Antique Gold Layered Silver Turkoman Tumar Bozbend

Antique Gold Layered Silver Turkoman Tumar Bozbend
Attachment 1182
Antique Turkoman tribal tumar bozbend patterned amulet, commemorating ancestors in the nine blossom motifs along the top edge of the mountain symbol and reflected in the same number of pendants attached to the bozbend tube.

The coins and bell beads show some dates probably preceding the time frame in which the tumar bozbend was created. They date from the 1200s and 1300s of the Moslem A. H. calendar, which corresponds to our calendar from mid-1800s to late 1800s, depending on which Moslem calendar was in use where the coins were minted.

See a very similar tumar bozbend in Johannes Kalter, The Arts and Crafts of Turkestan, 1984, page 128.

There are fairly rigid customs that dictate the design of Turkoman ornaments. One is that ancestors and geographic origins will be honored by being represented on a plain wood, all-silver or gilded silver ornament.

This piece in the Turkoman mindset is shaped as the pyramid representing their mountain of origin, attached to the bozbend amulet for containing prayers and blessings.
Ram's heads are ancestor symbols, which ordinarily be present in some form on any piece of jewelry or any other possession of the Turkoman person. So we have in this elaborately decorated piece both the mountain symbol and the ancestor symbol, as well as the supreme symbol of spirituality, the prayer container. But I cannot find a ram's head, abstract or otherwise, represented on this piece. Perhaps the amulet removes the necessity to show the ram's head in order to honor ancestors of the tribe. Or the blossom symbols and water symbols in the non-gilded parts of the piece serve as life signs and therefore commemorate ancestors.

The carnelians are oval cabochons, very translucent, put there in the correct number and placement to mark the importance of the piece.

Size: 6.5 inches wide x 8.5 inches high, including attached bell beads.