Why did some ancient Egyptians shave their heads before wearing wigs?

In ancient Egypt, hairdressing was definitely an enduring industry. At that time, people, both men and women, always liked to shave their hair and put on beautifully woven wigs. After all, the hot Nile Valley is a hotbed of all kinds of bacterial revelry, and cleaning up long hair is so troublesome (perhaps expensive). If you don't want to be close to creatures such as lice, it is absolutely necessary to be diligent in depilation and cleaning your body. Priests even regard having body hair as a symbol of barbarism (the ancient Romans were shot with an arrow in their knees), which is "backward and shameful".

Zazie Hoko

Of course, it's not just for personal hygiene. Think of our "greasy" middle-aged people now, with a lot of fat, the Mediterranean. Being overweight can also save you. Hair loss on the top of the head is an eternal problem. Coupled with the increasingly gray "frontier", you can expose your age in minutes. For the Egyptians who loved beauty thousands of years ago, this was unbearable pain. Simply put, shave it all off, and then choose a wig with soft and shiny hair. You can pretend to be a teenager when you go out.

Zazie Hoko

This unique social demand gave birth to a different aesthetic vision of Egypt-in ancient Egypt around 1500 BC, baldness was regarded as the ultimate female beauty. Egyptian women will carefully "pull out" every hair on their heads with special gold tweezers, and then polish their scalp with polishing cloth. In the sun, it is hard not to be endowed with the sanctity of certain religions.

Well, young girls may still prefer to wear a beautiful wig to increase their charm. Neat short hair or refreshing ponytail is a well-received "hairstyle", and the tail of hair should be slightly curled (even straight hair can be rolled up with tools, and the fashion sense of Egyptians is absolutely perfect), and it should be shaped with animal fat added with rosemary oil and sweet almond oil. If it is a young child, parents will decorate amulets on her hair, while older children like delicate and expensive metal disks or other ornaments. In the New Kingdom, flowers and ribbons became very popular again. In a word, wigs cannot be made casually.

Zazie Hoko

Furthermore, wigs are mostly made of human hair and plant fibers and can be "colored". This gave the ancient Egyptians the opportunity to change their hair color. As early as 3400 BC, witty Egyptians knew how to dye their hair with henna juice. They can wear beautiful red hair doors without scruple and no longer envy the Celtics across the sea.

Zazie Hoko

Therefore, in ancient Egypt, hairdressers who shaved their heads and made wigs were highly respected, and there was no need to worry about employment.

refer to

How did the ancient Egyptians shave

Hair and wig

Why did the ancient Egyptians shave their heads

First of all, how do modern people know that ancient Egyptians shaved their heads before wearing wigs? From the many surviving mummies!

Think again, if everyone shaved their heads in ancient Egypt, where did everyone wear wigs? From a slave? No, according to ancient documents, slaves all have "slave hairstyles", so it is impossible for a large number of slaves to have long hair.

Therefore, it is probably a burial custom for ancient Egyptians to shave their heads and wear wigs!

According to the related literature, putting the corpse into soaking alkali to dehydrate will cause nails and toenails to fall off from the corpse. In order to prevent loss, the mummy priest will carefully wrap the fingers and toes of the deceased first. Hair also falls off easily. In order to prevent loss or confusion, priests are likely to shave the hair of the deceased before making mummies. After the mummy is made, they will put a wig made of the dead man's hair on his head. This led to the wrong impression that ancient Egyptians liked to shave their heads and wear wigs!

This is the result of the contradiction between belief and fashion in ancient Egypt.

In ancient Egypt, because of the limited conditions, people thought that hair was unclean and easily nourished dirt like lice. So both men and women will have the habit of shaving their heads. On the one hand, there will be no lice and fleas on the head, on the other hand, it will make people feel refreshed and easy to take care of in hot weather.

The priests in ancient Egypt did it more thoroughly. In order to ensure their purity before the holy God, they will remove all their hair. Yes, that's right, including eyebrows and eyelashes, emmm and ...

So the ancient Egyptians can be said to be experts in hair removal, and they can even be regarded as the ancestors of hair removal tools. For example, using shells as tweezers, now using blades as razors, or using honey as depilatory cream … it's completely comprehensive.

On the other hand, they are obsessed with the beauty brought by hair. In all kinds of murals in ancient Egypt, we can see that both the poor and the king have beautiful black hair with pigtails.

Of course it's all wigs! These wigs are made of real hair and mixed with plant fibers. The higher the general status, the longer the wig. Nobles also decorate wigs with gems to make themselves look more beautiful. Moreover, the wig can also protect your bald scalp from sunburn.

I have to sigh that the ancient Egyptians were at the forefront of fashion.

The ancient Egyptians paid special attention to their appearance. They not only began to use cosmetics such as spices and balms to enhance their charm, but also dressed themselves with gold and silver. It is puzzling that all the ancient Egyptians who paid so much attention to appearance were bald. Of course, they don't go bald, but wear wigs before going out. This is even more puzzling. Why shave your head and wear a wig? According to common sense analysis, there are usually two reasons for wearing wigs: First, because of illness or genetic reasons, hair is scarce and looks unsightly, so wearing wigs covers yourself.

In ancient Egypt, if a sudden gust of wind blew during a large-scale ritual activity, a group of bald donkeys with shiny foreheads might be attracted to you. One second, the ancient Egyptians in luxury were bragging to each other that their hair was designed by expensive hairdressers. It is estimated that the next second, when they look at each other, they are all bald and collectively silent.

What I said above is actually the hair culture of ancient Egypt. In the eyes of ancient Egyptians, it was a habit to wear a wig after shaving your hair. If you don't do this, you may be despised by others and even cause public outrage. In addition, the higher the status, the longer the wig, so the wig of Pharaoh is very long, while slaves and civilians are generally short.

Why did ancient Egyptians shave their heads and wear wigs? Most of the geographical location of ancient Egypt belongs to tropical desert climate, with high temperature and little rain all year round, especially in summer. Therefore, in the information of painted walls in Egypt mentioned in the documentary, it is often seen that ancient Egyptians wore very few clothes.

We often say that since we can't change, we can only adapt. In ancient times, there were no air conditioners and electric fans. In the face of hot weather, people will naturally think of ways to deal with it. In fact, it's very simple, except to wear less clothes and shave your hair.

There is no doubt about it. Even now, in summer, as long as you look at the roadside, you can definitely find one or two bald heads in the visual range. Because the hair is shaved, it makes people feel refreshed and there will be a little coolness on their heads. It's convenient to take care of, save a lot of shampoo, and turn their heads back when they go out. Some people just like this feeling of attention and are full of confidence.

Of course, shaving your head has another advantage, that is, it can effectively avoid the troubles caused by parasitic insects such as lice and fleas.

The environment of ancient Egypt was just suitable for the reproduction of lice, but ancient Egypt was still a slave society at that time, so there were many messy places, so many people would have this kind of "lice" that sucked human blood. It is a parasitic insect. After being bitten, it will itch and infect many diseases.

So I remember when I was a child, I often had an object at home, which was called a comb. It was made of bamboo, with a beam in the middle and dense teeth on both sides. The teeth were denser than a comb. Compared with traditional combs, the combing function of combs is mainly to scrape dandruff and lice hidden in hair. The ancient Egyptians also thought of a way to completely eliminate lice, that is, shaving their heads so that lice had nowhere to hide. I also have to say that this is a trick of "hurting the enemy by 1000 and losing 800". It is really effective to eradicate lice at the expense of appearance.

Of course, it would be indecent if the streets of ancient Egypt were full of bald men. In order to cover up their ugliness, they wore wigs and makeup, which became an important part of ancient Egyptian life. Both nobles and ordinary citizens will wear wigs to decorate themselves.

In addition, shaving the head is also the need of religious ceremonies in ancient Egypt. According to the literature, the ancient Egyptians were very clean and shaved all their hair every few days. Especially in religious ceremonies, it is necessary to thoroughly clean the body, even the Pharaoh should do the same. Because in the religious ceremonies in Egypt, unclean bodies are considered to be extremely disrespectful to the gods, and all unclean people will be punished by God.

So the ancient Egyptians paid special attention to their own cleanliness. Moreover, they think that in people, hair is the most prone to chaos and may be blasphemous. In order to keep themselves clean, they simply shaved their hair to show their highest respect for God. At this point, those who were born with a lot of body hair in ancient Egypt are probably very unpopular.

In addition, there is an interesting joke. Herodotus, a famous Greek historian, recorded in his book History: It is said that the Egyptians fought the Persians, and the Persians' skulls could be broken with only a small stone, because they had felt hats since childhood; But the Egyptian skull is really hard, even with stones, it is not easy to knock through. The fundamental reason is that the Egyptians shaved their heads from a very young age, so the skull became thick and hard due to the action of sunlight.

Then the question is, since they are all bald, who provided the wig? There is a possibility that not everyone is qualified to shave their heads and wear wigs. Wigs are actually an aesthetic and enjoyment of the nobility, a fashion, and a potential synonym for showing their status in the aristocratic circle of slave society, just as driving a sports car on the road now means having a mine at home. So most of their wigs come from prisoners of war, slaves and.

Slaves, criminals and death row inmates who are engaged in labor will not care whether you are comfortable or not, and they have no time to shave your head. It's good to be alive, so they should have long hair. The reason is that under the slave social system, only slave owners can be considered as national citizens. To put it bluntly, slaves are not even people. Perhaps in the eyes of nobles, there is not much difference between slaves and pigs and dogs.

So in ancient Egypt, there was a great demand for haircuts and wigs every day. Maybe hairdressers and wig makers are hot topics in society. I wonder if this position needed certification at that time?

In addition to the weather in Egypt, it is also related to the religious culture of ancient Egypt. Many gods in ancient Egyptian religion are animal images wearing wigs. Generally, people with higher status wear longer wigs, so pharaohs' wigs are very long, while slaves and civilians generally have short hair.

Although I don't know foreign history, I especially like to watch the history of this subject. Such as Elizabeth, Alexander, Napoleon, Victoria and so on. I feel particularly interesting, better than TV series. On the other hand, wearing a wig may be a custom. They think it is beautiful. Haha, I don't understand either.

There must be a lack of water, plus I'm too lazy to wash my hair.

Because the ancient Egyptians loved cleanliness, it was their belief to love cleanliness. The God they believe in requires each of them to keep clean every day. However, hair such as hair and beard is easy to hide evil people, and Africa is hot, so shaving your hair and putting on a wig is clean and beautiful.

Cleopatra is bald, can you believe it? Novelty

In our cognition, long hair fluttering or crisp short hair is a symbol of female beauty, but in ancient Egypt, priests regarded having body hair as a symbol of barbarism, which was "backward and shameful".

Therefore, Egyptians should remove their body hair, not only by shaving their heads, but also by polishing their heads to make them bright and shiny.

Leave a hair (beard) only when expressing condolences at a funeral. Nowadays, Arab women's hair removal is also a continuation of the habits of ancient Egyptians.

But even if you shave your head, many people in other countries don't know, because Egyptians are used to wearing wigs.

Isn't it unnecessary for them to shave their heads and wear wigs? However, when you know the truth, you will feel that the wisdom of the ancient Egyptians is still quite high.

Everyone has a love of beauty, and the ancient Egyptians paid great attention to their appearance.

You can know this by looking at their clothes and accessories in ancient Egyptian movies, and they are full of jewels.

Egyptians always give people a primitive but flashy feeling, not only visual attention, but also apply spices or balms to their bodies to make themselves more attractive in all aspects. These are all evidences that Egyptians love beauty.

Egyptians also love cleanliness, which is a belief rather than a personal preference.

Because the god they believe in requires each of them to keep clean every day.

Egypt has a hot climate, and the Nile valley is a hotbed of all kinds of bacteria carnival. It is easy to sweat in hot weather, and hair such as hair and beard is easy to hide. It is troublesome to always clean up long hair.

Therefore, they need to shave their hair, but they want to be beautiful, so they wear wigs.

Isn't it more beautiful for women in ancient Egypt to wear wigs with soft and shiny hair and some headdresses?

Has reached the age of long white hair, does black hair look young and energetic?

They can dye their hair at will.

As early as 3400 BC, witty Egyptians knew how to dye their hair with henna juice.

They can wear beautiful red hair doors without scruple. The ancient Egyptians were really fashionistas!

In doing so, the ancient Egyptians not only respected the gods, but also maintained their beautiful appearance. It can be said that they kill two birds with one stone. Do you think the Egyptians are very wise after knowing the truth?