wedding ring in the form of a bouquet

Rome inherited a kind of openwork rings, which have undergone a very interesting evolution over the course of 2000 years. This is a kind of thick openwork wedding ring, the openwork weaving of which is made from the letters of a short sentence. Letters did not come from the very beginning, it took some time.

Rome, XNUMXth-XNUMXth century AD

Ring with inscriptions telling a story

The name of the ring comes from a play on English words, which, although spelled differently, sound very similar. And their meanings "posi" - bouquet and "poetry" - poetry go very well with each other. When the letters appeared, they had to be arranged in such a way as to create an important message for the owner. As you might guess, the sentences referred to love, and the meaning of the words was chosen so that the reader was not sure whether it was earthly or divine love.

Posy ring, Roman-British XNUMXth-XNUMXth century AD.

For a very long time, the letters were on the outside of the ring, but earthly feelings grew and it was not advisable for everyone to read these confessions. Poetry gradually moved to the inside of the ring, and as the text became more and less gold, openwork embroidery was abandoned in favor of smaller engraved letters.

Ring of Coventry, XNUMXth century gold

The rings narrowed and already at the turn of the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries began to resemble today's wedding rings.

Perhaps the Posy ring is the real father of today's engagement rings? Probably yes, only the words "bouquet" or "poetry" replaced the Orwellian "personalization"

Modern Posy Rings