The short version: traditional Pashtun jewellery is a named system, not an undifferentiated "tribal" style. Bangrhi are bangles, teeka sits on the forehead, guluband at the throat, amail across the chest, gharhagay on the hand and pazeebuna at the ankles. Most of it was silver, often set with turquoise, and made by village smiths using filigree and stamping.
We are a Peshawar workshop, so this is the jewellery around us — in family boxes, on antique dealers' shelves in Andar Sher, and in the photographs people bring when they want something made "like my grandmother's". The pieces have specific names, and knowing them changes how you look at them.
The named pieces
Vocabulary varies between valleys and families, and Pashto spellings vary again once written in English. These are the terms in common use:
| Name | What it is |
|---|---|
| Bangrhi (karay) | Bangles. Worn stacked — slim bands in multiples, or a single substantial cuff. |
| Teeka | Forehead ornament, suspended from a chain along the hair parting. The regional version tends to be larger and bolder than its Punjabi or Mughal-derived cousins, often with dangling chains or coins. |
| Guluband | A close-fitting collar sitting at the base of the throat. Frequently the most heavily worked piece in a set. |
| Amail | A longer chest ornament worn below the collar, sometimes several strands deep. |
| Gharhagay | Ring and hand ornament. |
| Pazeebuna | Anklets. Traditionally heavy silver, sometimes with bells or coins — substantial and deliberately audible. |
Read together, they describe a full-length composition: forehead, throat, chest, wrists, hands, ankles. These were never designed as single statement pieces. They were designed as a set that reads from a distance.
Why silver, and why turquoise
The signature of the region is bold silver, frequently bordered with turquoise. There are practical reasons. Silver was affordable enough that ordinary families could hold real metal, workable by smiths without a large workshop, and dense enough to carry the deep stamped and repoussé work the style depends on.
Turquoise arrived through the same routes that carried everything else across this frontier, from Persian and Central Asian sources, and its blue against oxidised silver is the colour pairing most people picture when they picture this jewellery. Carnelian, coral and coloured glass appear alongside it.
Silver also served a function gold does not: it was portable wealth a woman held herself. Jewellery was savings you could wear, and in a region where formal banking arrived late and unevenly, that was not a metaphor.
How they were made
Two techniques dominate. Filigree — fine drawn wire twisted and soldered into openwork — produces the lace-like panels on collars and teeka. Stamping and repoussé — working sheet metal with punches from both faces — produces the raised geometric fields on cuffs and pendants.
Both are hand processes at village scale, and both leave evidence. On a genuine old piece the repeats are slightly irregular, solder joins are visible under a loupe, and the back is finished but not immaculate. Cast reproductions are uniform in a way handwork never is: identical repeats, soft detail, and a suspiciously tidy reverse.
ONE HONEST CAVEAT
Regional jewellery scholarship is thinner than the material deserves, and much of what circulates online is repetition of a small number of sources. Where families, museums and academic surveys disagree on a name or an origin, we have said so rather than picking the tidier version. If your family uses a different word for a piece, your family is the better source for your piece.
Why the heavy pieces are disappearing
The blunt answer is weight. A traditional pazeebuna or a full guluband is heavy, and heavy is fine for a wedding and impossible for a working week. As daily life changed, pieces that were only ever ceremonial stopped being commissioned, and the smiths who specialised in them found less work.
There is a second reason, less discussed: melting. Silver and gold get sold in hard years, and jewellery is where household savings live. A great deal of old work has gone back into the pot — which is exactly why the surviving pieces matter.
Wearing them now
The revival that actually works keeps the motifs and rethinks the construction. That means hollow rather than solid forms, shorter drops on a teeka, a guluband built on a flexible backing rather than rigid plate, and turquoise used as accent rather than mass. The vocabulary survives; the weight does not have to.
It also mixes. A single heavy antique cuff worn with otherwise plain modern gold reads better than a full traditional set worn incompletely — one deliberate piece against quiet ones, rather than a costume assembled halfway.
Caring for an old piece
Old silver is not new silver, and the difference matters:
- Do not polish away the darkness in the recesses. That oxidation is what makes stamped work legible. Aggressive polishing flattens a piece visually and removes metal permanently.
- Keep turquoise away from water, heat and chemicals. It is porous and takes up oils and dyes; ultrasonic cleaners and silver dips can ruin it outright.
- Store dry and separate. Cloth pouches, one piece per pouch, away from humidity.
- Have repairs done by someone who has handled old work. A modern solder repair at the wrong temperature can destroy filigree that survived a century.
If you are commissioning something in this idiom rather than restoring it, the karat conversation still applies — see 21K vs 22K gold for what to choose, and what is in a Pakistani bridal set for how these forms sit alongside wedding jewellery.
Common questions
What is traditional Pashtun jewellery made of?
Historically, largely silver rather than gold, frequently set with turquoise and sometimes carnelian, coral or coloured glass. Silver was affordable, workable by village smiths, and carried its own significance. Gold pieces existed, but the recognisable regional style is a silver one.
What is a bangrhi?
The Pashto word for bangles, also called karay. They range from slim bands worn many at a time to single heavy cuffs, and stacking multiples on one wrist is the traditional way of wearing them rather than a modern styling choice.
Is Pashtun jewellery still made today?
Yes, though the heaviest traditional forms are made far less often. Weight and comfort are the main reasons — pieces that were normal for occasional ceremonial wear are impractical for daily modern life — so contemporary makers tend to keep the motifs and lighten the construction.
Where can I see authentic pieces?
Museum and private collections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa hold the older work, and antique dealers in Peshawar handle genuine pieces alongside a great many reproductions. Academic surveys of the regional jewellery are the most reliable starting point if you want to learn to tell them apart.