Scottish Rite Masonic Rings: Every Symbol Decoded

Only one element on a 32nd-degree Scottish Rite ring is actually required: the double-headed eagle. In the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction, most Brothers may wear it only with its wings pointed down. Everything else on the face is the maker's call. The ring on this page's cover puts a radiant triangle on the eagle's chest and a 32 in a shield below it; the one in our hand shot puts a square and compasses in that spot and carries no number at all.

A Scottish Rite Masonic ring is fraternal jewelry worn by members of the Scottish Rite, a Masonic appendant body open to Master Masons — the York Rite and Shriners International are two other well-known ones. In the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction only two rings are officially issued, for the 14th and 33rd degrees, and both are gold bands built to a written specification. The eagle ring is a custom 32° piece, sometimes with a flat signet face. The degree behind any of them is conferred; the custom ring is the part you buy.

We sell these rings; we don't confer the degrees. So this guide keeps three things apart: what the Scottish Rite actually prescribes, what a jeweler is free to choose, and what's simply marketing. Where the official bodies publish a meaning, you get it in their words. Where they don't, this guide says so.

What the Scottish Rite Is — and Why the Ring Matters

The Scottish Rite is one of the appendant bodies a Master Mason can join after completing the first three "Blue Lodge" degrees. It extends the Masonic degree system from the 4th through the 33rd degree, each degree teaching moral and philosophical lessons rooted in allegory. Those numbers don't outrank anybody — a 32° Mason holds no higher standing in his own Blue Lodge than any other Master Mason.

Scottish-style Masonry shows up in London as early as 1733 and the high degrees flourished in eighteenth-century France, while the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction's own history says the Rite "seems to have started in Paris, France, around 1758." You'll also meet a tidier story: a complete "Rite of Perfection" in 1754, eight more degrees added in 1786, and the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite emerging from it. The Southern Jurisdiction's history is more careful. It credits Étienne (Stephen) Morin with a 25-degree Order of the Royal Secret around 1763, "sometimes mistakenly called the Rite of Perfection," and treats the 1786 Grand Constitutions as only ostensibly ratified by Frederick the Great.

On May 31, 1801, Colonel John Mitchell and the Reverend Frederick Dalcho opened the first Supreme Council of the 33rd degree in Charleston, South Carolina, at Shepheard's Tavern on the corner of Broad and Church Streets. They initiated more members over the months that followed, and the Council's first eleven are remembered as "The Eleven Gentlemen of Charleston." It's officially called the Mother Council of the World, and Mitchell served as its first Grand Commander.

That history matters for the ring because a Scottish Rite Masonic ring marks affiliation. The NMJ describes its official 14th-degree ring as a reminder of the wearer's Masonic journey, and calls wearing the Rite's symbols a way to connect with other Brothers. Since anyone can buy a custom ring, it signals a claimed affiliation without proving one.

Not every Scottish Rite jurisdiction follows the same degree structure: the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction and the Southern Jurisdiction confer degrees differently. A ring's symbolism can vary depending on which jurisdiction the wearer belongs to. If you're buying a ring as a gift for a Scottish Rite Mason, verify his jurisdiction first.

Where the Double-Headed Eagle Actually Comes From

The double-headed eagle is the one symbol every 32° ring has to carry in the NMJ, and what it means depends on who you ask. In the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction wing position is a rank marker rather than a style choice: the basic emblem has the wings pointing down, and the wings-up version is reserved for 33° Active Members — about fifty, by the NMJ's count — and Active Emeritus Members of the Supreme Council. Research published by the NMJ's museum in 2010 adds that no importance is attached to wing position in the Southern Jurisdiction. The “union of opposites” reading repeated across symbolism sites isn't one the NMJ's own guide to the eagle offers, and Freemasonry didn't invent the motif anyway.

Double-headed eagles are attested in Mesopotamian imagery of the third millennium BCE, according to a 2025 University of Chicago study of Hittite seals. The better-known lion-headed eagle of Lagash is a different creature — single-headed, and associated with Ningirsu, the city's patron deity. The two-headed form is unmistakable in Hittite Anatolia in the second millennium BCE, carved on the Sphinx Gate at Alaca Höyük.

Byzantine use comes far later: double-headed eagles appear in decorative contexts tied to the Komnenian family from about the mid-twelfth century, and become prominent as symbols of authority under the Palaiologoi. The often-repeated claim that Emperor Isaac I Komnenos adopted it in 1057 is not securely documented. The Holy Roman Empire, the Habsburgs who came to rule it, and Russia's rulers from the fifteenth century all later took up the motif.

The NMJ's own guide says the Rite has used the eagle as its emblem ever since its establishment, and that in eighteenth-century France it was the emblem of the Kadosh degree. Neither statement gives a year. The 1758 date comes with a hedge in Mackey's encyclopedia: the eagle was "probably first introduced" into Freemasonry that year, which Mackey ties to the Council of Emperors of the East and West founded in Paris. The NMJ takes a different tack: it sets out what wing position signifies, then asks members what the emblem means to them.

What sits alongside the eagle varies by design. On our ring a sword runs horizontally through the talons, while the NMJ's own 32° cap has the bird standing on the blade.

A triangle with the Hebrew letter Yod inside it is the design of the officially issued 14th-degree ring, and the NMJ's Lodge of Perfection cap carries the same pairing. The NMJ reads Yod as the first letter of the name of the Supreme Being, and the equilateral triangle as omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience. Both turn up often enough on custom 32° rings that the NMJ lists them as common, along with the number 32 and the square and compasses. Its Constitutions authorize a 32° ring bearing the double-headed eagle, and beyond the eagle, the NMJ says, "there is no officially mandated design."

Rendering a double-headed eagle in sterling silver means fitting two heads, two wings, a sword and a chest emblem onto one face — compare that with the single-headed birds among our eagle rings. Each feather, each talon, the sword's grip — all of it needs hand-carving or a very precise mold. Oxidization is what rescues the detail afterwards: the dark film settles into the recesses, the raised surfaces polish back to bright silver, and the eye finally reads one feather as separate from the next. How far away it stays legible depends on the ring, the light and your eyes, so we'd rather show you the macro shot than promise you a distance.

Scottish Rite Ring Symbols and What Each One Means

These are the Scottish Rite symbols these rings draw on — and, just as usefully, which parts are actually prescribed and which are a jeweler's choice.

That's the vocabulary. The 33rd degree — honorary, conferred for outstanding service, and impossible to petition for — brings its own motto: "Deus Meumque Jus," God and my right. Roger of Howden preserves a letter in which Richard I credits his 1198 victory at Gisors to "God, and our right" (in Henry Riley's 1853 translation) — a similar expression, and a long way from showing the Latin motto ran unbroken from that year to this one.

The prescribed 33rd-degree ring is specified down to a fraction of an inch. The NMJ's Constitutions call for "three plain, half-round gold rings united into one," no wider than five-sixteenths of an inch, with a triangular plate bearing 33, and in the Southern Jurisdiction even that plate is optional. Why it's so plain, the NMJ doesn't spell out, but it does say the ring's value comes from being bestowed, "not from precious gemstones or extra ornamentation."

The Eye of Providence does have documented Masonic use going back to the eighteenth century, so it isn't the outsider's invention it gets called. What isn't a Masonic emblem is the particular eye-and-unfinished-pyramid arrangement from the dollar bill, which comes off the Great Seal. Neither is part of the NMJ's official 14° or 33° ring designs, though a custom ring can carry whatever its buyer asks for — we traced the full history of the Eye of Providence separately.

32nd vs. 33rd Degree: A Custom Eagle Ring or Three Gold Bands

In the Southern Jurisdiction, the 32nd degree is the highest a Mason reaches through the Rite's own coordinate bodies — the Lodge of Perfection (4°–14°), Chapter of Rose Croix (15°–18°), Council of Kadosh (19°–30°) and Consistory (31°–32°). The Northern Masonic Jurisdiction assigns the degrees differently.

The 33rd is honorary — bestowed by the Supreme Council on Masons who have shown exceptional service. You don't apply for it. You're selected.

The two look nothing alike. A custom 32° ring is built around the eagle, while the prescribed 33° ring described above carries no bird and no scrollwork at all.

Don't shop by weight. The two Scottish Rite rings on our own shelves in .925 — the eagle ring and the mystic topaz Scottish Rite ring — are listed at 13 and 15 grams. Weight follows ring size, face dimensions, band thickness and whether the shanks are carved through or left solid, so the same pattern in a size 13 carries noticeably more silver than in a size 8. A gram count on its own tells you very little.

How to Pick the Right Metal for a Masonic Ring

Most of our Scottish Rite rings are .925 sterling silver — the eagle design also comes in solid brass — and on a design this detailed, silver's big advantage is how it takes oxidization. Sterling means 92.5% pure silver alloyed with 7.5% of other metals, most often copper, which gives it the strength pure silver lacks while keeping that distinctive white-metal luster.

Oxidization is where material choice really bites on a Masonic ring. These designs are detail-heavy — feathers, letters and numbers crammed onto one face. Silver reacts with sulfur to form a dark surface film, and when that film is left down in the recesses and polished off the high points, the eye can finally separate one feather from the next. Without the contrast the carving is all still there in the silver, and you simply can't see it.

On a detail-heavy Masonic face, the common ring metals differ most in how the detail gets darkened:

On stainless steel, the dark lines come from chemical blackening, a coating, plating or a fill, because the passive film that keeps steel from tarnishing also resists the sulfur patina used on silver. That's a manufacturing difference rather than a verdict, and crisp detailing matters in either metal.

How to spot quality quickly: look at the feathers. On a well-cut ring each one has its own raised ridge or carved separation; on a cheap one the wings are smooth with vague scratched lines laid over the top. The dark should sit down in the recesses, not smear across the high points.

Then look for a fineness mark inside the band. Treat a lone "925" stamp as a starting point rather than proof — a stamp is only as honest as whoever struck it, and a UK hallmark, built from three compulsory marks (sponsor's, fineness and assay office), says a good deal more.

Wearing It Right: Finger, Orientation, and Etiquette

There's no single universal rule for placement, but strong conventions exist — and they vary by jurisdiction.

For a custom 32° ring there's no official rule we could find, and you'll see it worn on either hand. The officially issued rings are a different matter. The NMJ says its 14th-degree ring is meant for the third finger of the left hand, as set out in its Supreme Council's September 1882 Proceedings. It says its 33rd-degree ring is usually worn there too, and describes the Southern Jurisdiction as usually wearing it on the right little finger.

On a custom 32° ring we couldn't find an official rule for which way the eagle should face. Facing it inward keeps it a private reminder; facing it outward lets other Brothers read it. The 33rd-degree ring is the one case with a stated orientation: the NMJ Constitutions have it worn with the base of the triangle toward the wrist.

For anything else, ask your Valley or your Supreme Council about Scottish Rite insignia, and your Grand Lodge about what may be worn in its own lodges. Other traditions draw the line somewhere else entirely, and bishops' rings follow conventions of their own.

Sizing for a wide ring: width is what changes the fit, not weight — and even the NMJ caps its official 33rd-degree ring at five-sixteenths of an inch, about 8 mm. A wide band sits against more of your finger and has to clear the knuckle in one piece, so it usually needs to be a bit larger than a thin one at the same finger size. Many jewelers suggest going up about a quarter to a half size depending on the band, and a wide-band sizer is the most reliable check. Measure more than once, at room temperature, because finger size shifts with temperature and through the day.

Common etiquette mistake: buying a ring for a degree you haven't received. Custom 32° rings, in the NMJ's words, are how some Brothers "commemorate being 32nd Degree Scottish Rite Masons," so they mark a degree already received. Buy the ring that matches your conferral — a 14th-degree ring worn honestly says more than a 33rd worn otherwise.

Care and Storage for Sterling Silver Masonic Rings

Worn daily, an oxidized sterling ring tends to lose some of its darkness on the raised areas first, where skin and clothing rub, while the recessed details stay dark. That's patina doing exactly what it should — keeping the contrast that makes the symbols legible.

Buff the raised surfaces gently with a soft silver cloth (every jewelry order from us ships with one), and keep abrasive polishes and silver dips away, since they can strip the dark toning from the grooves. For deeper cleaning, warm water with mild dish soap and a soft-bristle toothbrush works. Dry thoroughly.

The Supreme Council that governs the Southern Jurisdiction dates to 1801, which puts more than two centuries behind the institution. The ring on your hand is a great deal younger than that, and much of what sits on its face is a jeweler's reading of a far older bird. Knowing which parts are prescribed and which are ours is the difference between wearing a symbol and repeating a claim about one. Match the ring to the degree you actually hold, then let the patina do its work.

If you're looking for the symbols covered here in wearable form, our .925 silver double-headed eagle ring is the one from the hand shot: 13 grams on a 17 × 22 mm face, with a square and compasses on the eagle's chest. It's best for a 32nd-degree Mason who wants the eagle in silver on a compact face. The NMJ notes that custom 32° rings may borrow other Masonic emblems, the Knights Templar cross among them; our Knights Templar Cross Ring sets that cross in blue cubic zirconia pavé, though in American Freemasonry the Knights Templar belong to the York Rite. And if it's ecclesiastical jewelry you're after, the Bishop Ring collection carries bishop's rings, mostly set with amethyst.