Ancient Egyptian grooming was much like ours today but done with different tools. Wooden combs untangled hair. Razors sharpened by grinding palettes kept men and women clean-shaven. Blunt-edged tweezers plucked out unruly hairs. Oil and unguent were applied to the skin to soften hair for shaving and plucking.1 Kohl made eyes more luminous and protected them from disease and the sun’s glare. Kohl was stored in pots and tubes of many shapes. Once mixed with a binder, kohl was applied by kohl sticks or the fingers to help it adhere to eye rims and lashes.2 Bronze mirrors polished to a high sheen reflected the area to be groomed or beautified.3
Headrests were the ancient Egyptian equivalent of a pillow. They supported the head and neck while sleeping. They also allowed air to flow under the head to cool the sleeper. The ancient Egyptians were buried with headrests for use in the next life. Headrests such as this are found throughout Africa.
MH
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Freed, Rita E., ed. 1982. Egypt’s Golden Age: The Art of Living in the New Kingdom, 1558-1085 B.C.; Catalogue of the Exhibition. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts.. ↩︎
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See binder discussion in Riesmeier, Marabel, Jennifer Keute, Margaret-Ashley Veall, Daniel Borschneck, Alice Stevenson, Anna Garnett, Maria Ragan, and Tibaut Devièse. 2022. "Recipes of Ancient Egyptian kohls more diverse than previously thought."Scientific Reports 12: 5932. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-08669-0. ↩︎
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Cf. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 20.1792 from Kerma, Nubia; and MFA 27.872, excavated at Semna, Nubia. ↩︎
Bibliography
- Freed 1982
- Freed, Rita E., ed. 1982. Egypt’s Golden Age: The Art of Living in the New Kingdom, 1558-1085 B.C.; Catalogue of the Exhibition. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts.
- Riesmeier et al. 2022
- Riesmeier, Marabel, Jennifer Keute, Margaret-Ashley Veall, Daniel Borschneck, Alice Stevenson, Anna Garnett, Maria Ragan, and Tibaut Devièse. 2022. "Recipes of Ancient Egyptian kohls more diverse than previously thought."Scientific Reports 12: 5932. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-08669-0