- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- Ceremonial Palestinian woman's marriage cap fringed front and back with ancient and modern coins, with side flaps and chain also with coins attached.
- Geographical reference
- Person
- Field collector Charles Warren
- Field collector Palestine Exploration Fund
- PRM source Mrs Charlotte Watkin Williams
- Date / Period
- Date made: Circa 1845
- Date collected
- 1870
- Acquisition information
- Donated: 1952
- Materials and processes
- Material Gold Metal, Material Metal, Material Wool Yarn Animal, Material Silk Yarn Animal, Material Cotton Seed Fibre Textile Plant, Process Recycled, Process Stitched, Process Embroidered
- Dimensions
- Length 219 mm excluding chain, Width 186 mm, Height 314 mm, Diameter 180 mm
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 1952.5.86
- Research and responses
Pitt Rivers Object Collection Blog
Monday, 30 March 2020
"One of my favourite objects: A Bridal Headdress from Palestine
In the Body Arts section of the Lower Gallery of the Museum, a Palestinian bridal headdress (1952.5.86) is to be found. It is one of my favourite objects in the museum.
The headdress is from Bethlehem, it is made from cotton and lavishly decorated with 1600 silver and gold modern and ancient coins attached to it. It was presented to the bride’s family as a gift from the family of the bridegroom. The headdress was collected by Charles Warren in 1870 when he was working in Palestine and donated to the Museum in 1952. Shelagh Weir suggests that the headdress may have been made around 1845 due to the presence of a large number of coins milled in 1844.
The headdress was and still is an emblem of the wealth and social status of the bridegroom’s family within rural society in Palestine. The headdress usually has either silver or gold coins, so the headdress displayed in the museum is untypical because it contains both.
It is worn on the head and the bride also wears a long black embroidered dress as well as a black embroidered headdress (a Palestinian bridal headdress is to be found in the textile section of the museum). The embroidered patterns stitched on the dress as well as on the headdress belong to the area where the bridegroom’s family live.
After the religious ceremony has commenced on the agreed wedding day, the bridegroom’s family visits the bride’s family to take the bride to her new home. The tradition is gradually fading away as more people from the country move towards the city where the wedding traditions are different."
George Kwaider
Gallery Attendant
https://pittrivers-object.blogspot.com/2020/03/one-of-my-favorite-objects-bridal.html
- Associated publications
- Illustrated and discussed in detail in 'A Numismatic Curiosity in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford', by Anthony Wooton, in Seaby's Coin and Medal Bulletin, no. 498 (November 1959), pp. 399-406 (photocopy in RDF). NB Weir (see below) shows that Wooton mistook the front for the back. [MOB 4/2/2002; CM; JC 23 3 2005] Illustrated in Plates V (two views, front and back) and IX (from top), listed on pages 101-2, and discussed in detail on pages 102-3 of 'A Bridal Headdress from Southern Palestine', by Shelagh Weir, in Palestine Exploration Quarterly (January-June 1973), pp. 101-109 (photocopy in RDF). [MB; JC 23 3 2005] Illustrated in colour (two views; front and back) and discussed in detail on page 186 of Palestinian Costume, by Shelagh Weir, London: British Museum Publications, for the Trustees of the British Museum (1989) (photocopy in RDF). Weir argues that the presence of a large number of coins milled in 1844 makes it likely that the headdress was made soon after, hence her date of circa 1845. She also suggests a provenance of 'Hebron hills and their western foothills'. [JC 24 3 2005] Illustrated in colour as figure 34 on page 37, and discussed on page 38, of Transformations: The Art of Recycling, by Jeremy Coote, Chris Morton, and Julia Nicholson (Oxford: Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, 2000). [LP 21/6/2000; JC 23 3 2005] Discussed and illustrated (in a drawing by Marvin Weil) in ‘A Bridal Headdress’, by George Kwaider, in Friends of the Pitt Rivers Museum Newsletter, no. 43 (January 2003), p. 9. [JC 23 1 2003] A brief account of the headdress is given in an undated entry on the Palestinian collections at the PRM on the 'Palestinian Costume Archive' website at http://www.palestinecostumearchive.org/; consulted 14 December 2005. [JC 14 12 2005] Illustrated in colour on page 8 of Particularly Ravishing Morsels: Recipes from Around the World Inspired by the Collections, by The Friends of the Pitt Rivers Museum (no place [Oxford], no publisher [Friends of the Pitt Rivers Museum], no date [2007]). It is used to illustrate a recipe for 'Mutabbal' by George Kwaider and is captioned 'Bridal headdress from Southern Palestine, fringed front and back with ancient and modern coins, forming the woman's dowry. 1952.5.86.' [El.B 29/04/2008] Illustrated in colour on page 254 of 'Ancient Jewish Coins in the Work of William Holman Hunt', by Nicholas Hardwick, The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 150 (no. 1,261, April 2008), pp. 252-5. [JC 8 5 2008] Illustrated in colour in various editions of Macmillan Education's 'Tiger Tracks' and 'Tiger Time' series (from 2013 onwards), where it illustrates a lesson entitled 'Oxford and Cambridge' with the text 'At the Pitt Rivers Museum, you can see traditional costumes'. [JC 27 7 2016]
Search terms: Ritual and Ceremonial, Currency, Marriage, Clothing Headgear, Headdress, Headgear, Coin