The Ilminster ring

UK metal detectorist Kevin Minto expected another corroded bronze coin when his metal detector beeped in a field in Somerset in 2018. Instead, he uncovered a nearly 48-gram (1.7 oz) ring made of solid Roman gold. Now known as the Ilminster Ring, it features an engraved gemstone showing Victoria the Roman goddess of victory driving a biga, a two-horse chariot. The image on the stone was carved using intaglio, a technique in which the design is engraved into the surface rather than raised above it. The ring was buried around 297 C.E. with a Roman coin hoard, along with lead and pottery objects. The spectacular ring's owner could only be a person of high status, such as a governor, merchant, or wealthy landowner. Whomever buried the treasure never returned for it.

The ring dates to one of the most unstable periods in Roman Britain. Between 286 and 296 C.E., Britain broke away from the wider Roman Empire. Called the Carausian Revolt, Britania was politically isolated until imperial forces brought it back under Roman control. Carausius’s tenuous rule lasted until 293, when his finance minister, Allectus, killed him and took power. Allectus’s own reign lasted three years, ending when Roman emperor Constantius I invaded the island.

The South West Heritage Trust acquired the ring, along with the hoard of Roman coins, for £78,000. Proceeds were split with the land owner.