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Cleopatra avoided bad hair days


Just like her screen depiction by movie star Elizabeth Taylor, Cleopatra knew all about power hair (Image: NIH/Hulton Getty/Liaison Agency)

Egyptian queen Cleopatra used her hairstyles to enhance her power and fame, says a professor of art history and classics.

Statues, coins and other existing depictions of the queen suggest Cleopatra (69-30 BC) wore at least three hairstyles, Professor Diana Kleiner of Yale University says in a new book.

The first, a "travelling" do that mimicked the hair of a Macedonian Greek queen, involved sectioning the hair into curls, which were then often pulled away from the face and gathered into a bun at the back.

The next was a coiffure resembling a melon, and the third was the regal Cleopatra in her royal Egyptian headdress, complete with a rearing cobra made of precious metal.

Cleopatra did not invent any of these styles, but she used them to her advantage, Kleiner indicates in her book Cleopatra and Rome.

Ptolemaic trendsetters

From the time of Egyptian King Ptolemy I, the Ptolemaic queens wore the 'melon hairstyle' with its segmented sections resembling a melon or gourd," Kleiner says.

"When Cleopatra followed suit, she was more traditionalist than trendsetter.

"These same Ptolemaic queens were also depicted in art with the usual Egyptian wigged headdress that had its origins in Pharaonic times.

"Cleopatra did as well, so again she followed tradition and did not innovate when it came to hair."

"But," Kleiner says, "Cleopatra appears to have worn different coiffures in different circumstances, playing to her audience, so to speak, in life and in art."

Kleiner says when the queen was in her homeland, her likely objective was to look like a traditional Egyptian ruler, although she was in fact Greek, and to legitimise the Ptolemaic dynasty by linking it to the time of the Pharaohs.

A group of Egyptian statues recently has been linked to Cleopatra, although the identification can't be proved since there are no accompanying inscriptions.

"These show her with the customary Egyptian wig and the triple uraeus (rearing cobra)," she says.

"This Egyptian coiffure is the one we most often associate with Cleopatra today. Think Elizabeth Taylor!"

Divine ornaments

The uraeus was associated with a cobra goddess Wadjyt, the sun god Ra and the goddess Hathor, so wearing it signified that the individual had taken on the attributes of a divinity.

Cleopatra also probably often wore the melon hairstyle in Egypt, where she had many slaves to attend to her appearance, including some that were responsible for maintaining the royal wigs.

The Egyptian queen extensively travelled, and did so in style. Not unlike film depictions, Cleopatra would arrive via elegant barge with her attendants catering to her every need.

In Rome, Kleiner believes Cleopatra wore her "Hellenistic travelling coiffure" in places where it would be seen and "gossiped about at cocktail parties."

At about the same time, Kleiner notes the melon hairstyle turns up in Roman portraiture, which suggests Roman women admired Cleopatra and attempted to copy her.

Nodus operandi

Roman leaders Octavian, Antony and Julius Caesar seduced the Egyptian queen.

Kleiner suggests that Octavia, Antony's wife, invented a hairstyle called "the nodus" to compete with Cleopatra.

The nodus featured a roll over the forehead that Kleiner says may have mimicked Cleopatra's well-known rearing cobra.

The nodus was the height of Roman fashion in the 30s BC, just before Cleopatra's death by suicide at the age of 39.

Karl Galinsky, distinguished professor of classics at the University of Texas at Austin, says he agrees that Cleopatra wore different looks, including calculated hairstyles.

He says they were designed to convey a message and Cleopatra may have had different hair days in different countries.

Tags: archaeology