A Roman ring found near Caerphilly has been returned by the British Museum for permanent display in the Winding House Museum at New Tredegar to put on permanent display. The silver ring, around 2,000 years old, was found on Cefn Brithdir, in the Darran Valley, earlier this year by a man with a metal detector. The finder alerted the authorities to his discovery and the ring was passed to the National Museum in Cardiff which identified it as a typical Roman silver finger ring from the 1st or 2nd Century AD, although its gemstone is missing.
A good local example of the portable antiquities scheme working well here in Wales, you might think. However, then the ring was declared to be treasure trove and placed in the care of the British Museum, whose officials eventually offered it to the Winding House, a former colliery building, as the relevant local museum. The question is not so much that the ring was declared treasure trove, but, that it was sent to the British Museum in London, when we have a perfectly good institution more that's more than capable of assessing the artefact's significance in the shape of the National Museum in Cardiff.
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