Ca. 100 BC-100 AD. Romano-Egyptian. A silver ring with a circular band shaped as the coiled body of a snake; the bezel in the shape of a snake head has pellet eyes and is decorated with engraved details. Good condition. Snake jewellery was not limited to Egypt in the Ptolemaic and Roman Periods, and, in fact, was not a traditional Egyptian sort of jewellery before the Ptolemaic Period. Jewellery decorated with snakes, appeared in Western Asia from about the eighth century BC, and spread to Greece in the fifth century BC, and came to Egypt mainly with the Ptolemaic Dynasty. In Greek culture there were certainly healing associations with snakes, but there may have been other associations, too. For a similar ring, see Mace, A. C. (1911). "The Murch Collection of Egyptian Antiquities." In The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. 6, no. 1 (January, Supplement), pp. 27-28, fig. 21.Size: D: 18.19mm / US: 8 / UK: Q; 7.7g. Provenance: Property of a London gentleman, part of his family collection formed in the 1980s.