The Hair and Wig of Meryt: Grooming in the 18th Dynasty

Abstract

A study of the hair and wig of Meyrit. As part of a long-term study of the collections of Turin's Museo Egizio, the authors have particularly focused on the contents of the tomb of the 14th-century BC couple Kha and Meryt, discovered intact in 1906 at the workman's village of Deir el-Medina, modern Luxor (Schiaparelli 1927; Vassilika 2010). As the most impressive woman's wig to have survived from pharaonic times (Schiaparelli 1927, 101), Meryt's long wig closely replicates the numerous portrayals of the long full 'enveloping' style found particularly in 14th-century BC sculpture and tomb scenes (Fletcher 1995, 260-3).

Keywords

• Archaeology
• Ancient Egypt
• Egizio
• wig
• hair
• 18th Dynasty
• combs
• balsam
• Kha