Wednesday, September 17, 2014

CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND—Archaeologist Jolanda Bos of the Armana Project has analyzed a selection of 100 recently excavated skulls from the Armana cemetery. Twenty-eight of those skulls still had hair, including that of one woman who had “a very complex coiffure with approximately 70 extensions fastened in different layers and heights on the head,” Bos wrote in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology. She thinks that the hair was probably styled after death, but such elaborate styles, held together with some kind of fat, were also likely a part of daily life. The skulls had hair ranging from very curly black to middle brown straight, which was often styled in rings or coils around the ears. Braided styles were simple, narrow, and made from three strands, and an orange-red color, possibly from henna, was found on one woman’s graying hair. “At present we are analyzing the hairs in order to find out whether or not some kind of coloring was used. On other sites dyed hair was found from ancient Egypt,” Bos told Live Science. To read about the search for Nefertiti's tomb at Amarna, see ARCHAEOLOGY's "In Search of History's Greatest Rulers."