HAIRDRESSING IN ANCIENT TIMES. The Egyp tian hairdressing, as shown in the painted bas reliefs and flat paintings, was extremely varied.
It was divided into many tresses, each thickly plaited, or in two very broad and flat braids, one on each side of the head, while the hair behind is cut short; or in long parallel braids of great number, which are again grouped in masses, one mass falling in front of the shoulder on either side and the larger mass be hind. Wigs were evi dently very common.
Among the Greeks the statues and bas-reliefs which we have of the sixth century B.C. and before show a very elaborate style of dress ing the hair common to both men and women. The heads even of athletes show the hair crimped and curled, retained by a broad band, in front of and below which the little curls are arranged in corkscrews, or in curls made spiral at the end and fixed close to the forehead, evidently retained by some very tenacious cos metic. One most beautiful headdress of which the date can be nearly fixed is that of the Apollo in the eastern pediment of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia. The hair, radiating in all directions from the crown of the head, is generally rippled; it is retained by a band above the ears and falls below this band in short, curling locks parted so as to leave the ear free. At the same epoch, however, namely about B.C. 450, the portrait stat
ues, or those which may seem to be so, have the hair in a less elaborate style, worn naturally as in many heads of both old and young men of the great period of Greek art, and the heads of women of the same periods have the hair not very long and gathered at the nape of the neck or retained by a broad fillet, a stephane, or the like, and falling on the neck, hut not below the shoul ders. In the fourth century n.c. and later the headdress of men becomes less and less a matter of moment. The hair is worn in its natural curls or cut very short. and it is evidently the purpose of the sculptor to insist upon the form of the head. which the hair is not allowed to conceal. At the same time the headdress of women becomes sud denly more and more elaborate. Among the Ro man hairdressers, this Greek tendency continues. The typical head of a man of family has short cut hair and no hoard except for a few years under the Antonines, while the headdress of women, though charmingly simple and natural, and setting off the head well during the years of the later Republic and the early Empire. is shown as extremely fantastic in the busts and medals of women of the Imperial Court.