Antique jewelry glossary

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Hair ring

See our: hair rings.

A type of hair ornament, worn by a man or woman, in the form of a short, thick rod beaten into a corkscrew shape or into a spiral of several closely-spaced coils.

Such pieces were articles of Sumerian jewelry, c. 2500 BC. A type of hair ornament in the form of sheet gold made into a hollow penannular ring with slightly tapered ends. Such pieces, from the Irish Late Bronze Age, c.1200 BC-800 BC, have been found in Ireland and Scotland; they are similar to the contemporary Egyptian hair rings, but have sometimes been called 'ring money' and said to have been used as a form of currency.

A type of finger ring worn as mourning jewelry and made in various styles with strands of human hair, the hair held along the shank by flanges, under a hinged lid, or in a hollow tubular ring but visible through several apertures.

From: An Illustrated Dictionary of Jewelry, autor: Harold Newman, publishers: Thames and Hudson