Hair care was a big issue with the Egyptians. We know from paintings and statues that not only women, but also men wore complicated coiffures. While wealthy people probably preferred wigs for social occasions, all sorts of fancy hairstyles were tried out in the "normal population". Investigations on mummies in Amarna showed that plaited and braided hairstyles in particular were en vogue in the New Kingdom. Extensions were also known to the Egyptians. Most people's hair color was likely to have been medium brown to black.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY Acc. No. 36.3.196 Basket with extensions 18th dynasty, Thebes
A problem in need of treatment seems to have existed when with advancing age, the actual hair color began to turn gray. Coloring with henna has definitely been proven, and medicine also offered the possibility of using certain remedies that were supposed to prevent the greying of the hair. Those are handed down to us from the Ebers papyrus (Eb 451, 453, 454) from the 16th century BCE.
"Beginning of remedies for removing greying and for treating the hair:
Black calf blood. Seethe with oil. [The head] is rubbed with it.
Another [remedy] to prevent greying:
Cat placenta, raven eggs, oil, labdanum. Seethe completely. Give it to the man's head after he has been shaved.
Another [remedy]:
Blood from the horn of a black bovine. Seethe completely with oil. [The head] shall be rubbed with it. "
There are five other, very similar recipes, the ingredients of which might be a bit difficult to access nowadays. It is noticeable, however, that almost exclusively components of black animals were used as remedies. Here we already find the application of a principle that was introduced into European medicine in the 16th century CE by Paracelsus: the so-called "doctrine of signatures". The conception behind this doctrine is as follows: a remedy will help against a certain disease, if it has a similarity in color, shape, smell, or something like that. So, a black animal will help keep hair black and prevent greying. (Incidentally, the doctrine of signatures was taken to extremes in the 17th century CE with the use of pulverized human skulls against headaches or brain diseases ...)
However, serious hair care products were also used in ancient Egypt. The following section can be found in the Ebers papyrus (Eb 251) as well:
"Knowledge of what can be done with the castor plant, as something that was found in scriptures of ancient times, and that is something useful to the people:
A woman's hair is made to grow through this fruit: grate it, give it in oil, then the woman should anoint her head with it. "
This application has prevailed to this day, and beauty counselors still place great confidence in the use of castor oil for beautiful hair, because it moisturizes and makes the hair shiny. So the Egyptian women were already absolutely trendy in this field some 3600 years ago.
About the findings in Amarna
- Jolanda Bos in Barry Kemp, Tell El-Amarna, 2014 (Paragraph: Human Hair from the South Tombs Cemetery), Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 100 (2014), pp. 1-33.
Formulae from Ebers papyrus in German
- https://sae.saw-leipzig.de/de/dokumente/papyrus-ebers
Cover picture
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, Acc. No. 30.3.35, Wig (human hair)
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