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This early medieval finger-ring was found by a metal-detectorist near Quadring in Lincolnshire, south-west of Boston, in May 2024, and has more recently been declared Treasure. It is made of silver and dates to c.AD 700-1000. The middle of the band in covered in gilding, with a runic inscription carved directly into its outer face. There is a raised border on either edge of the ring, which appears to have no traces of gilding.
The text of the inscription is not readily translated. Its 18 characters read ‘+udnAnH(:)Ri*aHiSDe’, which is transliterated as ‘+udnanh:ri?(g)æhisde’. The cross is believed to indicate the start of the text, while the colon is thought to be a word-divider or punctuation mark. Dr Martin Findell and Jasmin Higgs from the University of Nottingham have suggested a preliminary translation for the first part, expressing something like ‘Udnan owns [the] ring’ or ‘Udnan’s ring’. The entire text could have various meanings, such as ‘Udnan, with the highest ring’ or ‘Udnan with the ring, to the Highest’. All of these are based on Udnan being a personal name, however, which Martin and Jasmin stress is far from certain.
There are only a small handful of similar rings known from Britain, including an example from Kingmoor, Cumbria, which is believed to date to between the 8th and 10th centuries AD and bears the inscription ‘+ÆRKRIUFLTKRIURIþONGLÆSTÆPONTOL’ (with no known translation). Another runic ring, in the collections of the British Museum, comes from Wheatley Hill, County Durham, and bears the engraving ‘(h)ringich^att(æ)’; ‘Hring ic ha¯ttæ’, which translates to ‘[A] ring I am called’.
The Quadring example is not the first Anglo-Saxon find of note from this area, suggesting that this may have been a previously unknown early medieval site.
For more information about the ring, see https://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/1171351 or search for LIN-E70856 on the Portable Antiquities Scheme database.
The Portable Antiquities Scheme is an initiative to encourage the recording of archaeological objects found by members of the public in England and Wales. For more information on the Scheme, and to browse its database of almost 1.8 million finds, visit https://finds.org.uk. Information on this find was provided by Dr Lisa Brundle – Finds Liaison Officer for Lincolnshire. Text: Kathryn Krakowka / Image: Lincolnshire County Council
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