The Ancient World

Ancient Makeup: Ritual, Protection and the Painted Face

Before beauty was fashion it was chemistry, medicine and religion — and the people who made it knew exactly what they were doing.

The essayRitual, Protection and the Painted Face

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3500 BCE – 500 CERitual & Divine Beauty

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The Ancient World: The Chronology

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3500 BCE
Palettes Before Pyramids: The Oldest Cosmetic Object in Quantity
Before Egypt had monumental architecture it had grinding slabs, and it had them in numbers that make cosmetic preparation ordinary.
2000 BCE
Kohl as Manufacture: Compounds That Do Not Occur in Quantity
Two of the compounds in Egyptian kohl are rare in nature and common in the containers. Somebody was making them.
1500 BCE
The Cosmetic Kit: When the Equipment Became a Set
Pots, tubes, sticks, spoons and mirrors stop appearing singly and start appearing together — and a set implies a routine.
400 BCE
The Pale Face: Pallor, Status and Two Thousand Years of Lead
A pale face was a claim about work, and for two thousand years the claim was most often made with lead.
1
Ovid Writes Recipes: Cosmetics as Literature
A Roman poet published face preparations in elegiac couplets, and told his readers in a different poem never to be caught making them.
77
Pliny Catalogues Pigment: A Compiler, Not a Chemist
The most-cited ancient source on cosmetic materials is an encyclopaedia assembled from other books by a man who tested nothing.

In short

Ancient cosmetics were deliberately manufactured, not merely gathered: analysis of Egyptian kohl shows two of its four compounds were synthesised by a wet-chemistry process that takes weeks, which makes the painted eye of the Nile a piece of technology as much as an ornament.

The Ancient World at a Glance

Lined EyesBlack kohl and green malachite, worn by men and women alike.
Made, Not FoundKey compounds were synthesised, not simply ground.
Sacred FunctionCosmetics belonged to ritual, medicine and burial.
Lead and PallorGreece and Rome pursued whiteness with white lead.

In the Ancient World

Ritual & Divine Beauty

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