Engraved Ring with Dancing Maenad

With her head thrown back in ecstasy and hair loosened, a maenad (a female follower of Dionysos, the Greek god of wine) dances to the right on the engraved bezel of this gold ring, her drapery swirling around her legs. Her left arm is thrown back over her head, and her right holds a thyrsos, a ritual staff of giant fennel covered with ivy vines and leaves carried by Dionysos and his followers.

Engraved gold rings were often used as seals, but were also decorative items of jewelry. Dancing maenads with flowing drapery were popular on rings in the 300s B.C. The motif is also found in other media and may reflect the influence of a well-known statue of a dancing maenad by the Greek sculptor, Skopas (about 395-350 B.C.). The leaf-shaped bezel was also the most common form for rings in the late Classical period.