The Chelengk (çelenk) was a military decoration of the Ottoman Empire that continued to be awarded for military merit up to the 1820s.
A çelenk was “a bird’s feather which one attaches to the turban as a sign of bravery” and became institutionalized practice amongst the Ottoman military.
A specially-made Chelengk was awarded to Horatio Nelson by Sultan Selim III after the Battle of the Nile (a major naval battle fought between the British Royal Navy and the Navy of the French Republic at Aboukir Bay on the coast off the Nile Delta) in 1798. This was the first time that a Chelengk was conferred on a non-Ottoman. Selim III also gave a chelengk to Russian Admiral Fyodor Ushakov after the capture of Corfu in 1799.
The Chelengk Medal Design
The Chelengk is a jeweled aigrette (the tufted crest or head-plumes of the egret, used for adorning a headdress) consisting of a central flower with leaves and buds, and upward-facing rays.
