Archaeologists Find Unusual Murder Weapon: a Ring

Archaeologists have uncovered a cache of jewelry from the ruins of Bulgaria's Cape Kaliakra. But one of the more than 30 pieces found there over the last two years is getting particular attention—a ring that may have doubled as a murder weapon. Discovery News reports the centuries-old bronze ring featured a hollow cavity that may have been used to hold poison.

As dig leader Bonnie Petrunova explains, the ring likely would have adorned the wearer's pinkie finger, and would have allowed poison to have inconspicuously been poured into an enemy's drink via a hole that "was made in such a way so as to be covered by a finger." Whose enemies? According to Petrunova, those of Dobrotitsa, a noble who oversaw the area in the latter half of the 1300s, reports LiveScience. "This explains many of the unexplained deaths among nobles and aristocrats close to Dobrotitsa," she says. Petrunova believes the ring was crafted in Italy or Spain. (More Bulgaria stories.)