A while ago, on a particularly unimaginative Monday, I was trying to come up with an idea for a blog post, at I came up with the idea of the ‘artefact lottery’: closing my eyes, scrolling through the database, and clicking on something random. Back then, the cursor ended on a rather wacky Kazakhstani hat, without much of a description.

Today, I thought I’d try again – and it seems as if the lottery favours hats, because today I ended up with this embroidered hat from Afghanistan. There is more information on this hat, though:

“Hat (“kola”) and scarf. Both the hat and the scars were bought in Maymana, and are worn by Uzbek women – the ethnic group, which is the majority in the Faryab province. The women braid their hair and wear the hat under their flowery scarves. Aside from the colourful headdress, the women wear large skirts and colourful shirts. This style of dress is in sharp contrast to the burqa. It represents the rural women, who often, if they are employed in town, work in the lower status service jobs, such as maids. A grown woman spends at least 45 minutes on her scarf. Girls and young women use only a square scars, tied tightly around the head, without a hat. If you have a headache, the common advice is to tie s scarf tightly around the head.”

The colourful scarf, worn under the hat.

While I might not buy into the tight scarf as a headache cure (sounds terribly painful), I love the thought of these women in their colourful outfits.

So, that is it for the artefact lottery, this time around. There is no knowing what will turn up next…

//Sophie Seebach