Woman with a large bundle (of brush?) on her head, photographer and date unknown

I thought I stumbled across this image at the annex for the Dirty Beloved photo blog — but now I cannot find it there. In any case, it comes from the G. Eric and Edith Matson Photograph Collection, which is now part of the Library of Congress photo library, but there’s almost no information about it. Dated “between 1898 and 1946″ and taken somewhere in the Middle East, it’s part of a deliciously degraded stereograph image (see the original), but the crop is mine. Posted for no reason at all.