A digital archive showcasing the extensive collection of jewellery and adornment images shared on the former Ethnic Jewels Ning site over the years. These images have significantly enriched discussions on cultural adornment and its global dispersion.
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I'm glad that you have this piece Joost! I am still very curious about how this piece would have been worn given the "buttons" on the back.
Good to hear from you Hillary. Truus and I think that the "buttons" were actually used to tie the piece, at the bottom, to a piece of clothing going with them (that would then have had slits for them. A good reason would have been that the piece is very heavy, and the weight would be more bearable if it did not all hang on the neck, so to speak. So - with some exaggeration - it would have been worn a bit more like a piece of "armour". It is difficult to think of any other use for those "studs"/"buttons". We feel sure there would not have been any further adornment attached to them - not practical in any sense. However, there are some circlets at the bottom which suggest that there may have been tassels there (these are quite independent of the buttons). It's an unusually "arresting" piece, not least in this technical respect.
PS, there must also have been some sort of further chain or cord at the top for putting it round the neck.
I wonder if it would have been attached to an apron. Not an everyday, kitchen apron, but one that was part of festive, traditional dress.
I think that an apron would indeed have been a possibility. We obviously feel much the same way about what kind of piece it was and for what purpose. I think it was probably worn "in the country" or in smaller towns rather than a sophisticated urban environment: it has that kind of quality, in that there is huge value in the silver, but little in the stones, and although the work is good it is not of the finesse of e.g. Bukharan material. So I too do associate it very much with festivities of a regional kind - a "folk" event of sorts. And probably only worn then, put on to show oneself at one's best. Strangely I get associations of dancing cropping up in my mind too. So we both see it as very much part of "costume", not just a piece of jewellery, but very much part of a totality of dress for an occasion. Apparently, Linda tells me, even her top class contacts on the area say that there aren't many of these around, and there is an obvious shortage of documentation. But I think one can at least roughly work out what SORT of thing it must have been, and we have the same impression, you and I.
LATER INFORMATION: While this type of necklace was WORN in the south of Azerbaijan it turns out that that was that it was in fact MADE in Dagestan, as Raisa Ismailova has pointed out. As a Former Senior Researcher at the Dagestan State Museum of Fine Arts Raisa is obviously in an excellent position to tell us how it is, and we no longer need to engage in conjectures.