  About the Artwork
  
  
  The Seljuks fashioned much of their jewelry from sheet metal and embellished it with stones. Heavy claws hold a turquoise on a high, truncated bezel that is decorated with engraved leafy arabesques and a Kufic inscription (“blessing”), picked out in niello (a mixture of gold, silver, lead, and copper sulfides).
  
  
  Title
  Ring inscribed &quot;Blessing&quot;
  
  
  Artwork Date
  1100s
  
  Artist
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  Life Dates
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  Nationality
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events.
  Some definitions include:
  Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation.
  
  
  
  Iranian
  
  
  
  Culture
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group.
  
  
  
  
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  Medium
  Gold, turquoise, and black compound
  
  
  Dimensions
  Overall: 1 1/4 × 5/8 inches (3.2 × 1.6 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Metalwork
  
  
  Department
  Islamic Art
  
  
  Credit
  Founders Society Purchase with funds from Mrs. Charles C. Andrews
  
  
  
  Accession Number
  
  
  
  This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection.
  Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings.
  For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups.
  
  
  
  1993.69
  
  
  Copyright
  Public Domain
