Originally a çelenk was "a bird's feather which one attaches to the turban as a sign of bravery"[2] but by the end of the 18th century, the çelenk had become institutionalized in Ottoman military practice and continued to be awarded for military merit up to the 1820s.[3] It was a jewelled aigrette consisting of a central flower with leaves and buds, and upward-facing rays.
In modern Turkish, a çelenk is a wreath or garland, a circular decoration made from flowers and leaves, usually arranged as an ornament.
Gifts to non-Turkish naval heroes
Nelson, by Lemuel Francis Abbott, with a chelengk in his hat. Abbott seems to have painted this portrait without seeing Nelson's chelengk.
A specially-made chelengk was awarded to Horatio Nelson by Sultan Selim III in honour of the Battle of the Nile in 1798. This was the first time that a chelengk was conferred on a non-Ottoman.[3] The usual seven rays were augmented to thirteen, as described in a contemporary letter:
The Aigrette is a kind of feather; it represents a hand with thirteen fingers, which are of diamonds, and allusive to the thirteen ships taken and destroyed at Alexandria, the size that of a child's hand about six years old when opened; the center diamond and the four round it may be worth about £1000 each, and there are about 300 others well set.[4]
In Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series of novels, Captain Jack Aubrey is awarded a chelengk by the Sultan after capturing two rebel ships in The Ionian Mission. His chelengk was worn, like his hero Nelson's, on his dress uniform hat and contained hidden clockwork, so that the diamond strands shimmered in the sun.[7]
Television and film
In season four, episode 4 of Miss Scarlet and The Duke, "The Diamond Feather," Admiral Nelson's chelengk is the subject of a fictional theft.
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