Ring: Ramesses-mry-Amun?

Ancient Egyptian · New Kingdom, Dynasty 20, reign of Ramesses V? (about 1147–1143 BCE)

Medium

Faience

Original size

0.8 × 2.1 cm (11 × 13/16 in.); Diam.: 2.1 cm (13/16 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Medieval

This small faience ring carries an outsized presence — a fragment of royal Egypt that has survived more than three thousand years with its glaze still vivid. Faience, a sintered quartz material coated in alkaline glaze, was among the most prized substances in ancient Egypt. Its characteristic blue-green colour was understood to embody life, fertility, and the light of the sun on water — qualities associated with divine favour. Craftsmen working in the royal workshops of Dynasty 20 produced faience objects of extraordinary refinement, and this ring, inscribed with the epithet *Ramesses-mry-Amun* (Ramesses beloved of Amun), almost certainly belonged to or commemorated the reign of Ramesses V, who ruled from approximately 1147 to 1143 BCE. Signet and commemorative rings bearing royal names were distributed as tokens of royal patronage and prestige, making objects like this one both personal adornments and political statements in miniature. Because faience cannot be reproduced in oil paint with perfect literalness, the hand-painted reproduction focuses on what made the original arresting — the lustrous surface, the economy of the inscribed forms, and the cool, otherworldly colour that ancient Egyptians believed held genuine sacred power.