Featured Old Silver Egyptian Ring?

I purchased this old silver Egyptian style ring today and haven't been able to find out much/anything about it. It looks like it could be Egyptian but I'm really no sure about that.

The ring looks old and has some black tarnish on it of which I've cleaned up a little to see the front and other areas more clearly. The rings is about a ring size 6.5 and weighs about 10.82 Grams and measures on the top about 23mm x 10mm.

It looks like there is a figure seated on the ring holding something with a long handle and a forked end. There also looks like a Falcon that is in front of the seated figure. There are other marking on the side of which are unknown to me and there appears to be some type of writing inside the ring of which I've shown 2 images since I don't know which way is right side up.

Does anyone know where this ring came from, how old it is and perhaps the maker of the ring (just asking, you never know), or anything else about the ring?

Thanks!
Kevin

 

Egyptian god Horus,casting porosity in ring with poor finishing on inside of ring.Maker's stamp mostly sanded off,probably a modern tourist item.

 

Looks like it was made to stamp wax seals on letters or documents. Google Egyptian signant ring, and you'll find some interesting information about them. I think it may be old, but not ancient. More Egyptian revival era.. But that's just my guess

 

Thanks Hollyblue and Bdigger for the replies. I Googled Egyptian Signet ring and found a couple similar rings in style like this ring that were very old or ancient and worn. I'm not sure of which Egyptian revival era you are referring to or guessing Bdigger? Would it be mid 1800's or around 1920's or later?

 

It looks much newer,without being able to read the marks it could be after the 1960's and related to the King Tut exhibition tour time period.

 

I was thinking 1920,s but that is just a wild guess on my part.

 

Yes, I know, this thread unraveled a long time ago. Adding what I know for anyone who might come along in future looking for answers.

The ring is striking in its bold simple shape & use of Egyptian motifs. Placing the cartouche so it sits crosswise on the finger is a design choice that makes it look more like intaglio rings from antiquity. It was not made in Egypt. It does not have Egyptian marks & the style is nothing like the traditional styles they continue to use, particularly for tourist items. The mark as oriented in the first photo looks to me like it may have said 'HAND MADE'. Likely enough that it was inspired by one of the times the King Tut show toured. Some of the choicest items made the international rounds in the mid-60s; a larger show was in New York in 1976, & went to other stops. Ankhs became common in the jewelry of the years between.

 

Bronwen has revived an Egyptian Revival thread?

My guess is ca 1960. The writing on the back is Arabic.
The new boost to Egyptian Revival after the discovery of Tutankhamons tomb also gave a new boost to Egyptian jewellery, which lasts to this day.
Although Egypt has had a fantastic hallmarking system for a long time, not all Egyptian jewellery is marked. If a jeweller lived too far from any assay office, he/she often didn't bother to have it marked. Travelling for days with a load of silver to an assay office was not an attractive prospect in those days.

 

I laugh even harder at all the pieces I see described as 'Egyptian Revival' that were actually made in Egypt in the 1960s. Someone should tell the Egyptians the good news; they probably didn't realize they needed reviving.

I have been skeptical about 'Bedouin' bracelets with a full set of Egyptian marks for exactly your reason. Really couldn't imagine that most genuine ones ever see an assay office. But, when it comes to Egyptian-made jewelry that turns up for sale here, I see the same handful of recognizable styles that turn up endlessly. Have yet to see something that looked Egyptian but wasn't marked, nor anything marked that strayed radically from the traditional. What I have seen is jewelry, particularly bracelets, that look very much like Egyptian work but were made elsewhere. They always have their own characteristic features & are nearly always unmarked. I could not pin down the one mark I have seen on such a piece, but it looked most like Turkish marks.

And that's all she wrote.

 

The marks are not the problem, the provenance is. Those 'Bedouin' bracelets are actually traditional Berber bracelets from Siwa Oasis in western Egypt. But I suppose Bedouin sounds more romantic as part of the sales pitch.
The real Siwa bracelets are very good quality, and the marks are genuine. And many were made, for the Siwis themselves, and because Siwa is a popular tourist destination.
But of course there are fakes, as always.

 

I do also see them described as Siwa. My issue, or area of skepticism, is not the genuineness of any of the marks, it is over the authenticity of unmarked pieces, whether one should make allowances for the makers' difficulties in getting to an assay office. My 'experise' such as it is, is with the marks themselves, not the jewellery. My interest in the marks has led me to look at hundreds of eBay listings for Egyptian jewellery. For a while I was collecting photo examples of marks for the Hallmark Institute when they were preparing their next guide, now on the market.

 

@Bronwen, while I was researching one of my Middle Eastern bracelets, I just came across some information on Siwa and other Egyptian tribal bracelets.
Ca. 1940 there was a Cairo jeweller called Muhammad Mikawi, who made Berber style bracelets for the western desert tribes, including the Siwi, and Bedouin style bracelets for the tribes in the east. They were all fully marked.

I still haven't found the info I was actually looking for. That's how it goes, you look for one thing, and find another.

 

Absolutely the story of my cameo researches. A fair number of times I have stumbled into something I really wanted to know but couldn't find when I was actively for it. Of course, the original object of the search often remains elusive.