Chain for headscarf (podbradnik), Bulgaria

Head ornament or chin chain ('podbradnik'), copper alloy, formed of multiple chains ending in hemispherical plaques with sharp hooks and a cluster of leaf-shaped pendants, cut out and stamped with ring and dot motifs. The hemispherical plaques cast to imitate cloisonné enamel cells, and enamelled and red and green. The copper alloy contains some silver and a small amount of arsenic as a whitener.

Text from Eth Doc 1836 (entry 286): This 'podbradnik' is made up of chainlets attached to a triangular plate with arched sides and decorated with coloured enamel. The ornament is used for pinning down the hat. End of the C19th.
Information supplementary to Eth Doc:
The chain passes under the chin and is hooked to different parts of the headdress to keep it in place: either to the outer headscarf, or the inner headscarf, or to a hat or headdress worn beneath both scarves. For a similar podbradnik, see M. Veleva and S. Blagoeva, 'Bulgarian National Costumes and Folk Jewellery, Sofia 1983, p. 139, fig. 42, from the Rhodopes area, and ibid., p. 110, fig. 219, an early 20th-century photograph of a young woman in festive costume from the Kurdjali region, south of Haskovo, where the podbradnik is used to secure the coin-set headdress worn beneath the headscarf. Veleva and Blagoeva also note the amuletic symbolism of the overlapping pendants with their 'bird's eye' motifs, intended to rustle as the wearer moved and to distract evil spirits (ibid., p. 140).
For a similar ornament see exhibition catalogue, 'Textilien und Schmuck aus Bulgarien: Ausstellung des Nationalmuseums Sofia', Ethnographisches Museum, Schloss Kittsee,1990, pp. 24-5. See also M. Raykova, 'Bulgarian Folk Costumes from Thrace', Sofia 2003, pp.40-41 for another similar podbradnik worn as part of a costume from Smolyan.