Egyptian hair comb | Barbaraanne's Hair Comb Blog

The Old Kingdom refers to Egypt, 3000 BC, when the country reached its first peak of civilization. However, historians date this comb to a few hundred years before that, and shows Egyptian art before recorded history.

It is an ivory ceremonial funeral comb of an elite person. Horizontal rows of animal figures suggest a style that became familiar in later Egyptian art. The choice of animals was not random, since elephants, snakes, birds, a giraffe, hyenas, and cattle appear on other carved ivory objects. The elephants standing on snakes may come from African creation myths, in which these two animals figure prominently. The comb resides in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

कंघी

For more scholarly research, please examine

Proportion and Style in Ancient Egyptian Art

In the Shadow of the Pyramids: Egypt during the Old Kingdom

I would like to feature four museum combs today. The first comes from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. It belonged to the King Wadj, whose name means serpent. His tomb was found near the ancient city of Abydos. He was the third King of the First Egyptian Dynasty and ruled c. 2920 BC. In the comb’s carvings, you can see two serpents.

Our next work was made by Maori master Patoromu Tamatea. This bone Heru comb resides in New Zealand’s Museum of Wellington’s City & Sea under the collector’s, instead of the artist’s name.

Next are two marvelously shaped combs from the Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum in South India. Both were made from the 18th to 19th Centuries.

And last is a breathtaking liturgical comb, which belonged to Saint Heribert (970 – 1021). He was Archbishop of Cologne (Köln) and considered a saint in his lifetime. Pope Gregory VII canonized him c. 1074. This crucifixion comb is one of the prizes in Köln’s Schnütgen Museum and was made in the second half of the 9th Century.