A temple ring is an ornament that hangs from a

headdress Headgear, headwear, or headdress is any element of clothing which is worn on one's head, including hats, helmets, turbans and many other types. Headgear is worn for many purposes, including protection against the elements, decoration, or fo ...

or in

braids A braid (also referred to as a plait; ) is a complex structure or pattern formed by interlacing three or more strands of flexible material such as textile yarns, wire, or hair. The simplest and most common version is a flat, solid, three-strand ...

of hair in the front area at the side of the head i.e. near a person's anatomical temple. Temple rings were part of

Slavic Slavic, Slav or Slavonic may refer to: Peoples * Slavic peoples, an ethno-linguistic group living in Europe and Asia ** East Slavic peoples, eastern group of Slavic peoples ** South Slavic peoples, southern group of Slavic peoples ** West Slav ...

, Scandinavian and others' medieval women's dress. Most were made of base metals such as copper alloys or iron, though silver and even gold were occasionally used. These were known as temple rings because they were worn on the head, near the temples of a woman or a girl.

Slavic temple rings

Temple rings were characteristic decorations of Slavic women. Different tribes had their own designs and they were made out of various metals. The rings were attached to a string that became part of a headdress or they were woven directly into braids of hair. The earliest archeological evidence of temple rings was found in the

Catacomb culture The Catacomb culture (, ) was a Bronze Age culture which flourished on the Pontic steppe in 2,500–1,950 BC.Parpola, Asko, (2012)"Formation of the Indo-European and Uralic (Finno-Ugric) language families in the light of archaeology: Revised an ...

Únětice culture The Únětice culture, Aunjetitz culture or Unetician culture (, , , ) is an archaeological culture at the start of the Central European European Bronze Age, Bronze Age, dated roughly to about 2300–1600BC. The eponymous site for this culture, t ...

and

Karasuk culture The Karasuk culture () describes a group of late Bronze Age societies who ranged from the Aral Sea to the upper Yenisei in the east and south to the Altai Mountains and the Tian Shan in ca. 1500–800 BC. Overview The distribution of the Kara ...

. Later they were also found in the

Chernoles culture Chernoles culture or Black Forest cultureEllen D. Reeder, Esther Jacobson, Scythian gold: treasures from ancient Ukraine. San Antonio Museum of Art - 1999 - p. 352 (Чорноліська культура) is an Iron Age archaeological unit dati ...

. Temple rings were most popular between the 8th and 12th centuries, possibly influenced by the

Arab Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of years ...

and

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

cultures. In later fashion styles, a temple ring was replaced by the

kolt Kolt or kolty was a part of a female headgear, hanging on a ryasna at both Temple (anatomy), temples as a sign of family's wealth, common in 11th-13th centuries in Old Rus' (region), Rus'. It comprised a pair of metal pieces, joined to form a h ...

hanging from a

ryasna Ryasna () was part of a Russian woman's headgear, hanging from a ''kokoshnik'' or as a Temple ring, temporal pendant. It was a sign of family's prosperity common in the 11th–13th centuries in Kievan Rus', made in the shape of a chain linking go ...

. Types of Slavic temple rings

References

External links

Temple rings, and female headdress of the Eastern Slavs in Rus’
Culture of Kievan Rus' Types of jewellery Archaeological artefact types {{Europe-archaeology-stub