Piston arm ring
The piston arm ring is a type of ring that is important for the interpretation and understanding of societies in Scandinavia during the Iron Age . It consists of a hammered gold strip with thickened ends. Despite their simplicity, the rings were status symbols. Piston rings are not only found in Scandinavia , but also in Central and Eastern Europe between Belgium , the Baltic States , Belarus and the Ukraine . However, the number of finds from the Scandinavian region is greatest.
In 1980 Joachim Werner (1909–1994) treated the rings and emphasized that they can only be found as grave goods in facilities of high status. A piston arm ring comes from the grave of the Frankish king Childerich I in Tournai , which was put on in 482 AD. J. Werner considers the arm rings to be symbols of rulers that were reserved for the society's elites. His interpretation was widely recognized.
In Scandinavia, the oldest piston arm rings appear shortly after AD 200 and then appear in the victim finds from Illerup on Jutland and Thorsberg in Schleswig-Holstein . There are also a number of depot finds from Sweden , in which the rings are often associated with snakehead rings . The treasure trove of Skedstad in the Bredsätra district on Öland contained fragments of piston arm rings and snakehead rings. In the north, the grave find from the burial ground of Himlingøje on Zealand is also known. There are piston arm rings in treasure finds from the Migration Period . In 2006, half of a gold piston arm ring was found in a park on the outskirts of the city of Deventer ( Netherlands ) (now in the local museum).
The analyzes of the weight and purity of the piston arm rings have shown a connection between many rings and the Roman solidi . This may mean that some of them were made from coins that were melted together.
See also
literature
- Kent Anderson: Sweden's richest women's grave. In: Gold of the North. Theiss, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-8062-2184-8 .
- Otto Kleemann: The Piston Arm Rings in the Cultural Relations of the Migration Period. Hall 1951