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Saint Stephen's Crown, greatly venerated crown of Hungary, the symbol of Hungarian nationhood, without which no sovereign was truly accepted by the Hungarian people. It is made from an 11th-century jeweled circlet of Byzantine style, augmented early in the 12th century by the addition of arches and an upper rim composed of alternate pointed and round-topped plaques of enamelled gold. Small pendants hang on short chains on both sides and at the back. The cross on the top is crooked, because the screw hole in the knob it stands on was set at an angle.
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