In Egypt 3000-525 bc, according to the preserved depictions and excavated burials, the human body as a unit served as a core for ornamentation, by adding jewelry and, particularly around the eyes, paint; among the richer, this would apply to all regardless of gender or age. More rarely, the bodily surface was permanently altered by practices such as tattoo or scarification. At some periods, again breaching any ideal of absolute bodily wholeness, items of jewelry involved incision into the body: earrings and piercings for them are found after 1800 bc, for men and women (figurine Bourriau 1988, 124). More substantial reel-like ear studs are found 1300-1000 bc, progressively expanded to fill the lobes. By contrast, and unlike neighboring regions and other periods (such as Neolithic Gebel Moya, Upper Nubia), nose rings, nose plugs, and lip studs are not attested in Egypt. Preserved remains and depictions in some tombs of court officials (about 2400 bc) indicate a widespread, though not universal, practice of circumcision for men, but not for women (Feucht 2003). Written sources do not comment on the ritual significance or hygienic intention of the practice, and it is not known whether it was confined to the richer in society. There is also no social history yet for the methods for controlling natural growth of body hair and toe/fingernails: elaborate versions of tweezers and scissorlike utensils occur in some of the richest burials in 14001300 bc, but it is not clear how widespread such attention to the body may have been across the society and over other periods. Grooming at all periods might
Figure 2.7 Scene of ritual insult of a shackled hunchbacked man, on limestone wall blocks of the tomb chapel of the high official Khentika Ikhekhi, cemetery of Inebhedj (Saqqara), about 2300 bg. Drawing © Wolfram Grajetzki.
Focus on hairdressing, both the cutting of hair and the addition of headgear including wigs. Preserved from richer burials in the period 1450-1000 bg, wigs for both men and women are highly elaborate, with some examples of special mounts and boxes to maintain them. For the rich, the arranging of hair would itself become a ceremony, again for both genders, though most famously celebrated in scenes of hairstyling with hairpins for the women closest to the king, from 2000 bg. Different utensils appear to highlight this in different periods: where we might think of hair scissors, equipment of 2000-1700 bg focussed on hairpins, and that of 1500-1300 bg on adding combs, often with figured handpieces, recalling fourth-millennium BC grooming arts (Ashton 2013). Razors of different forms are prominent in cosmetic equipment for the richer, both men and women (flint in the third and early second millennium BC and copper alloy later); a literary composition of about 1850 bg includes the barber among occupations for life. Ancient depictions tend to align grooming and cosmetic equipment with women (Robins 1993). Yet both men and women are depicted with eye paint, ornate wigs, and jewelry, and in the archaeology of cemeteries, items such as mirrors are found in the burials of men, and children, as well as of women (Lilyquist 1979, 83-93, Figure 2.8a-c).
Haircutting could also be the primary device for marking specific times and spaces as sacred: many images of men show them shaven, not because they hold a full-time occupation as priest, but because the shaven head is appropriate to sacred space. Not all markers of distinction were visible: grooming also required scented oil and fat, which were preserved in distinctive small containers, varying in form and material over time, and found across a wider social range. Nor were all these markers derived from human intervention in bodily appearance. On a small number of statues of men, the sculptor has indicated the effects of age in balding, and accompanying inscriptions identify these individuals as the balding/aged men (Egyptian isy) of Hathor, goddess of beauty and sensuality (Clere 1995). This example shows that grooming or the lack of grooming might be related to a divine name or being—that human physical change might be seen as divine in some way. The special status isy seems to denote the transitional state, balding, not the condition of being bald; as with the Nile flood Ha'py, the divine is visible not in permanence or stability, but in the process of change.
World History
