, a type of chalcedony with parallel bands, usually black and/or white. The Niccolò relief is carved so that the black layer is the background, while the thin top layer takes on a blue tint. The sculpted areas are then exposed in black for a dramatic dark mode look.

It is a gorgeous piece and its gold decoration is much more elaborate than a similar ring in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s permanent collection. A little later, the Met ring appears, dating to between the second and third centuries AD.

The ring was found on an ancient road about 26 feet wide with ditches on either side. It is not paved but is covered with a gravel layer of quartz pebbles. The ruts left by ancient wheeled transport can still be seen on the surface. Archaeologists believe that it served alongside a nearby settlement that was occupied between the 2nd and 4th centuries.

The small village was revived and expanded between the 5th and 10th centuries, reaching its peak in the 7th and 8th centuries. It consists of a series of rectangular plots surrounded by ditches and connected by paths. Some are houses with earthen walls and timber, other farmland, pastures, underground silos, fireplaces, ovens and water reservoirs. Archaeologists have found evidence that hearth pits were used not only for cooking food but also for processing crops, i.e. roasting and drying grains. The community grew organically, starting with a farm on a few plots and then attracting new settlers who built additional plots with different purposes.

The artefacts associated with the village are mainly ceramics (tableware, cooking vessels, storage vessels), but one of the special finds is a small pile of Carolingian denarius coins from the 9th to 10th centuries. Residents also reused ancient materials such as terracotta tiles and bricks on the plot for various purposes. Fragments of cobs with traces of adobe and stucco still attached will be analyzed to gain information about the era’s construction techniques.