Daily Stoic is excited to share our most recent addition to our Memento Mori collection—the Memento Mori Premium Signet Ring.

The signet ring is a piece of jewelry dates back as far as 6,000 years ago to ancient Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt and ancient Nubia. It was also dates back to the very early days of Rome.

The signet ring was a practical component of Roman life. A man’s ring was engraved with the family crest and was used to seal and sign important documents, when pressed onto wax.

We can imagine Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Cato, Cicero and Epictetus all wearing their rings. It was tradition followed by thousands of powerful philosophers and kings and soldiers in the following centuries. King Edward II, in the Middle Ages, even went as far as to declare that all official documents must be signed by the King’s signet ring. For this reason, most signet rings were destroyed when their owner died. This eliminated the possibility of forgery.

The Daily Stoic Memento Mori Premium Signet Ring is inspired by the French painter Philippe de Champaign's famous painting "Still Life with a Skull," which showed the three essentials of existence: the tulip (life), the skull (death), and the hourglass (time).

The inside is engraved with Marcus Aurelius’s timeless words:

“Let that determine what you do and think”.

The ring reminds us not to obsess over trivialities, or to worry too much about what people think of us, to try to make more money than we could ever spend, or make plans far off in the future. All these are negated by death. It’s time we stop pretending otherwise.