Faux twist ring.

Hey all,Here's a quick, but I think attractive project I finished this week. I've also posted it on facebook (and a couple other places). Here's what I said about it there:
This is a viking style faux twist ring. Its made from silicon bronze with a sterling liner. These rings are pretty common in archaeological finds throughout northern and western Europe (incidentally I saw a Navajo ring at Denver March pow wow once that looked really similar to this). This ring is not made from twisted wire. Rather I made a plain tapered thick band, then I used filework to shape the twists and a beading tool to add the beads between the primary twists. While many of the Viking rings were made using actual twisted wire, there are examples of rings like this, that are made to imitate that look. I don't know why that would be as its certainly easier to make a ring like this using twisted and forged wire. But I suspect (without really knowing much about actual Norse jewelry and mold making techniques) that these may have been done as an exercise in punch and filework. It certainly was for me. At any rate it was a fun project and people I've shown it to seem to like it!