When it comes to Ancient Rome and our roman ancestors, I don’t think we realise enough how much we are alike them. Especially when it comes to self-care.
I already wrote about Roman shaving habits, and in this article, I want to talk about the ancient Roman hairstyles and haircuts. Like nowadays, the hairstyle in Roman times were subject to trends and influencers. They were also pretty creative too, if you have a look at the examples in this article.
Ancient Roman haircut: how do we know how it looked?
Archeologists and historians know pretty well how the ancient Roman empire haircuts looked like. How? Well, first of all we have a lot of statues and busts. Most of the time, they were very well crafted and ancient hairstyles were depicted with much detail. A second source are depictions of people, like paintings.
Roman hairstyles (female) and royal influencers
When you look at female Roman hairstyles, it’s remarkable that they were subject of trends set by influencers. Most of the time, it was the reigning empress that would be an example for women in the Roman empire.
Paintings, reliefs and sometimes even depictions on coins were the selfie posts of ancient times. Ladies and girls would follow the royal hairstyles which makes it easy to place statues, busts or other depictions with a recognizable Roman haircut on a timeline.
An example of this kind of influencing is the female roman haircut on this picture. The woman is a young lady from the upper class who lived in Cyrene (currently in Libië). You can recognize the hairstyle with a distinctive conical knot. This was a known female Roman hairstyle during the reign of emperor Antoninus Pius and his wife, who set this trend, Faustina. They reigned during the period of 138-161 A.D.
Something different: the old Roman curls hairstyle
The Roman empire was vast and geographically stretched out over several regions and even continents. So it’s not remarkable that we find very different ancient Roman hairstyles in history.
One example of this fact is this archetype example of a sculpted woman with curly hair. This roman curls hairstyle probably referred to the African part of the empire.
This sculpture was indeed found in Carthage, in what now is Tunesia, which was a very important city during the Roman era of the emperors.
Roman hairstyles (male): clean haircut or a bit messy?
When we think of Romain male hairstyles, we think of a clean haircut. this was understandable a popular roman soldier haircut, both easy to maintain and hygienic But statues and busts show us a different story.
A messy male Roman haircut was also possible. Most of the times, this was combined with a beard.
Like already mentioned with the female Roman haircuts, the male hairstyles were subject of trends mostly set by the reigning emperor.
What we’ve learned: ancient Roman hairstyles
Of course, this article doesn’t give you the full history of ancient Roman hairstyles. But I hope I have enlighten you with some interesting facts about the hairstyle in Roman times.
So what were Roman hairstyles like?
As we’ve learned, the Roman empire knew several different hairstyles for men and woman. It could be a clean haircut, but also messy, combined with a beard and even a curly haircut was common.
And what were the most popular hairstyles in ancient Rome?
Another thing we learned, is that old ancient Roman hairstyles followed trends and hypes. Most of the time, these haircut trends were started by emperors, wives of emperors or other people from the upper class. Coins, busts or paintings played the role as a kind of ancient influential picture.
Source:
Information learned by visiting the exhibition Oog in Oog met de Romeinen
Pictures made by me (History Rob) during my visit to the exhibition Oog in Oog met de Romeinen
Exhibition: Oog in Oog met de Romeinen by Gallo-Roman Museum in Tongeren.
