Subject: cavalry
Culture: Ak Koyunlu / White Sheep Turkmen
Setting: Iran 15thc
Object: migfer turban helmet
Armstreet *
* Metropolitan Museum of Art > Stone Gallery of Arms and Armor
"Helmet Steel, engraved and inlaid with silver Iranian, Ak-Koyunlu period, late 15th century
This turban helmet is inscribed with the name of the sultan Ya'qub of the Ak-Koyunlu (White Sheep Turkoman), who ruled from 1478 to 1490."
* Metropolitan Museum of Art > Stone Gallery of Arms and Armor
"Helmet Steel, engraved and damascened with silver Iranian, Ak-Koyunlu/Shirvan period, late 15th century
This especially attractive and well preserved turban helmet retains the mail aventail that protected the lower half of the face and neck. The aventail is fixed with a lead seal stamped with the mark used in the Ottoman arsenals, an indication that this example, like other turban helmets exhibited in this vitrine, passed into Turkish possession as booty with the Ottoman conquest of Iran and the Caucasus. At least one turban helmet decorated in a style comparable to this example bears the name of Farruhk-Siar (reigned 1464-1501), ruler of Shirvan in the Caucasus. Such evidence suggests that this helmet, too, is of Shirvan manufacture."
Royal Armouries Museum > Oriental Gallery *
"Helmet (migfer) This is the major type of helmet worn in the Islamic world during the 14th and 15th centuries. It has a mail aventail, and was originally fitted with an adjustable nasal defence. It is decorated with calligraphy in gold and sliver." ...
* Metropolitan Museum of Art > Stone Gallery of Arms and Armor
"Turban Helmets
Steel,
engraved and damascened with gold and silver
Iranian,
Ak-Koyunlu period,
late 15th century
Helmets of this type are usually called turban helmets because of their large bulbous shape and the flutings that imitate the folds of a turban. Because certain dervish groups wore turbans wound with a prescribed number of folds to represent an important mystical number, it is likely that turban helmets were regarded not merely as armor but also as a kind of religious insignia, their very shape marking the wearer as a fighter in the Holy War.
"Turban helmets, together with mail-and-plate armor of matching decoration, were intended for the heavy cavalry and are recorded as early as the fourteenth century. The examples exhibited here appear to have belonged to the dynasty of the Ak-Koyunlu (White Sheep Turkoman) that ruled northwestern Iran and Anatolia in the fifteenth century. The inscriptions, damascened with gold and silver, glorify temporal rulers, wish the owner well, or give advice on how to attain virtue."
