Lebanon · Mask / Carnival / Performance Costume Craft

Mount Lebanon Tantour Silver Cone Headdress Making

Tantour (also tantur)

The hand-crafting of the tantour, a tall conical headdress directly described by the Zay Initiative as the one head ornament recognisable as distinctly Lebanese, worn by married women of Mount Lebanon, most prominently the nineteenth century, and encrusted with precious stones in wealthier families. Described in Lahad Khater's Lebanese Customs and Traditions as resembling an ibex horn, typically crafted from silver or copper and measuring around 40 centimeters or more in height, often adorned with intricate engravings or sacred inscriptions; the finest examples were made of gold, reaching heights of up to 30 inches, and encrusted with diamonds, pearls, and other precious jewels. A surviving silver tantour made in Lebanon around 1870, held today by the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, is hand-wrought and hand-beaten, marked in Arabic script 'Made by Anton the Lebanese,' its central panel depicting two animals flanking a text panel, surrounded by floral and foliate design -- a rare, directly named surviving craftsman signature. To hold the unwieldy headdress in place, holes were pierced in its base to attach ribbons for tying around the head; a silk scarf was wound around the base, and a white veil floated from its peak. The tantour was far more than decoration: it functioned as a symbol of honor, marital status, and pride, customarily gifted by a husband to his bride on their wedding day, and women rarely, if ever, removed it, even for sleep or illness -- Princess Khassikiya, wife of Emir Fakhr al-Din II, reportedly wore hers continuously day and night, so tall and heavy that she had to move her bed away from the wall in order to sleep. The Orientalist Father De Geran, as recounted by Lahad Khater, noted that women never parted with the tantour even on their deathbed, and the headdress was often sold after a woman's passing, with the proceeds used to pay for her funeral. Dr. Abdul Aziz Hamid Saleh's Arab Costumes Through the Ages documents the tantour as especially common among Maronite and Druze women, particularly in Mount Lebanon and western Syria; following the wars between Maronites and Druze in 1841 and 1842, Maronite priests specifically forbade their women from continuing to wear it, while it remained associated with Druze costume. The headdress's precise origins remain genuinely debated: some historians trace it to the Crusaders, who may have carried similar cone-shaped headdresses to Europe, or connect it to the tales of One Thousand and One Nights; a further theory links it to the Mongol boghtag headdress tradition, tracing its diffusion through successors of Genghis Khan; independently, Greco-Roman reliefs discovered at Kartaba, Lebanon, depict a cutoff-cone headdress with veil predating all of these external-origin theories, suggesting the form may have genuinely native Lebanese roots reaching back to antiquity. The tantour became largely obsolete after 1850 and is today primarily preserved through museum collections, including costumed models at the Beit-Eddine Museum; it experienced a striking moment of contemporary revival in 2024, when Lebanese designer Joe Challita styled Nada Koussa, representing Lebanon at the Miss Universe pageant, with a tall conical headdress directly evoking the historic tantour.

Risk level: Extinct — Revival Exists · Not independently inscribed