Transcriptions and translations of sixteen manuscript catalogues of a wide range of items held in the Ashmolean Museum between 1683 and 1886. The catalogues include books of benefactors to the Museum, catalogues of curiosities, gems, minerals, shells, fossils, zoological, ethnological and anthropological specimens as well as specimens collected from Cook's second Pacific voyage and curiosities from the Figi or Cannibal Islands. The second volume will publish the recently rediscovered AMS 11 which provides an invaluable record of the Museum's early collections.

This volume catalogues and illustrates 860 engraved gems and finger-rings in the Ashmolean Museum, with the aim of demonstrating how the collection developed over the last 150 years or more and to identify, wherever possible the source and provenance of the items. The catalogue or inventory is preceded by a discussion of the collection, including its most distinguished piece, the beautiful Felix Gem' which can be followed through collection inventories since the 15th century. The gems are presented according to their decorative theme, including dieites and emperors, scenes from daily life,...