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3 min read<\/p>\n3 min read<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what you\u2019ll learn when you read this story:<\/p>\n
After hairstylist Janet Stephens examined Roman busts with elaborate hairstyles, she realized there were no signs of pins or anything else holding the hair in place.Through researching Latin texts and experimenting on mannequins in her studio, Stephens found the method used in an obscure Latin word that can mean \u201cneedle and thread.\u201dIt turned out that sewing these hairstyles into place kept them from falling out, as she discovered when she ran her needle through hairstyles recreated from several busts. <\/p>\n
When Janet Stephens isn\u2019t cutting or coloring someone\u2019s hair, she\u2019s reconstructing the hairstyles of the ancient world. A chance trip to the Walters Art Museum<\/a> turned the Baltimore hairdresser into an amateur experimental archaeologist when she noticed something interesting about the hairstyles portrayed on several Roman<\/a> busts. The \u201chair\u201d adorning the statues on display was perfectly (and sometimes elaborately) coiffed, but there didn\u2019t seem to be a securing pin anywhere in sight. This also didn\u2019t seem to be a case where false hair stood in for the real deal\u2014while wigs and extensions existed in the ancient world (high-ranking Egyptians<\/a> wore them as symbols of status, and were sometimes buried with them), and Romans did occasionally wear wigs, these hairstyles told of something else.<\/p>\n Stephens had every modern styling tool within reach to mimic the styles, but wanted to figure out how she could recreate the hairstyles on mannequins with only the tools used in ancient Rome. She pored over Latin<\/a> texts and deciphered them with Google Translate, and in 2005\u2014after years of researching and attempting to emulate what she saw on the busts\u2014she had a revelation. The ambiguous word acus, found in the works of authors such as Ovid<\/a> and Juvenal<\/a>, can refer to multiple objects: a single-pronged hairpin, a curling iron, or a needle and thread. While experts had understandably long translated \u201cacus\u201d as \u201chairpin\u201d in reference to hairstyles, Stephens wondered whether it actually might mean \u201cneedle and thread.\u201d To test her theory, she used a needle and thread to literally sew Roman hairstyles into place. Her results were astounding.<\/p>\n \u201cUsing needle-and-thread to arrange female hairstyles answers the question of how they were constructed with readily available equipment,\u201d Stephens said in a 2008 study published in the Journal of Roman Archaeology<\/a>. \u201cThe often complex hairstyles depicted on portrait busts can be reconstructed simply, economically and accurately on real hair, without the need for expensive false hair<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n And \u201ccomplex\u201d might be an understatement. Ancient Roman fashion included elaborate hairstyles<\/a> that involved multiple braids<\/a> wrapped around the head or basket-woven tresses. These could not be kept in place with the single-pronged hairpins (or bodkins<\/a>) that were commonly used at the time. Heavy hairpins would have slipped through the fluffy bangs created from layers upon layers of curls during the late first century.<\/p>\n But when Stephens ran her needle through rows of braids and sewed them together, she saw that the hold was better than any hairspray, even though the only other thing she styled them with was water (though wealthy Romans were known to use pomade). These sewn hairstyles were made to last, and possibly even to sleep<\/a> in.<\/p>\n Despite its artistry, in ancient Rome, being a hairdresser (or ornatrix) was considered a lowly profession. Aristocrats and others who were well off usually had servants or slaves style their hair. Elaborate hairdos were a display of wealth and power, boasting to the world that a woman could afford extra hands to turn her hair into a crown<\/a>. Many of these coifs were only achievable with help from someone else, and poorer women often styled each other\u2019s hair.<\/p>\n Stephens thinks the loop of the thread may be what eventually inspired the invention<\/a> of more convenient (and much easier to remove at the end of an event) U-pins, which salons now order by the pound to hold modern updos in place.<\/p>\n
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