Very rare pair of carved wooden sandals for Omani towns-women made of rosewood with silver toe-pins and bells so you could timely hear the lady approaching. Nowadays wooden shoes are associated with the Turkish bath, however originally these shoes were also worn in the Harem and even on the street, we have several 19th century photos on the website to confirm this.
For almost identical shoes see the photo of Bibi Salme (in the slide-show) in her memoirs of an Arabian princess.
Omani princess Emily Ruete with almost identical wooden shoes
Height 7 cm (excluding silver pin) Length 26 cm. Some "magic" moon / star symbols have been punctured in the surface of the shoe. See picture Ingrams Ref 4 page 463 for similar magic symbols to protect against evil spirits.
Emily Ruete writes in her Memoirs of an Arabian Princess 1886 about the sounds in the harem of the palace she grew up : "Children of the most diverse ages were running, quarrelling and fighting in every corner. In between resounding loud summons and clapping hands, which in the Orient is the equivalent of ringing a bell for the servants. Add to this the rattle of the women's wooden sandals, the kabakib (singular kubah), five to ten cm high and often adorned with silver or gold" These wooden shoes were typically only worn at home.
