**Originally Listed At $600**

Roman, Imperial Period, ca. 1st to 3rd century CE. A beautiful silver ring with a slender band, gradually-widening shoulders, and a rectangular face with a small ovoid cavity. Within the cavity rests a carnelian intaglio of warn red-orange hues with high beveled edges and a flat face. The intaglio face is incised with a depiction of Sol, the Roman god of the sun (Greek Helios), standing with a spiked headdress and facing left, with one arm outstretched and the other holding his cloak and whip. A wearable piece of ancient history! Amethyst stones for photography purposes only. Size (ring): 0.9" W x 0.875" H (2.3 cm x 2.2 cm); size (intaglio): 0.5" L x 0.35" W (1.3 cm x 0.9 cm); total weight: 16.3 grams; US ring size 4.75.

The Roman god Sol (Greek Helios) was believed to ride a golden chariot that carried the sun across the skies every day from East to West. In addition to appearing on beautiful painted vases riding his golden chariot in the background of imagery narrating the Hercules (Herakles) story, gracing the faces of coins of Rhodes - his patron city, as well as the east pediment of the Parthenon where he emerges from the ocean in his chariot, Helios is perhaps most famously the subject of the Colossus of Rhodes, a monumental bronze statue regarded as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Provenance: private San Francisco, California, USA collection

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#135196

Wearable as shown. Surface wear and minor abrasions commensurate with age, slight bending to band, with some very minor nicks around peripheries of intaglio, and some abrasions along underside of ring face, otherwise intact and excellent.