What is it about?

While historians and artists have often studied hair, archaeologists have traditionally paid less attention, as it is so rarely preserved in deposits. This paper argues that even if we don't find the actual hair, the tools used to style it—like combs and pins—show that hair was a powerful social language between the 5th and 11th centuries AD. By looking at art, literature, law, and objects such as grooming tools, we show that people styled their hair as a deliberate way to show off their status, gender, and whether they belonged to a particular social group. Essentially, grooming wasn't just about looking good; it was a vital technology used to manage social boundaries and communicate who you were to the people around you.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

This research approaches what might be seen as a rather shallow interest in fashion or aesthetics as a serious scholarly subject, proving that everyday acts like combing hair were essential for maintaining order in ancient societies. It provides a new way for archaeologists to understand the social lives of past people, by studying the tools they used to change their appearance. It tries to provide a framework by which such study might be taken forward in the future.

Perspectives

Here I was just trying to convince people of my belief that something as apparently simple and straightforward as a comb was not just a tool for hygiene, but also a sophisticated piece of hardware used to navigate complex human networks. The social boundaries that we often find in archaeology—between social groups, genders, and so on —were often maintained and negotiated at the level of the individual’s appearance.

Dr Steven P Ashby
University of York

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: Technologies of Appearance: Hair Behaviour in Early Medieval Europe, Archaeological Journal, January 2014, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/00665983.2014.11078265.
You can read the full text:

Read

Contributors

The following have contributed to this page