Silver hinged headdress with pendants, coral beads and set with turquoises and inlaid jade, Turkey, 1800-1899.

Silver headdress consisting of 11 rectangular segments hinged together with a matching triangular terminal plaque at each end. The central segment and those on either side of it are larger than the others. All the pieces have a semi-circular extension at the top and are decorated with applied filigree. The eight outer segments and the two terminals are each set alternately with a red paste or a turquoise in a rosette mount. The central segment is set with a rectangular jade plaque inlaid with two turquoises, with a small turquoise above and below it. The segments on each side of the centre each have a central red stone with a turquoise above it. There is a coral bead on the top of each hinge, and hollow pear-shaped pendants hanging from each segment: three on each of the outer ones, four from those on each side of the centre, and five from the central segment. There is a figure-of-eight chain attached to the semicircle at the top of each of the three central segments which are joined together at their ends with a stylised leaf with a hook on its back. There is also a short length of figure-of-eight chain attached to each terminal, one of which is broken off.

This headdress was described as Algerian work ‘from behind Kabylia’ when it was acquired by the Museum in 1903. Although it resembles the rich enamelled headdresses of that region its true origin is in the Armenian heartlands of eastern Anatolia and the south Caucasus, as can be shown by the delicate filigree work and, in particular, the inlaid jade plaque set in the centre.

It would have been worn across the forehead by a married woman, with the chains at each end, and the three chains at the top, hooked into the cloth of her head covering.

1302-1903