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Ornament similarities. Ur – Mathura

photo Mary Harrsch [wiki]

Gold pendant was recovered from the necropolis of Ur Iraq 625-539 BCE. Its function is not certain, the museum describes it as the pendant, locket or ear ring.

Photo © University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (Penn Museum) Inv. no. B15244 https://www.penn.museum
H 3.9 cm; W 2.4 cm; D 0.4 cm
Forehead decoration from Samarkand, Tajikistan, second half of the 19th century.
The collection of the Russian Ethnographic Museum museum record


“A common type of headdress for women was the “tilla bargak”, which was a strip of silver square plates connected by hinges with pendants. A variant of this type of adornment is a browband, consisting of stamped gilded plates sewn onto the fabric, with a bottom made of pendants made of stamped diamond-shaped rosettes and leaf-shaped elements.” [Женские головные уборы]

“The Turkmens sewed on the sinsil jewelry forehead diadem, the Uzbeks of South Khorezm had tilya bargak and hakik – duzi, and the Uzbeks-Karluks – kasaba. The presence of a diadem in the costume of girls of marriageable age is documented by archaeological materials on the Scythians-Skolts and Sarmatians.” [Женские головные уборы]

Photo © Penn Museum
Photo taken by Lokinder Bisht >> twitter

Shalbhanjika, 1st century CE, Found at Sonkh Tila, Govardhan, Mathura. Now at Mathura Museum, India.


  1. Женские головные уборы Центральной Азии – от рождения до старости [Women’s headdresses of Central Asia – from birth to old age] https://www.caa-network.org/archives/20524
  2. ad. 1 [Yatsenko S.A. / Яценко С.А. Указ. соч. С. 324] https://rggu.academia.edu/SergeyYatsenko
  3. The Shalbhanjikas of Mathura Museum http://justrippingg.blogspot.com/2021/04/the-shalbhanjikas-of-mathura-museum.html