Palaeoethnotrichology

The stages of social development during the Predynastic through the Early Dynastic and into the Old Kingdom are marked by a sharp increase in social differentiation, which necessitated an increased need for visual bodily displays of status. Hair, the most malleable part of the human body, lends itself to the most varied forms of impermanent modifications. The resulting hairstyles convey social practices and norms, and may be regarded as a “representation of self”. As such they may be considered as an integral element in the maintenance and structuring of society. This paper explores the structural relationships between variations in hairstyles and the principal changes in social organisation in ancient Egypt from the Protodynastic period to the beginning of the Old Kingdom (3,250-2,613 BC). An interval that witnessed the rise and consolidation of centralised authority.
The results reveal that hairstyles were linked to the identity of individuals and social groups, such as men, women, children and the elderly. Within the social hierarchy hairstyles were used as a means of displaying status. After experimentation with a broad spectrum of hairstyles during the Protodynastic and early Dynasty I, an institutionalised canon for hairstyles was established, coinciding with the creation of administrative institutions. Once the canon was established standard hairstyles continued to serve as the norms for identifying members of the administration or signs of authority.
Although initially the majority of men had their hair cut short, modifications of short hair and the adoption of mid-length and long hair became progressively more common. The use of certain hairstyles was restricted to the higher social offices, with longer hair being symptomatic of power and divinity. Women, by contrast, initially had long hair with greater variety occurring by Dynasty I and a more restricted array from Dynasty II onwards. However, long hair was always predominant among women of all social statuses at all times. Long hair may have thus been related to the perception of women as mothers responsible for childbirth and nursing, and hence their perceived role as directly linked with procreation and fecundity. After the Protodynastic the only occurrences of men wearing the tripartite style are on ritualistic occasions, on the mummified form of King Djer and the statues of King Netjerikhet in his serdab and Heb-sed court. The adoption of long hair by men may have thus been related to this ‘generative’ aspect of feminine hairstyles.