It’s a party tonight! Picture it- you’ve got all best jewels on, you’re wearing your finest dress,
your husband who’s also your brother is wearing his finest dress and he’s got his sexiest fake
beard on, and the guests are arriving. As you sashay through the adoring crowd, perfumed ox fat
drips down your face spreading a lovely scent. Truly, you are the epitome of haute couture.
That’s what your evening might have been like if you were a pharaoh’s wife a couple thousand
years ago. Today on Nutty History, we talk about what beauty was like in Ancient Egypt!
Spoiler Alert: They never wore gold masks while fighting with sais, despite what the Mummy Returns
would have you believe. Okay, so the term ‘Ancient Egypt’ is a little bit vague. People have lived in
the Nile River valley since prehistoric times. The pharaonic period, in which the region we now
call Egypt was ruled by a pharaoh, lasted from the 32nd century BC until 332 BC when the country fell
under the rule of Alexander the Great. Obviously, fashions change over a period
of 3000 frickin years. You know you’re a 1190 BC kid if you remember when they invented the shoe!
Oh snap! You got them Ramsay’s floors! But the height of Egypt was the New Kingdom, which lasted
from the sixteenth century BC to the eleventh century BC. It was during this time that Egypt
was the most prosperous and controlled the most territory. It was also in this time period that
King Tut, who had a condo made of stone ruled. We’ll fix our fashionista focus on this era.
Ancient Egyptians were innovators in the important field of eyeliner technology.
They wore black makeup, called Kohl, around their eyes for two reasons-
the reason that footballers do, and also for the reason David Bowie did. It protects
the eyes against sun glare, and it looks absolutely fantastic while it’s there.
The New Kingdom was an extremely prosperous time for Egypt, mostly because they were expanding
their empire through military conquest, which was nice for them I guess. But the good times were
rolling and everybody liked to show it off with jewelry. Every class in Egyptian society wore some
kind of jewelry, with the rich adorning themselves in ridiculous amounts of gold and precious stones,
and the poor imitating them with jewelry made of colored glass. The Egyptians believed you can
take it with you, so they tended to be buried with their swankiest stuff. Every time you see Ancient
Egypt in popular culture, somebody is going to be wearing this headdress. It most famously appears
on Tutankahmun’s gold death mask but was made sexy by Yul Brynner in the ten commandments. What
you don’t usually see is the long tail from the back that was meant to symbolize a lion’s tail.
The headdress, which is called a Nemes, is meant to display the divinity and power of the pharaoh,
and presumably the stripes make him look slimmer. But, despite its ubiquity in Egyptian art and
on cats with people heads, this was not the sort of thing the average person would wear.
Actually, Ancient Egyptians by and large were a culture of Vin Diesels. Both men and women
generally shaved their heads bald, though unlike Riddick they wore wigs. We’d also like to believe
that they staged elaborate heists and nos powered chariots but they haven’t found any of that yet
so. The reasons for shaving their heads were less for fashion and more to prevent being eaten alive
by lice, though they rolled with it. The general fashion was to wear super glam wigs of various
styles including pleated, fringed, and layered hair styles hanging down to the shoulders or
further. The wigs of rich people, like everything else they owned, were often decorated with jewels
and beads. Throughout ancient Egyptian art, you also often see people illustrated with these weird
cones on their heads. This puzzled archeologists for a long time, because they never could figure
out what exactly the things were supposed to represent. Some thought the images of cones were
simply symbolic, the way we illustrate saints and angels with halos today. Recently, however,
archeologists have discovered the physical remains of some of these head cones in ancient burial
sites. The prevailing idea is that the cones were made of beeswax or ox fat and mixed with sweet
smelling perfumes. Basically an ancient Glade Plug-In. You’d wear the cone on your head , and
as you walked around under the hot Egyptian sun, the cone would slowly melt, releasing a pleasant
smell. The theory is corroborated by the fact that some art shows zigzag lines coming from the cones-
possibly ancient Egyptian stink lines! It’s also worth noting that these cones were found in the
graves of common people, which just goes to show that whether you’re rich or poor,
you still stink. In fact, among the perfumes they would’ve used were Frankincense and Myrrh,
the same stuff that the Three Wise Men give Jesus. These two fragrances, combined with
pine resin and other ingredients, were burned like incense but also rubbed into the skin or
used as toothpaste. So…. I guess someone thought it was a good idea to bring toothpaste for a baby.
Although King Tut might be the most famous pharaoh from this period, he was actually not particularly
significant in his lifetime. His fame comes from the fact that his tomb missed out on being
plundered by grave robbers, which is something you can’t really credit the man himself for.
The fashion queen, and actual queen, of the new kingdom is Nefertiti, whose name means
“the beautiful one has come forth.” Wife of the controversial pharaoh Akhenaten, King Tut’s dad,
Nefertiti is instantly recognizable because of her legendary bust. Hey, get your mind out of the
gutter!- A bust, as in, a sculpture of her head, which is now a famous symbol of feminine beauty.
In the bust, Nefertiti is wearing not a wig but an absolutely bitchin’ hat. The hat
is so bitchin’ it was used as inspiration for the hair of the bride of Frankenstein.
The sculpture has no inscriptions, and it is only by this awesome hat that we know that it
was meant to represent Nefertiti, who wears the characteristic crown in other depictions. So,
from wigs to jewels to the most bitchin’ hats around, we stan Ancient Egypt for their fashion
sense. Wear your fat cone proudly as you walk down the street, yas queen.
This ancient and proud culture endured for thousands of years and captures the popular
imagination to this day with their monuments, art, and religion. This society changed and
evolved across the sea of time but they never lost their reverence for that most important thing…
the aesthetic. What about you? What do you think of Nefertiti’s fashion sense?
Let us know in the comments and thanks for watching Nutty History.