HOWZAT

The Egyptians were famously fastidious regarding personal hygiene. Cleanliness was next to godliness, and hairlessness helped, too. Priests shaved their heads and beards before officiating, their entire bodies every other day. As with today’s Brazilian waxes, the removal of feminine pubic hair was associated with a readiness for sex. Strip wax was concocted from sycamore gum and juice, plus cucumber, oil, fly dung and raven’s bone. Finds in a wig workshop at Deir el-Bahari suggest that shampoo was available, while lupin seeds were transformed into soaps and scrubs, and resin balls mixed with porridge were worn in the armpits by way of deodorant.

An ancient Egyptian would not be recognisable as such without a swath of luxuriant, raven hair. There are numerous prescriptions to stave off greying, based upon the principle of sympathetic magic, whereby the quality of black ox, horn of gazelle, backbone of raven, fat of black snake, tadpole or putrid donkey’s liver was believed to be imparted to the user. Thus, baldness was treated with the fat of potent predators, such as lions, crocodiles, and hippopotami.

At Deir el-Bahari, some sort of highlighter/conditioner has been unearthed. The hairpieces themselves, contrived out of human hair, were styled and set with beeswax. Literary texts of the Middle and New Kingdoms indicate that wigs were not merely equipment for the afterlife, but worn to entice. The phrase “Don your wig and let us spend a happy hour” was a loose equivalent of our own “Get your coat, love – you’ve pulled”. So much so that the very act of inhaling the scent of a wig could fell an amorous suitor.

Perfume itself was considered desirable for the many reasons we hold it to be so, and beyond. In one love lyric, the speaker is so intoxicated by his inamorata’s fragrance that he fantasises about being her laundryman: “I would wash away the perfume from her clothes/ And wipe my body in her dress”, he declares. As Manniche contends, the release of scent was also associated with – indeed, was a euphemism for – the moment of climax.

Thanks to its connection with eroticism and fertility, scent, like wigs and make-up, became associated with the rituals of immortality: to appear enticing suggested fruitfulness and rebirth. Tutankhamun’s paraphernalia contains several perfume flacons, and the spoon for a fat-based scent in the form of a naked swimming girl – ripe with sexual suggestion.

Accordingly, in the image of Tutankhamun’s queen anointing her young husband that appears in the O2 exhibition, Ankhesenamun is not merely attending to his toilet, but using the process of beautification to ensure his eternal life. It is a satisfying irony that this has indeed become the case: for it is via his cosmetics, among other funerary apparatus, that a boy king insignificant in his own lifetime has acquired everlasting glory in our own.

Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs is at the O2 until August 2008. For tickets, go to www.visitlondon.com/tut. Don’t miss your free Tutankahmun DVD inside today’s paper, plus five more Ancient Egypt DVDs to collect next week and, free inside The Times next Saturday, a giant double-sided Egypt activity poster for children. Visit timesonline.co.uk/kingtut to read more about Tutankahmun and win tickets to the exhibition

Egypt Travel

• Discover the Nile on a voyage into the past
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• Bringing Egypt's history to life for the kids