Thekausia orcausia (Ancient Greek:καυσία[1]) was anancient Macedonian flat hat. Apurple kausia with adiadem was worn by theMacedonian kings as part of the royal costume.[2]
The name is derived from its keeping off the heat (καῦσις,kaûsis).[2]
It was worn during theHellenistic period but perhaps even before the time ofAlexander the Great[3] and was later used as a protection against the sun by the poorer classes in Rome.[4]
Depictions of the kausia can be found on a variety of coins and statues found from theMediterranean to theGreco-Bactrian kingdom and theIndo-Greeks in northwesternIndia. ThePersians referred to both theMacedonians and the rest of theGreeks as "Yauna" (Ionians), but made a distinction between "Yauna by the sea" and those "with hats that look like shields" (Yauna Takabara), probably referring to the Macedonian kausia hat.[5] According to Bonnie Kingsley the kausia may have came to the Mediterranean as a campaign hat worn by Alexander and veterans of his campaigns in theIndus[6] but according to Ernst Fredricksmeyer the kausia was too established a staple of the Macedonian wardrobe for it to have been imported from Asia to Macedonia.[7]
A modern descendant of the hat may be thePakol: the familiar and remarkably similar men's hat fromPakistan,Afghanistan andJammu and Kashmir.[8]
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Media related toKausia at Wikimedia Commons
