Gold rings for young girls?

ANCIENT RITUAL BLING? Hellenistic Gold Rings Found in Jerusalem Point to Ancient Greek ‘Coming-of-Age’ Ritual (Abdul Moeed, Greek Reporter).

Archaeologists digging beneath a Jerusalem courtyard have uncovered a set of tiny Hellenistic gold rings that date back more than 2,000 years. Researchers believe the rings were deliberately buried beneath the floors of an ancient building as part of a ‘coming-of-age’ ritual performed by young girls.

The rings were found with two other gold ornaments and three bronze earrings at the Givʽati Parking Lot excavation site in Jerusalem’s City of David. The pieces were buried beneath the floors of a large structure called Building 110, which dates to the late third and early second centuries BC.

[...]

The underlying article in ‘Atiqot is open access:

‘Atiqot 121 (2026), pp. 1–22
Submitted: Dec 2, 2025 | Revised: Jan 25, 2026
Accepted: Mar 29, 2026 | Published: Aug 5, 2026
© 2026, the author(s) and the Israel Antiquities Authority
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC 4.0 license

Gold Rings for Young Girls: Ritual Deposition of Children’s Jewelry in a Domestic Context in Hellenistic-Period Jerusalem

Marion Sindel, Efrat Bocher, Rikki Zalut Har-Tuv, Yuval Gadot and Yiftah Shalev

This article examines four gold ornaments and three bronze earrings dated to the late third–early second centuries BCE, retrieved from Building 110 in the Givʽati Parking Lot (GPL) excavations in Jerusalem. Based on their intact state, intrinsic value and similar contexts, we propose that the artifacts were intentionally deposited in or below the building’s floors on different occasions. Technological and stylistic analyses connect the jewelry to broader Hellenistic polychrome traditions, and the exceptionally small rings suggest that they belonged to young children, most likely girls. Based on Greek epigraphic and literary evidence for female rites of passage, specifically premarital dedication of childhood objects, we propose that the jewelry deposits reflect a local domestic adaptation of Hellenistic coming-of-age rituals. This study demonstrates how careful reading of small finds in specific household contexts can shed light on elusive ritual behavior and on cultural interaction in Hellenistic Judea.

I noted the discovery of the first ring in 2024 here.

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.