06 September 2010

Licorice and tantour

This photo of a late 19th-century licorice seller in Damascus is an eye-opener for people like me, who have only known licorice as a solid candy.
This photo (credit Sebah) shows a "city woman" (with remarkable "lift" footwear) on the left, a Druse woman in the center, and a peasant woman on the right, all from Damascus circa 1873.  At the link comments, I found this note about the Druse woman's hat: "The woman’s hat is called a tantour, and it is usually covered with a long veil falling on the shoulders of the woman. It is said to be the ancestor of the typical 15th-century French woman’s hat-with-veil."

Re the latter, I found this photo of a lady wearing a "hennin" -
in a post I wrote earlier this year about ancient hairstyles; I'm not sure of the date of the style being depicted here (the source was in French).

The top two photos come from a remarkable collection of about 40 photos of old Damascus, assembled at Poemas del rio Wang.

3 comments:

  1. Thank you very much for the reference. In my next post, to be published this afternoon, I will exhaustively write about tantour and its offspring.

    The French headgear on the picture can be dated between 1430 and 1490, the earliest and latest representations of this costume in French paintings and manuscripts.

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  2. The French hat-with-veil is called a hennin:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hennin

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  3. Thank you Abie. Added to post.

    For even more info, see this link -

    http://riowang.blogspot.com/2010/09/tantour.html?showComment=1283891700056#c7687368372531170558

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