11 - 17 April 2002
Issue No.581
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 11 - 17 April 2002 Issue No.581 |
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Vanity and health
Modern perfume, cosmetic arts and healing remedies are indebted to the beauty practices of ancient Egypt. Jill Kamil investigates
We moisturise our skin, pluck out unwanted hair, apply cosmetics to enhance our appearance and splash on scents to make ourselves more alluring. We use a wealth of luxurious toilet utensils, the more rare and expensive the ingredients the better. And most of us fret about our vitality and health. Ancient medicinal and beauty techniques are undergoing a face lift.
The almost simultaneous exhibitions of Pharaonic aromatherapy and cosmetics in Cairo Museum, the Islamic Museum in Cairo, and in the Louvre reveal that vanity, health, religion, and magic together account for the importance of the cosmetic arts in ancient Egypt. There was a remedy for almost all the problems that plague us today including body odour, grey hair, dandruff and baldness. The ancient Egyptians had a remedy for wrinkles -- a mixture of frankincense ground up with oil, wax and a rush nut applied every day. Lacking soap, animal or vegetable oils were mixed with powdered limestone to serve as cleansers. Red ochre (which occurred naturally in iron oxide) dissolved in a base of animal or vegetable fat and gum resin was applied to cheeks. And rouge pots were sometimes included with jars of Kohl in cosmetic kits.
Some of the most beautiful ancient Egyptian works of art are to be found in museums around the world. In the Louvre is an unguent spoon in the form of a young woman, slightly bent at the knees and with shoulders tilted from carrying an amphora on her shoulder and a bag in her other hand; this 18th or 19th dynasty masterpiece in wood is a mere 31.5cms. Another unguent spoon, in the Egyptian Museum in Berlin, is three centimetres larger, also in wood, and depicts a female dancer playing a tambourine among the lotus flowers. A blue marble ointment jar in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is in the form of a baboon holding a jar, which may have contained an applicator stick. And in the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow is an ivory and ebony piece in the form of a female swimmer holding a cosmetic container in the form of a red lotus flower.
In the tomb of Nefertari, the wife of Ramses II, the reddish tint on her cheeks, nose, chin and neck was applied with a pad dipped in a rouge pot, both of which have been found in tombs. And lipstick, as is evident from a drawing of a woman on an erotic New Kingdom papyrus, was applied with a brush or spatula. Henna on the palms, soles, nails, and even on the hair, was a popular adornment and tattooing was common and dates back to predynastic times. Both practices continue today, especially in traditional communities in Upper Egypt.
Thirty different varieties of unguents were known in ancient times. The best imported oils came from the Levant, and these were scented with fragrant flowers or costly myrrh or frankincense from Africa. For those who could not afford the best, there was castor bean oil at an affordable price.
Lise Manniche's beautiful publication Egyptian Luxuries: Fragrance, Aromatherapy, and Cosmetics in Pharaonic Times, reveals the role played by scents and cosmetics in ancient Egyptian society. The author, professor of Egyptology at the University of Copenhagen, details three categories of ingredients used to make fragrances: plants, including cardamom, cinnamon, saffron, and mint; gums and resins, especially myrrh and frankincense; and oils and fats including almond oil and ox fat. She discusses their preparation, and in some cases provides actual recipes. She draws on ancient Egyptian, Greek and other sources, and explores the application of perfumes in ritual and on social occasions. She also examines the erotic connotations of scent in Egyptian art and poetry and discusses fragrant remedies as the central element in ancient medicine.
Egyptian Luxuries is embellished with brilliant original photographs by Werner Forman, who has devoted a lifetime to the photography of ancient monuments and art, and he used some images that reveal how the preparation of ancient Egyptian remedies continued well into medieval times. There is an image of a 13th century manuscript of Warqa and Gusah, a heroic romance, in Topkapi Palace Museum, Istanbul, which shows a Cairo bazaar in which the ancient Egyptian remedy tiryac is on sale; this is a Greek word for a mixture which contains no fewer than 46 ingredients plus "sufficient honey," and was used as a fragrance, an antidote, and to dispel anxiety. A pharmacy in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, shows the preparation of ancient Egyptian remedies continuing into the Middle Ages. It is an Arabic translation of the 13th century De Materia Medica by Dioscorides.
The pale blue lotus, which had a strong scent, was the most popular of all flowers depicted in Egyptian art. It holds pride of place as the bloom carried by men and women in their hands, held to their noses, worn as necklaces, and adorning their hair and clothes. It grows in water and bursts open at the first rays of the sun; it closes to a bud in the afternoon, and sinks into the water only to reappear the next morning. It was, therefore, easy for Egyptian sages to use the lotus as a setting for one of their creation myths.
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