Exceptionally Well-Preserved Gold Ring Featuring ‘Venus the Victorious’ Unearthed on Ancient Road in France

Around the second or third century C.E., a gold ring bearing the likeness of the Roman goddess Venus was lost on a road in what is now Brittany, France. The exact circumstances of the jewelry’s creation and how it ended up at the crossroad are unknown, but the ring and a host of similarly ancient artifacts unearthed nearby provide tantalizing insights into the region’s history.

Researchers from the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP) excavated the 11-acre site ahead of planned development in the French commune of Pacé. According to a statement, the archaeologists discovered evidence of settlements spanning the Late Bronze Age through the early medieval period, suggesting humans occupied the area for some 2,000 years.

A highlight of the finds is the ring, which survived in an “exceptional state of preservation,” the statement says. The gold band contains an engraved nicolo, or “onyx agate cut to leave a thin layer of faint whitish blue over a thicker layer of black,” according to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The nicolo gem depicts Venus Victrix, or Venus the Victorious, a name for the Roman goddess that emphasizes her association with imperial power and romantic conquests alike. In the ancient era, Venus Victrix, who borrowed her ties to military might from Ishtar, the Mesopotamian goddess of war and sexual love, was often shown in full armor. Roman generals “were known to call on Venus Victrix before battle and offer devotion to her cult,” wrote Katie White for Artnet in 2022.

By the turn of the 19th century, however, the epithet had taken on a different meaning. A marble statue of Pauline Bonaparte (sister to Napoleon Bonaparte) as Venus Victrix celebrates the goddess’ prowess in matters of the heart. Depicted reclining on a couch in the nude, Pauline holds an apple, alluding to the Greek myth in which Paris, a prince of Troy, awards a golden apple to Venus’ Greek counterpart, Aphrodite, choosing her over Hera and Athena as the fairest goddess of them all. According to legend, Paris’ decision—and Aphrodite’s promise to reward him with the love of Helen of Troy, the most beautiful woman in the world—soon sparked the Trojan War.

The newly uncovered ring dates to Brittany’s occupation by the Romans, which began with Julius Caesar’s conquest of the region in 56 B.C.E. During this period, a network of roads connected locals, who drove around in wheeled vehicles that left tracks still visible today. One such traveler likely lost their ring on the road, where it remained for nearly two millennia.

As INRAP notes, the Brittany community reached its zenith between the seventh and eighth centuries C.E. Residents developed a robust infrastructure based on the division of land into plots with a set purpose, such as farming, housing, cooking and storage. Archaeologists discovered numerous traces of the medieval hamlet, including cooking pots, storage vases, millstones used to grind grain, and carbonized remnants of cereal grains and legumes.

Another noteworthy find was a cache of a dozen coins from the Carolingian Empire, whose borders spanned much of western Europe during the early medieval era. Dated to the ninth and tenth centuries C.E., the coins were buried during a period of great upheaval, when the Vikings were conducting raids on Carolingian territory. Though the newly excavated site was abandoned around this same time, Live Science’s Owen Jarus writes that “it’s not clear if [the settlers’ withdrawal] and the deposition of the coins is because of Viking raids.”