These Tibetan noblewoman’s head ornaments (akor) from Lhasa are made of silver inlaid with cabochon turquoise. Although commonly misidentified as ear pendants or earrings, due to their heavy weight the ornaments were actually worn near the ears attached to the head by a strap or pinned to a headdress. See Jane Casey Singer, Gold Jewelry from Tibet and Nepal (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1996), p. 126, no. 50; and John Clarke, Jewellery of Tibet and Himalayas (London: V&A Publications, 2004), p. 73, no. 56.
Each head ornament has a lotus bud finial. Beneath it is a teardrop symbolic of compassion and purity that is associated with the Buddhist goddess Tara. The roundel in the middle is perhaps evocative of a mandala. The comma-shaped tripartite bottom element resembles the protective tiger-claw necklace pendants worn by Manjushri, the bodhisattva of wisdom, as well as by Karttikeya (also known as Kumara or Skanda), the Hindu god of war.
These head ornaments and a headdress ornament (M.81.3.2) were reputedly acquired in Tibet by Sir Francis Younghusband (1863–1942), who led the punitive British-Indian expedition to Tibet in 1904. (Pal 1983 and 1990, pp. 254-255, no. R20.)
Comparable akor head ornaments are in the British Museum, London (1905,0518.75.a-b, 1941,1011.2–.3, and As1979,16.22), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (15.95.89 and .90), and Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto (970.141.1.A). Contemporaneous akor head ornaments are embedded in the gold surface of the tomb of the thirteenth Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso (1876-1933) in the Potala Palace, Lhasa. (Jane Casey Singer, Gold Jewelry from Tibet and Nepal [New York: Thames and Hudson, 1996], p. 26, figs. 16-19.)