Common Omani silver Tassel like hair ornaments. Typically worn in sets of six by young girls or eight by women. These plait ornaments would have been attached to the ends of the plaits which were often thickened and extended with black wool.
According to Miranda Morris, these plait ornaments were stuffed with palm-fibre or pieces of cotton wool from the wild cotton plant, or from the fruit of Caloptris procera. The fibre was soaked in pitch (lek), resin (samgh) or quicklime (nura) before being inserted into the silver cone in order to prevent the valuable but fragile silver from splitting, denting, or being damaged in any other way. Miranda Morris, 'Oman Adorned: a portrait in Silver' (Muscat, 1997) p.234. She goes on to say that 'a girl wore six of these attached to her plaits, a married woman usually eight - or ten for full dress'. Morris, 'Oman Adorned: a portrait in Silver', p.234.
