TWENTY NIELLOED SILVER AND COPPER-ALLOY MINIATURE BELLS

Konya, a city in central Turkey, is the main centre of sufism of the Mevlevi order and of pilgrimage. Mevlevi sufism is focused on the teaching of its founder the Persian scholar, poet, theologian Jalal al-Din Rumi. Music, expecially percussions, are central to the sufi rituals of worship. Those bells fashioned after the hat the Mevlevi dervishes wear were very likely meant as mementoes to the visitors to Konya and especially to the tomb of Rumi.