Oriental Women

by Edward B. Pollard

From the paintings and the other representations that have come down to us, both the peasant maid and the princess wore the same kind of garments, so far as the cut of them is concerned. Mother, daughter, and maid were dressed much alike and without much variety of color. The rich often wore a profusion of beads.

There was no part of the Egyptian woman's toilet upon which so much care was bestowed as upon the hair. Indeed, the Egyptians prided themselves upon their coiffure. Herodotus is authority for the statement that there were fewer bald-headed people in Egypt than in any other country. Civilization, in the valley of the Nile, at least, did not seem greatly to increase the tendency to baldness. There were cases, but they were of the nature of a calamity. Woe to the physician whose skill did not succeed in checking the falling hair. Pomades of various ingredients were common remedies for this ill. Oil, dog's feet, and date kernels were considered of great virtue, as was also a donkey's tooth pulverized and mixed with honey. And there was no more direful or more frequent imprecation pronounced by an Egyptian lady upon her rival than that the hair of her whom she hated might fall out!

GHAWAZI
After the painting by C. L. Muller

The "dancing girls" known as ghawazi, are often in evidence. They clothe themselves in gay garments of various colors. Sometimes they are pretty and attractive specimens of female grace, but, as might be expected from their character and profession, they soon become coarse and repulsive. They may be seen at the public places, and their dances are indecorous and immodest. They play a leading rôle in those wild orgies known as Fantasia.

Wigs were commonly used by women as well as by men of the Ancient Empire. There was a coiffure of straight hair down to the shoulders or to the breasts. Examples have been found, however, in which the wigs reached not so far, as is the case in the statuette of the Lady Takusit, which is now among the ancient ornaments in the Museum of Athens. She wears a wig of stiff curly locks in rigidly regular lines plastered closely to the head, reaching almost from the eyes in front to the nape of the neck, and hiding the ears. The plaiting of the hair became common in later times, the hair hanging stiffly over the shoulders.

This piece of statuary, that of Lady Takusit, or Takoushet, as it is sometimes spelled, one of the most perfect of its kind, shows a woman of good form and regular features, standing erect with one foot in advance, her right arm hanging gracefully by her side, her left pressed naturally against her bosom. She is dressed in the closely fitting skirt already described, supported by straps over the shoulders and reaching to a point just above the ankles. Her robe is richly embroidered with scenes of a religious character, and her wrists are adorned with bracelets.

Besides the ordinary hair dress of the women, the queen enjoyed the exceptional privilege of wearing a diadem or headdress, representing a vulture, which was the sacred bird of Egypt and was accounted the special protector of the king in battle. This royal bird is represented as stretching out its strong wings over the head of the first lady of the land.

The women were great lovers of trinkets and jewelry of all kinds, and the men were not far behind them in this. They put an ornament wherever it could be appropriately worn. And this ruling passion was even strong in death, for the dead were often literally loaded with jewels upon their arms, fingers, ears, brow, neck, and ankles. Favorite jewels, specially, were entombed with the dead. In the Boulak Museum has been preserved probably the most complete collection of funeral jewelry, that of Queen Aahhotep, mother of Ahmes, the first king of the eighteenth dynasty. The following are some of the womanly belongings buried with Queen Aahhotep: a fan handle plated with gold, a bronze-gilt mirror mounted upon an ebony handle, on which was a lotus of chased gold, bracelets of various designs, anklets, armlets, gold rings, ornaments for the wrist made of small beads in "gold, lapis lazuli, carnelian and green feldspar, strung on gold wire in a chequer pattern," and many other ornaments of fine gold, of chased and repoussé work of great value.