A gilt-bronze pierced Abyssinian (Ethiopian) royal headdress backed by purple velvet and encrusted with coloured stones of African origin. Gilt bronze tassles each with coloured stones around top and base rims. At the front are two 'Lions of Judah' crowned with an Ethiopian royal crown and flanking a processional cross. The 'Lions of Judah' were a symbol of Ethiopian princes and a reference to their Solomonic dynasty. The bust in profile mounted above the crowned lions is that of the Ethiopian Emperor Menelik II (1844-1913).