A Mongolian Era Female Headdress from the Upper Ob Basin

Abstract

A Mongolian era female headdress of the bocca type is described. It was found in 2015, in a burial at Krokhalevka-5, in the Novosibirsk region of the Ob. The undisturbed burial of an adult female belongs to a group of contemporaneous medieval graves under a large mound 75 and dates to the 13th to 14th centuries. We describe the birch-bark frame (cylindrical base, frontal plate, and cover) and the decorative items (large glass and stone beads, small glass beads, and a bronze earring) with regard to field conservation and subsequent restoration. The size and shape of the headdress are reconstructed. It is one of the northern specimens of the Mongolian and Tian Shan bocca type, and its parallels are known from archaeological finds and written descriptions. Bocca, an attribute of a married woman, had ritual and mundane functions and several meanings. Like the silk items found in the burial, the bocca was a prestigious imported object marking the high status of the woman and of other individuals buried under the same mound. It evidences ties between the local elite and the steppe dwellers––members of the imperial Mongol culture.