Ring
- Object Name
- Ring
- Culture / Site
- Excavated at Sijilmasa, Morocco
- Medium
- Gold
- Date
- 9th/10th century
- Dimensions
- Diameter 1.9 cm
- Credit Line
- Fondation nationale des musées, Rabat, Morocco, NP2006-1. Photograph by Abdallah Fili and Hafsa El Hassani
- Section
- Saharan Frontiers/Sijilmasa
- Description
This gold ring is one of only a few gold objects to have survived from medieval Saharan Africa, and it is important material evidence of Sijilmasa’s link to Saharan trade. A goldsmith made the ring by soldering thin flattened strips of gold in an undulating pattern to upper and lower bands. The ring was found in an elite residence and dates to an extended period of development of the city by local Amazigh rulers, the Bani Midrar. The gold-working technique resembles that of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Amazigh jewelry from the Sahara and Anti-Atlas Mountains.