It seems that the cowrie shell object is an ile-ori, or "house of the head" - a small shrine to someone's ori-inu or "inner head". I hope the original owner is OK with me keeping his or her inner head in my bead room. I will protect and appreciate it!

and the other is typical of the gloriously colourful beadwork embellishments stitched onto garments, belts, bags, etc as can be seen on so many traditional-style Afghani or Kuchi dresses- you saw 3 or 4 of them hanging in my workshop, dripping with beadwork and embroidery- strips, discs, fringes, rows of coins, mirrors, and amulets...
will try to find and send an image or two-

as modelled by a slim family member-
and there are a pair of the large discs out of sight on the edges of the sleeves-

It makes sense that this was designed to be sewn onto a garment - I was wondering about the side strips.

I am stabilizing the deteriorating felt (could be horsehair) with a product called Fray-check which is used to stop fabric from fraying.

I'm also thinking I could tack (stitch by hand) it to a piece of muslin to further help the problem. Then possibly mount it in a shadow box. To keep it from sagging I'll have to attach it to a stiff backing. Any suggestions about the best way to preserve & display it?

personally i suggest the best way to display and enjoy this would be to wear it...!
attach to a dress or hat, ...or?

It would start coming apart with any flexing. I'm going to saturate it again with Fray-check because the backing is still shedding particles whenever I handle it.

I use shadow boxes to frame stuff like this.

This display of Guatemalan burial dolls is an inexpensive one I got from Michael's I think. It has a fabric ground, no glass. They also have a line of frames with canvas backings and glass.

I just use straight pins to pin stuff right to the fabric. In fact, I bought a pair of beautiful beaded earrings from Joyce awhile back, and mounted & framed them this way. You only need a few straight pins, and you can insert them so they are almost invisible.

I can't find the framed earrings--we had to move last year, and they're probably still packed somewhere. :^( But I hope it gives you some ideas! :^)

I purchased a shadow-box and I'm now preparing to sew the beaded patch onto the backing. I tried pins but the piece is so heavy that they pulled out when I flipped it over to place in the box. A stray piece of thread actually turned out to be a hanging strap so I'm pretty sure this item was used as a wall decoration and not on a garment.
I'll post the completed display when I finish it.

Here's the final resting place for the beaded Kuchi decoration.