About this work
Elaborate silver-alloy and glass pendant necklace (waqari), probably made and worn in the Muslim city of Harar in the early to mid-1900s.
Original catalogue wording
Elaborate silver-alloy and glass pendant necklace (waqari), probably made and worn in the Muslim city of Harar in the early to mid-1900s. Its half-moon pendant takes a protective crescent shape — a talismanic form used in Ethiopia since the Aksumite Empire — and its upper filigreed capsule is an amulet. Such massive jewelry, worn by Muslim women, holds aesthetic links to nearby Yemen.
Source classification: silver pendant necklace
- Date
- likely early to mid-1900s
- Object type
- Jewellery & adornment
- Recorded place
- East Africa, probably Harar, Ethiopia, unknown silversmith
- Holding institution
- The Cleveland Museum of Art
- Accession
- 2025.151