МАЭ № 3096-10

Woman’s girdle

Turkmen

early 20th c.

cow leather, brass, iron, gold plate, carneol, paint

In their art, the Turkmen have preserved the traditions of the steppe style, its austerity and laconicism. A typical feature of the Turkmen works of art is a combination of massive silver plates with cornelian insertions that look as if they are lit from the inside. In Turkmen jewelry, cornelian was widely used to decorate various types of objects, as this stone bore a number of positive symbolic meanings. Such girdles were part of a festive woman’s dress.

Ethnography of Central Asia