Thursday, September 4, 2014

Kievan Headdress Piece, 11th to 12th Century

Here's a new word for you -- kolt, a ring-shaped piece like this one was hung by the ear in a woman's headdress of medieval Russia and Ukraine. This one was dug up in 1842 near the Church of the Tithes in Kiev. The word is rare and obscure, but it does appear in one of the birchbark documents from medieval Novgorod.

Here is another kolt, this one in the Kremlin in Moscow. Various sorts of stars were the most common forms.

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