6000 Years of African Combs PDF

6,000 Years of African Combs
r
Sally-Ann Ashton
In Memoriam
Peter Hartley
o

First published in 2013
by The Fitzwilliam Museum
Trumpington Street
Cambridge, cb1 2rb
www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk
Designed and typeset by Palindrome

Printed in England by Butler Tanner and Dennis, Frome, Somerset ba11 1nf
The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying or otherwise without prior permission in writing
from the publisher.
The right of Sally-Ann Ashton to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act
1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-0-9574434-1-9
Contents
o
Acknowledgements vii
Preface ix

1 Types of African comb 1
Forms 5
Table: Types of African comb 67
Materials 8
2 Looking at the Evidence 12
3 Combs from Kemet: the earliest combs BCE 23
Hair types and styles 23
The earliest combs 25
Neolithic 25
Badarian 26
Naqada period 28
Early Dynastic period 32
The Old Kingdom 34
Middle Kingdom 34
New Kingdom, Third Intermediate
period and Late period 38
4 The impact of the Romans, Christianity and
Islam on African combs 46
Roman Egypt 46
The Late Antique period in Egypt and Sudan 48
Islamic Egypt and Sudan 52
Geometric designs of the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries 54
The adoption of Christianity by the Ashanti
people 56
v
Contents
5 Cultural symbolism on combs: national and

cultural symbols 57
Human figures 58
Animals and birds 63
Trade and status 64
Politics and affiliation 68
6 More than just a comb: alternative functions
and new forms 72
Symbolism 72
Status 72
Home furnishing 73
Protection 76
The power of the comb 76
7 400 years without a comb? Re-thinking the Diaspora 79
Maroons 80
Captive Africans and African American people 83
The USA in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries 86
The archaeological record 90
The twentieth and twenty-first centuries 93
The Caribbean 100
Britain 101
8 Wearing your comb in your hair 103
Map of modern Africa 108

References 109
Index 115
vi
Acknowledgements
o
I am very grateful to many people and institutions for their help

and support with this project. My thanks are due to:
Kimani Nehusi for sharing his comments on the African

Diaspora; Sandra Gittens for her advice in regard to African-type
hair; Ohioma Pogoson, Atta Kwami and Nessa Leibhammer for
sharing their knowledge of African material culture and also for
their enthusiasm for this project.
Robin Ashton, Lucilla Burn, K. N. Chimbiri and Kate Daniels
for their comments on the text.
Colleagues in museums who have been extremely generous
with their time: Bryna Freyer and Deborah Stokes of the National
Museum of African Art, Washington; Adela Oppenheim, Diana
Craig Patch and Marsha Hill of the Metropolitan Museum of
Art, New York; Ikhlas Abdellateif Ahmed, of the Sudan National
Museum; Stephen Quirke, Tonya Nelson and Pia Edqvist of the
Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology; Jocelyne
Dudding, Nicholas Thomas, Rachel Hand and Imogen Gunn of
the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology; and Elisabeth
OConnell and Julie Hudson of the British Museum.
Jillian Galle, for sharing her knowledge of the Digital
Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery database and finds.
Fiona Brock of the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and
History of Art, University of Oxford, for her help in interpreting the
radiocarbon data.
Mark Box and Michael Jones, for their assistance with photo
graphy and image management.
Mrs Gina Romani, who provided helpful information with
regard to her late husbands design of the Black Fist comb.
Remke van der Velden, the curatorial assistant for this project,
for her help with compiling the images and captions and also for
vii
Acknowledgements
her comments on the text; and Paula Turner of Palindrome for her
patience and assistance with this publication.
I am especially grateful to all the community members who have
shared their thoughts and knowledge of hair and hair combs, and
to Crystal Afro, Patricia Brown, Carlos Coke, Leon Johnson and
Daniel Stephens.
Finally, a special thanks to Pete Hartley, to whom this book
is dedicated. Had it not been for Petes persistence and support
when I was a student at Shena Simon Sixth Form College in
Manchester, I would never have pursued an academic career. In
his characteristically enthusiastic way he was helping with the
research for this book immediately before his untimely death. He
is greatly missed as a teacher, mentor and friend.
Picture credits
I would like to extend thanks to all the institutions that have

generously provided the illustrations. Unless otherwise acknow
ledged they are The Fitzwilliam Museum. The material from
the British Museum is Trustees of the British Museum. Much
of the remaining material is Museum of Archaeology and
Anthropology, Cambridge, and Petrie Museum of Egyptian and
Sudanese Archaeology
I am also grateful to the following for permission to use their
images: figure 28, Heritage Images; figures 3132, Brooklyn
Museum, New York, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund; figure 39,
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; figure 81, the Egypt
Exploration Society; figures 8486, The Digital Archaeological
Archive of Comparative Slavery (www.daacs.org); figures 88 and
91, US Patent Office; and figure 92, Makeda Dako.
Thanks are also due to the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Monument
Trust and the Art Fund.
viii
Preface
o
This book does not seek to present a definitive catalogue of

types of African hair comb, but rather aims to understand what
hair combs mean in African cultures. The publication has been
written as a result of research undertaken for a special exhibition
at the Fitzwilliam Museum and the Museum of Archaeology and
Anthropology, Cambridge (2 July3 November 2013) entitled
Origins of the Afro Comb: 6,000 years of culture, politics and
identity, and as such draws upon hair combs, mainly from British
collections. This publication is a starting point and is intended to
provide a framework for further research.
The hermeneutics of hair combs is far from straightforward,
largely due to the lack of information regarding the person or
people associated with individual objects. As a consequence
of this, the archaeological or cultural contexts of the majority
of hair combs are often abandoned in favour of their aesthetic
appreciation; but it is not the intention of this book to replicate
this tradition. There have been few systematic studies of the use of
hair combs among individual African cultural groups, and from
the research that has been done it would seem that the hair comb
can mean very different things to people in different regions of
Africa. Among Akan peoples, for example, hair combs are given
to prospective lovers or at marriage ceremonies, but if someone
belonging to the Yoruba cultural group sent you a comb it would
probably mean that your friendship or relationship was over! It
is not, therefore, possible to extrapolate across time or region.
Nevertheless where the evidence is available, there are many links
that can be made with a degree of certainty.
My own interest in African combs began with the material from
ancient Egypt and Sudan, and I have been surprised that, in many
respects, the archaeological material offers evidence for a closer link
between hair comb and owner than the ethnographic material. This
ix
Preface
is because, although early anthropologists sometimes recorded the

cultural groups to which the combs that they collected belonged,
they neglected to document anything about their function, the
artist who created them, or their owner.
There are further challenges in dealing with racist ideologies
of historical evidence relating to people of African descent in
the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries CE. To
counteract these I have adopted a critical approach to the historical
and archaeological evidence for hairstyling and hair combs.
This approach does not seek to downplay the horrific levels of
oppression that members of the African Diaspora endured, but
endeavours to adopt a broader approach to evidencing acts of
resistance through the historical and archaeological records. Many
general readers in the UK will be unfamiliar with this approach and
with the growing body of research publications adopting a critical
approach to the history and archaeology of the Diaspora. Through
the work of critical theorists we have evidence for hair combs and
the maintenance of traditional African hairstyles among captive
people in eighteenth-century North America. The evidence itself is
not new, but its identification and recognition has only really been
acknowledged in the past twenty years.
Out of thousands of hair combs that I have looked at in pre
paration for this book, one comb in particular has been the
most interesting and revealing to research: the Black Fist pick.
Interesting: because it has taken months to track down the year
when the comb first appeared. Revealing: because I have been able
to ask people what the comb means to them, and the variation of
responses has been a stark reminder of how much information and
evidence we have lost in the case of the majority of African hair
combs.
I have no direct connection to Africa, the Americas or the
Caribbean. Relevant to the present publication is the fieldwork
I have undertaken in rural Jamaica, Egypt and Sudan. From a
young age I experienced and took part in African and Caribbean
culture in Britain, but I have done so as an outsider. As a curator
I have learnt much from the ways in which colleagues in Africa,
the Caribbean and the USA interpret material and disseminate
information about their respective cultures. I am also extremely
fortunate to have worked with many African, Black British
and Caribbean community members, students and colleagues
in England who have shared their views and thoughts on their
own cultures, histories and identities. The many conversations,
x
Preface
debates and discussions we have had have proved invaluable in

counteracting my own cultural bias.
Many museum catalogues are now fully accessible online
and provide a rich source of evidence for anyone interested in
undertaking research on the subject of African combs. Particularly
notable is The Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative
Slavery (DAACS; www.daacs.org), which provides a wealth of
archaeological data and accessible articles on the history of African
Americans. The Origins of the Afro Comb Project website, www.
originsoftheafrocomb.co.uk ,also has over 400 hair combs that are
searchable either geographically or chronologically.
If any readers have information or alternative interpretations
of the material that I have included in the present publication
I would be delighted to hear from them. Any comments and
thoughts can be recorded on the project website. This website will,
in time, be archived and it is hoped that when someone decides to
write another book on African hair combs in the future they will
be able to draw upon it as a resource.
xi
Figure 1 Plastic Black Fist
comb, produced since 1972
15.9 x 6.9 x 0.8 cm
1
Types of African comb
o
Traditional African hair combs constitute a rich variety of forms,

representing many cultures. The production of highly decorative
combs even survived the imposition of artificial boundaries when
Europe colonized the continent and cultural groups who were
divided continued their traditions of producing the necessary tools
for grooming and styling their hair. African people have been using
both the pick variety (figure 29) and a shorter-tooth comb (figures
20 and 21) for over 6,000 years, which should be of no surprise
given the variety of hair types and desired hairstyles that can be
associated with people in Africa and of African descent.
In the twenty-first century, however, traditional combs are Figure 2 Plastic comb,
slowly being replaced by plastic versions imported from China made in China and bought
(figure 2). In addition to this, the existence of the skilled artists in Nigeria, 21st century CE
15.9 x 6.9 x 0.8cm
and craftsmen who are able to carve even a basic form of wooden
comb is rapidly becoming something of the past. The plastic combs
are cheaper to purchase and are readily available in markets and
shops. Modernity has also impacted upon peoples lifestyles,
especially those who live in cities and towns. People no longer
style their hair in the traditional ways; many women who work
and have children simply do not have the time their predecessors
would have had to spend on the maintenance of their hair. In some
societies it has become increasingly common for women to keep
their hair short and wear wigs, to straighten their hair or to wear a
weave. Some traditions prevail, such as plaiting or braiding, often
incorporating artificial sections enabling longer styles for those
with shorter hair. Fashions and the media from North America
have also impacted on the styles that men in particular choose
for their hair. In many of the barbershops in several regions of
Africa, the traditional painted wooden boards outside the shops
show styles such as Mike Tyson, American and English among
the usual fades (Tythacott 1994: 8).
1
If you ask most people in the UK to explain what an Afro comb

is, they will probably describe something akin to the comb shown in
figure 1: a long-tooth comb, with wide gaps between either plastic
or metal teeth. The term Afro comb ties this comb to an eponymous
hairstyle from the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, which offered a
visual reference to the Black Power movement that originated in
the USA and which quickly spread among people of the African
Diaspora. The Afro represented hair in its natural form, natural in
the sense that no chemicals had been used to straighten it. The style,
however, required effort and maintenance particularly as the hair
grew longer. The long-tooth comb or pick/pik was a perfect means
of plumping up the hair to maintain the shape and form.
What many people do not realize is that this type of comb had
been used in Africa for thousands of years before the advent of the
Afro hairstyle. It suited African hair because of the wider teeth,
which prevented snagging of the hair and therefore damage, and the
longer teeth were also perfect for untangling hair before combing
it through, again preventing breakage. There are archive drawings
and photographs showing women in several different regions of
Africa using the traditional long-tooth comb to hold back sections
of the hair while they work on styling smaller sections with a plastic
short-tooth comb. The same short-tooth plastic comb with narrow
gaps is used in many homes and salons in Jamaica to comb out and
also divide the hair (type 9, see table on pp. 67 and figure 3).
Following the emergence of the pick or long-tooth comb among
the people of the African Diaspora, it was not long before people
of European descent also started using it, initially to comb their
permed hair that emulated the original Afro. However, unlike
many other African initiatives that were adopted by Europe, the
Afro comb was never appropriated, and it remains synonymous
with African culture and style. That is not to say that the object has
been fully recognized globally, in spite of it being a design classic
that has certainly stood the test of time. There are few objects in
design museums that can boast over 6,000 years of usage, and yet
I do not ever recall seeing this form of African comb in such an
institution. The Black Fist comb was designed and first produced
in 1972 by Anthony R. Romani. The company, Antonios, still
manufactures combs for African-type hair in the USA, and they
state on their website that their Black Fist comb is part of the
collections of the Afro-American Museum and Cultural Centre in
Wilberforce Ohio (Tulloch 2008: 133), showing that this iconic
item has some recognition within the heritage sector at least.
2
Figure 3 Hairstyling in
Beacon District,
St Elizabeth, Jamaica,
July 2012 (authors
photograph)
The designers, artists and craftsmen who created traditional

combs are anonymous, largely due to the collecting policies that
were implemented in order to acquire them. With the exception
of the more recent mass-produced examples, hair combs in Africa
were each carefully and individually crafted and were often im
bued with strong cultural, religious or political sensibilities, or
made to acknowledge a special occasion or sentiment. In this sense
every comb is unique and it is impossible to comprehend fully the
relationship between the agents who made, bought, and received
these objects. This tradition was also continued among the African
Diaspora until recent times. However, modernity, changes in hair
fashions and practices have all impacted upon the traditional
comb, as has mass production and its import from China.
It would be wrong to assume that there is only one basic design
of comb from Africa. In fact there are a number of different forms
and types of hair comb to accommodate different hair types and
3
also ways in which people style their hair. Even the forms of
hair comb that we often associate with European hair, type 9
as seen in figure 3, originated in Africa. The earliest evidence for
the shorter-tooth comb first appeared in Egypt during the Middle
Kingdom (figure 30), and a comb with variable gaps between the
teeth appeared in the Late period (figure 44). There are versions
of the pintail comb from Egypt during the New Kingdom and
more recently from the Edo State in southern Nigeria (figure 55),
which is altogether a more practical design than the previously
mentioned type used by many people today. Versions of this
special form of comb, with a tail for dividing and three prongs
for separating the hair for braiding are still used in Nigeria
today (figure 4). Interviews with hairdressers show that they are
used for separating and combing out the hair before braiding.
However, it should be noted that not everyone uses a comb; some
people simply use their fingers to separate and maintain their
hair, as noted during interviews with women in the UK for the
Origins of the Afro Comb Project. Finger-combing natural hair
is also a technique that was recorded by early anthropological
photographers in West Africa. In a series of photographs taken
in the early twentieth century women in a rural setting are shown
styling and maintaining each others hair seemingly without combs
(figure 5). The images demonstrate finger-combing hair before
the braiding begins. Clearly people in this region used a variety
of different kinds of hair comb as demonstrated through the
combs that Northcote W. Thomas collected during his fieldwork
in Nigeria and Sierra Leone (Thomas 1910; 191314; 1916).
Thomas was the first government anthropologist to work in this
region. He published a series of anthropological reports on the
Igbo- and Edo-speaking peoples of Nigeria and during his time in
the region collected a number of hair combs, which were brought
back to England (figure 6). Many of these combs are now in the
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge. They
are first mentioned in the museum report of 1911. Thomas also
recorded people through photography. Such images are ethno
centric, representing oppressive colonial agendas (Pink 2007: 65
95). In the context of the present publication they have provided
invaluable evidence for hairstyles in southern Nigeria in the late
Figure 4 Wooden
pintail comb, Nigeria, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and I have used them for
21st century CE, this purpose.
20.8 x 3 x 0.4 cm
4
Figure 5 Photograph from

the Northcote W. Thomas
Collection, south Nigeria,
taken before 1914 CE,
MAA, P.119604.NWT
Forms
Figure 6 Wooden comb,
Although there are thousands of hair combs from all regions of Edo, Nigeria, before 1914
Africa covering a vast span of time, the basic forms of hair comb CE, MAA, Z 12900,
11.6 x 5.1 x 0.9 cm
and pick can be divided into a far smaller number. If we consider
forms, materials and decoration then obviously the list grows,
however, in terms of function there are twelve key categories of
comb as noted with examples in the table overleaf.
Not all combs serve a single, or the same, purpose. In African
cultures combs can be both functional tools and decorative elements,
often denoting status, that are worn in the hair. The Egyptologist Sir
William Matthew Flinders Petrie observed this distinction among
very early hair combs from ancient Egypt. Petrie suggested that the
longer-tooth combs (such as figure 24) were used for holding coils
of hair in place (Petrie 1920: 58; 1927: 29), whereas the shorter-
tooth examples were used to comb the hair. In suggesting this,
Petrie is revealing his own cultural bias; for a European man it
would make sense that the shorter-tooth comb was functional and
the longer-tooth examples were decorative; however, in African
cultures the reverse is often the case. The longer-tooth combs
can be worn in the hair for decorative purposes, or as a matter
of convenience. However, photographs showing people wearing
5

1 Vertical comb/pick with four or more 4 Vertical comb with single or double sets
long teeth. Made from plastic, wood, bone, of more than five long vertical teeth. Made
ivory or metal. Example: Black Fist comb from midribs of palm leaf. Can also be worn
in the hair as decoration. Example from
Rwanda/Democratic Republic of Congo
2 Vertical comb/pick with fewer than four

long teeth. Can also be used as a decorative
piece. Made from wood. Example: Yaka
culture comb
5 Horizontal comb with a single set of five
or more teeth. Made from wood, plastic, and
ivory. Example: New Kingdom comb
3 Vertical comb with a double set of more 6 Horizontal comb with a double set of five
than five medium-length teeth. Example: or more short teeth. Made from wood or
Late Antique comb from Egypt plastic. Example: Late Antique comb
6
7 Vertical comb with a single set of more 10 Horizontal comb with handle and a
than five short-length teeth and a decorated single set of more than five medium or long
handle. Made from midribs of palm leaf and teeth. Made from plastic. Example: Big
bamboo. Can also be worn in the hair as a comb
decorative element. Example: Yao culture
comb
11 Pintail comb with a single vertical set

of more than three medium to short teeth at
one end, and a pointed divider at the other.
8 Vertical comb with a single set of more Made from wood or bamboo. Example: Edo
than four medium-length teeth. Made from bamboo and cotton thread comb
bone, ivory, wood, brass. Examples: Edo brass
comb and Pre-Dynastic Egyptian comb
12 Vertical comb with two sets of more than

five teeth, which are long with wide gaps at
one end, and medium with closely set teeth
at the other. Made from wood. Example:
twentieth-century ebony comb
9 Horizontal comb with a set of more than

five short teeth with varying gaps. Made
from plastic, wood and metal. Example:
European-style comb
7
combs in their hair often reveal shorter teeth with the emphasis
placed on the decorative handle as with type 8. In addition to hair
combs many African cultures produced hairpins, such as the South
African examples in figure 7 and 71. Both the simple straight pin
and the fork variety (figure 72) were traditionally made. The tops
of these decorative pieces were often in the form of emblems of
office and snuff spoons, as seen here.
Materials
Materials are often sourced locally. When asked to produce combs

for an exhibition, the Nigerian artist Jimoh Ighodalo chose ebony to
work with because it is a high quality wood. However, many of the
hair combs are made of whatever materials the artists could find, or
perhaps were presented to them when a comb was commissioned.
Identifying the woods from which combs were made is not
an easy task. There are so many regional varieties available to
craftsmen and without sampling the wood, which requires taking
a piece of the comb, the accuracy of any identifications cannot be
certain. The type of wood that was used for a comb might depend
on the combs function; for example it could be a marriage comb;
and also the status of the individual for whom the comb was being
made, for example a leader or king.
Figure 7 Bone hairpins, In addition to wood, combs for the elite were also traditionally
South Africa, before 1912,
MAA, E 1914.90.55 and 59,
made from bronze or brass (type 8). We have archive photographs
14.4 x 1.1 x 0.5 cm and of such combs being worn in the hair; they have shorter teeth
16.2 x 2.2 x 0.5 cm and elaborate handles. This form of comb (see figure 78) could
also have been functional, but we have no evidence for this
practice. A series of metal combs from the Edo State in Nigeria
show that there was a wide variety of decorative handles on
such objects. The majority of the examples held in the Museum
of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge (MAA), were cut
from sheet metal; however, one was cast as can be seen clearly
from the air bubbles on the surface and the rounded teeth (figure
8). Versions of type 1 combs were also produced in metal. One
example from Malawi and now housed in the British Museum
(accession no. Af1934,0730.5) is made from what appear to be
knitting needles, bound at the top by wire, perhaps imitating the
form of the wooden and brass comb (figure 9) made by an Angoni
artist, also from Malawi.
8
Figure 8 (left) Brass comb,

In some regions combs were also made from fine strips of midribs Edo Nigeria, before 1914,
of palm or bamboo (type 4) , in the case of the latter wider sections MAA, Z 12362,
of the stem of the plant, which function well for the pintail combs 8.8 x 3.9 x 0.4 cm
found in Nigeria (type 11). Such combs can be bound at the top
Figure 9 (right) Wood and
with jute, cotton or with copper wire, and the teeth typically fan metal comb, Angoni (?),
outwards. An early twentieth-century photograph of a man from Malawi, before 1927,
the Kassanga cultural group in Guinea shows him wearing such a MAA, 1927.1669,
9.6 x 4.7 x 0.3 cm
comb bound with fibres at the top, and with teeth sharpened to a
point at the ends in at the side of his hair (Sieber and Herreman
2000: 127, fig. 87).
Analysis of combs in the Museum of Archaeology and
Anthropology, Cambridge, has shown that the Yao culture combs
9
Figure 10 Comb of from Malawi (figures 7375) were made from bamboo and midribs
midribs of palm leaf and of palm leaf, with cotton thread used to secure the glass beads.
cotton thread, Eghap,
Cameroon, before 1921 Midribs of palm leaf were also used for the comb belonging to the
CE, MAA, 1921.303, Eghap (also known as the Bagam) people, Cameroon (figure 10),
23.9 x 21.3 x 0.5 cm which was also secured with cotton thread. A double-ended hair
comb from either Rwanda or the Democratic Republic of Congo
(figure 11) made from midribs of palm leaf and held together with
iron and copper wire was used, as indicated by the strands of hair
between the very fine teeth of the comb. Midribs of palm leaf were
also utilized by artists in Nigeria in the Edo State region, by the
Yaka people in Democratic Republic of Congo, and by artists in
Rwanda, in addition to animal bone and wood. Animal hair, in the
case of the pins in figure 71, elephant hair, was used on some of the
Natal or Zulu cultural group bone combs.
Ivory, bone and horn combs are among some of the earliest
and they continued to be produced in some regions into the
10
twentieth century. Both small and full-sized

versions are found in the same regions at the
same time, suggesting that the material was not
uncommonly used. Museums have relatively
few examples of bone combs from the past 200
years, but this may just reflect a collecting policy
in that these combs tend to be less elaborate
than their wooden and metal counterparts.
In central and eastern Africa combs were
decorated with metal wires or, in the case of
one Nigerian hair comb, metal sheet (figure 76).
Many hair combs have the traces of pigments
remaining, and initial analysis on the combs from
the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology,
Cambridge, reveals that these include charcoal,
red earth, and yellow earth.
The combs in the book were designed
specifically for African-type hair. We define
African-type hair through the curl pattern on the
head. There are thirty-eight different curl patterns
found among the people of Africa and the African
Diaspora, and these range from tight curls to hair
that would be described as wavy or even straight.
These variations are determined by a persons
genes, through social migration and place of birth
(Gittens 2013). What makes African-type hair
different is that the hair follicle is curved rather
than oval or round in form. This in conjunction
with the way that keratin is distributed along the
shaft of the hair makes African-type hair curl or
coil (Gittens 2002: 1819).
African-type hair enables an amazing range
of styles and is also able to hold decorative orna
ments easily. In traditional African cultures hair
denotes cultural affiliation and status; among
people of the African Diaspora it has been used
to retain cultural identities and, more recently,
to make a political and aesthetic stance.
Figure 11 Comb of midribs of palm leaf and metal thread
purchased in Rwanda, probably made in the Democratic
Republic of Congo, before 1948 CE, MAA, 1948.2339 A,
32 x 10 x 0.9 cm
11
2
Looking at the evidence
o
Perhaps the first question that needs to be answered is why so

many African combs are housed in museums outside Africa, and
then we might also ask how these collections were formed.
Combs could be given as gifts, bought from makers, com
missioned or excavated and then purchased from dealers either in
the country of origin or, later, in European and North American
salerooms. Combs as items travel within Africa to other countries
and are sold, sometimes erroneously as something that they are
not. Two examples in the collections of the Fitzwilliam Museum,
Cambridge, bought in Egypt in the first half of the twentieth
century CE, were believed to have been ancient (figure 12; Ashton
2011: 33). They are actually of a recent type dating to the 1920s
or 193os and were brought to the UK from Nigeria, Egypt, South
Africa and Zanzibar. The combs are so similar that it would seem
they came from a single source, which has not yet been established.
Hair combs have received very little academic interest when
compared to other categories of objects (Ashton 2011). In the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries government anthropo
logists such as Northcote W. Thomas acquired hair combs as gifts
and also purchased examples from the Edo- and Igbo-speaking
regions of Nigeria (Pogoson 2013). This part of his collection,
now housed in the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in
Cambridge, presents a diverse range of different types of comb and
shows that even within a single region or cultural group there is much
scope for diversity. Around the same time Petrie, who excavated
in Egypt and northern Sudan, found many hair combs and pins
in burials that he was working on. He compiled and published
the first typology of African hair combs in 1927 by examining
the finds from his excavations and also purchasing examples
from dealers in Cairo in order to illustrate the chronological
range of combs from this region. These combs are now housed
12
in the Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese

Archaeology in London, along with others from
the many excavations that he undertook during
his career. Petrie seems to have become interested
in hair combs much earlier, when writing about
Pre-Dynastic culture. In his 1920 publication,
Prehistoric Egypt, he attempted to place the combs
that he found in graves in a chronological sequence
and recorded individual examples as they were
excavated in his field notebooks, field cards and
the subsequent publications. This information has
proven to be invaluable for our knowledge of the
earliest African combs.
As noted, our earliest examples of hair combs
from Africa come from Egypt and Sudan, and date
to the Neolithic period, around the fifth millennium
BCE. The largest number of hair combs can be
attributed to the Naqada period (also known as the
Pre-Dynastic period) dating from around 4000
3100 BCE. Combs then continue to be produced
along similar lines in the Proto and Early Dynastic
periods, which incorporate Dynasties 0, 1 and 2
(around 3000 BCE to 2500 BCE). In this region
combs survive largely through burials.
There are a number of chronologies (sequence
of dates) for ancient Egypt and this is because the
absolute dates are only certain after 664 BCE.
Archaeologists work out the earlier sequences by
looking at the number of kings who ruled Egypt,
and for how long. The problem with this method
ology is that multiple kings ruled Egypt at times;
Egyptologists call these periods Intermediate
periods, and they occur in between the so-called
Kingdoms when a single king ruled Egypt. King
doms are further subdivided into Dynasties,
which represent the continuous succession from
one family member to the next. Figure 12 Wood hair comb, purchased in
Combs with a known provenance (find spot) Egypt, unknown provenance, before 1935 CE,
Fitzwilliam Museum, E.1.1935, 17.7 x 5.5 cm
were found largely in burials. This is because people
who lived in ancient Egypt and Sudan believed in
the afterlife and were buried with grave goods to
support them in their next life. Hair combs appear
13
Figure 13 Pan Grave

comb, about 20001600 in graves from the Neolithic period in both Egypt and Sudan, which
BCE, with drawing of a translates to the fifth millennium BCE. It is not certain whether
proposed reconstruction these combs served a functional, decorative or symbolic purpose.
by Rob Law, British
Museum, EA 63762,
There are also gaps in the evidence. No Egyptian hair combs
8 x 4.9 x 0.6 cm have been securely dated to the Old Kingdom, which led Petrie
to suggest this was because people started to shave their heads
(1927: 25), preferring to wear wigs, and so did not require combs.
However, if we look at evidence from statues dating to the Old
Kingdom, it is clear that women of status wore wigs over their
natural hair (Tassie 2008: 81). It is more likely that there was a
change in burial practices and that combs were not seen to be an
essential or even desirable item to be buried with. From Sudan,
however, there is a culture that is identified as the Pan Grave
culture, so-called because of the shape of the circular pits in which
people were buried. This group of people moved to southern Egypt
and northern Sudan towards the end of the Old Kingdom, during
14
the Sudanese Kerma period, around 2000 BCE, and they lived there
until around 1600 BCE. The reason why they are important within
the context of this book is because they were buried with hair
combs (figure 13). These combs are remarkably like the Naqada
period combs and were no doubt a continued tradition.
Combs re-emerge in Egypt in the Middle Kingdom (type 5) as
identified by Petrie (figure 30; Petrie 1927: 25). The key difference
between these combs and those of the Pre-Dynastic and Early
Dynastic periods is that the teeth are shorter. There are prototypes
for this design, perhaps most notably the comb inscribed with the
name of the early ruler Djet (figure 28), which has a solid square
handle and short, finely spaced teeth.
The Middle Kingdom combs continue in the New Kingdom,
with examples dating to around 1550 BCE. With the advent of the
Roman occupation of Egypt in 30 BCE a new version of the New
Kingdom combs was introduced with two sides (type 6). This form
of comb had extremely fine gaps between the teeth on one end, so
narrow in fact that it has been suggested this section was used to
comb out head lice (Palma 1991: 194, pl. XXI), and the other end
had slightly wider spaces between the teeth, but was still narrower
than its New Kingdom counterpart; presumably this was because
the characteristics of the hair became different over the 300 years
of Ptolemaic occupation of Egypt and then later under Roman
occupation as the population changed.
Before continuing to consider the evidence from East Africa, it
is worth drawing attention to the cultures of West Africa during
the five centuries BCE. No hair combs have survived, although
sculptures indicate that people of the Nok culture, for example,
from modern Nigeria, wore elaborate hairstyles and may have used
some form of comb in order to style those (Eyo and Willett 1982:
5062). The hairstyles worn by the elite of the ancient cultures of
West Africa were as elaborate as the East African counterparts,
and, as was the case with hair in ancient Egypt and Sudan, the
more elaborate hairstyles seem to have indicated status and wealth.
In the early fifth century CE a form of hybrid comb emerged
in Egypt (type 3; figures 4750). This comb was the same form
as the vertical pick but had two medium-length sets of teeth. The
first set has wide gaps between the teeth, but on the second end
the teeth are positioned very closely together, like the Romano-
Egyptian head-lice combs (figure 45). This type of comb forms a
group that remains puzzling in terms of provenance, and may have
come from a single workshop. None of the examples that I have
15
looked at have a securely excavated provenance;

they were all bought from dealers in Egypt in the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As
noted Petrie even included examples that he bought
in Cairo in his typology of combs in Objects of
Daily Use (1927: 26, pl. XXI). Many of the combs
have dirt between the teeth, suggesting that they
may have come from the ground; however, forgers
often use this method to authenticate objects. In
2011 one of these hybrid combs belonging to the
Fitzwilliam Museum was radiocarbon dated and
the results showed that the comb was ancient,
dating to around 510 CE. This corresponded with
Petries initial date range of 400600 CE.
This group of combs, however, is interesting for
more than one reason. In addition to illustrating
that the vertical form of comb continued into the
Common Era in East Africa the iconography of the
decorated centres reveals a change. This change
was brought on by the impact of Christianity in
this region. The decoration, whether anthropoid or
zoomorphic, echoes the forms of decoration that
appear on architectural sculpture during this period.
This phenomenon will be discussed more fully in
chapter 4. The same observation is true of hair
combs following the Islamic settlement in the mid-
seventh century CE. The forms of comb change to
reflect sturdier versions of the undecorated Roman
double type, however, concentric circles that first
appeared with the advent of Christianity and the
occasional floral motif prevail (figure 51). These
combs continue to be produced and used, and in
fact a version still existed in the early twentieth
century, carved out of wood and decorated with
red painted circles (figure 53).
Figure 14 Wooden hair comb, Qasr Ibrim,
Nubia, about 4001300 CE, British Museum, The evidence for hair combs from Sudan is, not
EA 81832, 17.4 x 5.2 x 1.15 cm surprisingly, very similar to that from Egypt. The
only point at which we see a divergence is following
the late Roman and then Islamic occupations; the
longer-tooth comb (figure 14) continues in the
region of Nubia, in this case between 400 and 1300
CE, whereas there is no evidence for this form of
16
comb in Egypt after the sixth century CE. As Africa

moved into the Common Era the northern regions
became increasingly divided from the rest of the
continent, no doubt on account of the increased
levels of contact with the Roman world and Europe.
As noted, in southern Egypt and Sudan, longer-
tooth picks continued to be produced, as illustrated
by the material from excavations at Qasr Ibrim
(figures 14 and 15) in the region of Nubia (now in
southern Egypt).
This material is very important for the sequence
of African hair combs because it includes material
recorded in the British Museums Department of
Ancient Egypt and Sudan as dating from the Roman/
Meroitic period through the Christian period and
into the Islamic period with the latest possible dates
for combs being 15001700 CE, which falls during
the Ottoman period. Combs were found in rooms,
tombs and fills at the site. With regard to the variety
of forms we find the horizontal double comb that
first appeared during the Roman period continuing
in use as a more robust form from 11001400
CE. During this time there is also evidence for the
more traditional long-tooth pick (figure 15) with a
decorated handle. This particular handle with the
double bird motif is reminiscent of headrests that
are found further south in Sudan among the Dinka
people (Massing and Ashton 2011: 58, fig. 48). It is
also similar, although cannot be directly connected,
to the earliest combs from Egypt (figure 24). As
time moves towards the sixteenth to eighteenth
centuries CE a smaller single comb with a rounded
handle appears (figure 54) and once again this finds
parallels with the material from Egypt.
Elsewhere in Africa in the 1500s CE we find the
traditional vertical pick with a decorated handle
Figure 15 Wooden hair comb, Qasr Ibrim,
preserved (figure 16). Decorated with a horse Nubia, 11001400 CE, British Museum, EA
man on the top, this comb measures 31.5 cm in 71917, 18.5 x 6 x 0.8 cm
height. The material, ivory, and subject matter of
a horseman indicate that this comb referenced
wealth. If we consider the elaborate hairstyles of
the people from Benin in the 1500s it is easy to
17
Figure 16 Ivory comb, Benin, Nigeria, 16th century CE,

British Museum, Af1958,10.2, 31.5 cm
see why combs featured among the possessions of

the elite (figures 17 and 18). Early anthropologists
also recorded some of the hairstyles (see figure 33)
found on the Benin sculptures further north in
Edo State. In addition to carefully styled hair and
elaborate headdresses, decorative adornments such
as feathers were placed in the hair of the Oba (king)
and his family as seen by the royal representations.
There are parallels for the use of such motifs in
East Africa, where the ancient Egyptian artists,
in temples and tombs, depicted their neighbours
from the south wearing ostrich feathers in their
hair. Later in the twentieth century, Nigerian Igbo
masquerade masks with four hair combs in the
hair were manufactured (figure 19; Sieber and
Herreman 2000: 545, cat. 62).
The main period of collecting combs began in
the mid-1800s CE and continued into the first half
of the twentieth century. As noted, anthropologists,
travellers, missionaries and more recently tourists
have bought, commissioned or been given combs by
the people they encounter. It has been an interesting
exercise looking at the different collections of
African hair combs spread throughout the world.
For the more recent material from the twentieth
century it is common to find the same types of comb
represented in individual museum collections. The
Ashanti comb (figure 57), or variants of this type, is
one such example. Several versions of this striking
piece made by an undetermined artist have found
their way into many collections. The iconography
of this particular piece will be explored further in
chapter 4.
Hair combs from the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries display a rich repertoire of symbols,
decorated handles, cultural motifs and references
to the occasion for which the comb was made.
Some of these symbols are easy to interpret because
18
Figure 17 Bronze
sculpture, Benin, Nigeria,
early 16th century CE,
British Museum,
Af1897,1011.1,
41 x 15.5 cm
they are still relevant today: Ashanti combs decorated with the
famous golden stool are numerous in collections in North America
and Europe (figures 589). However, other symbols have lost their
meaning, in some cases even within the cultures from which they
originated. What is remarkable about the combs is that even within
19
Figure 18 Bronze
sculpture, Benin, Nigeria,
before 1950 CE,
MAA 1950.266 B
22 x 23 x 18 cm
a single region we find many different forms, decorative motifs

and material used to produce hair combs. This practice contrasts
with the current mass-produced plastic combs that are now made
largely in China and exported around the world. However, with the
impact of modernity and globalization it is fascinating to see how
the image of the Black Power fist can be found in the Americas, the
Caribbean, Europe, and even Africa, showing that the hair comb
remains a universal object reuniting people from many different
modern nations who originated from a single source. And what is
perhaps even more remarkable is that the plastic combs of today
follow the same basic design, imbued with a strong cultural symbol
that transcends the basic functionality of the handle of a comb.
As part of the research for the Origins of the Afro Comb
exhibition (2013) artists in Edo State, Nigeria, were asked if they
20
Figure 19 Painted wooden

mask, Igbo, Nigeria, early
20th century CE, British
Museum, Af1954,23.492,
31 x 23 x 41 cm
were able to carve traditional wooden hair combs (Pogoson 2013).

Their response was that people did not ask for them anymore. One
artist was reminded that he had produced a number of combs over
thirty years ago and these remained unfinished in a store (figure
69). The combs had been carved roughly with the decorative
handle in the form of a woman partly finished and the surface
was still rough. The idea would be to finish the combs as people
21
purchased them, except in the case of these examples nobody had

done so. When the previously mentioned artist Jimoh Ighodalo
was asked if he could carve combs he said that he did not do so
any more. However, after he was shown images of combs currently
housed in Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge,
he spent time creating a series of decorative combs, with a hole at
the back to hang them; their handles were inspired by the art of the
royal palaces at Benin (figure 80). We are fortunate in the case of
the histories of these combs because we have a recorded interview
and oral testimonies. We do not know the history of the majority
of combs beyond the names of the people who collected them
or donated them to the museums where they are now housed. It
seems remarkable that Northcote W. Thomas was able to collect
the numbers of hair combs that he donated to the Museum of
Archaeology and Anthropology. Notes in the archives record them
being bought or being given as gifts. Since starting this project
colleagues and community members have contacted me to share
their combs and related stories. This information has proved
invaluable for my understanding of the meaning, function and
history of individual hair combs. For the majority of hair combs in
museum collections, the key voices are missing.
22
3
Combs from Kemet
The earliest combs BCE
Hair types and styles
Many of the hairstyles that we recognize today were found in

ancient Egypt and Sudan: long locks, twists, braids, and loose
curly hair. There are further similarities between hairstyles found
in a number of traditional African societies and those worn by
the people of ancient Egypt and Sudan (Obenga 2007: 25). This
region has a long history and the people who populated it were
not always the same. It is fair to say that there were a number
of different hair types ranging from very tightly curled to wavy,
which corresponds with Gittenss observation about African-type
hair today. The hair combs that are found in ancient Egypt and
Sudan belong firmly within African cultures; this was a point
that even Petrie made in his publication of early hair combs from
Egypt: The early European combs, of Bronze Age and onward,
differ entirely from the Egyptian examples, being always single
edged, and round backed (1927: 25).
Evidence for hair types and styles can be drawn from statues,
figurines, tombs, temples, and in some periods from mummified
remains. Studies have shown that the way people wore their hair
depended upon a number of different variables: gender, class,
age and the role that an individual played at any one particular
time (Robins 1999; Tassie 2008). Evidence for enhancing hair by
attachments or wigs can be found as early as Naqada II (Fletcher
1998: 8; Tassie 2008: 86).
Whereas elite men during the New Kingdom wore their hair
short and wore wigs, women maintained their long hair and appear
to have worn wigs over their natural hair (Robins 1999: 63); it has
23
been suggested that this was because womens hair was closely
connected to sexuality and fertility. Evidence for this practice
comes from mummified remains especially from the New Kingdom
(Robins 1999: 56). As with the Middle Kingdom representation of
Kawit (Riefstahl 1956), some of the New Kingdom Theban tombs
(Robins 1999: 64) show daughters of the elite with hairstyles that
are uncannily similar to those found on some Benin bronzes (see
figure 18). Thick locks of hair are shown on some of the depictions
of female house servants and these would not, of course, have
required combing.
A series of wigs dating to the New Kingdom and First Inter
mediate periods have survived. These were placed in tombs for the
elite occupant to use in the afterlife (Fletcher 2000: 4969). The
practice of including hair with burials can be traced back to the
Pre-Dynastic period. Hair or strands of hair were placed within
graves and there have been instances of hair being placed within
clay balls, we assume as offerings (Tassie 1996: 603). Many
studies on the hair of wigs have concluded that it is cynotrichous
(wavy) rather than heliotrichous (very curly), with the implication
that it is not of the kind of hair found among the people of central,
west and southern Africa (Fletcher 2000: 496). However, if we
consider that there are now over thirty different hair curl patterns
that have been identified among people in Africa and among
the Diaspora this over-simplified approach to defining ancient
Egyptian hair needs to be updated. In order to understand more
about this particular subject it is necessary for a full analysis and
study of hair from the Pre-Dynastic to the Late period. It has also
been suggested that this hair may have come from captives (Tassie
2008: 89) as a parallel for the modern trade in hair, which often
comes from countries with poorer economies.
Thophile Obenga suggested that the etymology of the ancient
Egyptian word for hair, Shenu, related to grass and is an equivalent
to the Greek word for African-type hair (Obenga 2007: 9) in that
it references nature in order to explain the appearance. Similarly
the Greek word (oulotriches) which means curly hair
was used by Herodotus when describing the ancient Egyptian
people; this is often translated as woolly. The ancient Egyptian
word for comb was aab; it included the determinative of a piece of
hair and sign D40, which is an arm holding a stick, representing
force (Obenga 2007: 9).
24
Combs from Kemet
The earliest combs
Neolithic
Some of the earliest hair combs in Africa come from cemetery KD1
in Wadi el-Khowri, Sudan (Reinold 2004: 424). This cemetery
has been dated to the first quarter of the fifth millennium BCE
and it offers important evidence for the history of combs because
examples were found in two graves.
Significantly, two examples of elephant ivory combs were placed
in the grave of a man who has been identified by the quality and
quantity of his grave goods, as the cultural leader for the group
(Reinold 2004: 44, fig. 29). Excavators have further noted that the
richer graves were closer to this key burial and that as the other
burials radiate out from the centre they become poorer in terms of
the grave goods. The fact that the farming communities who were
buried here were interred according to their wealth suggests that
the inclusion of two combs in the principal burial is associated
with status. A third comb, also carved from elephant ivory and
measuring 9.1 cm in height, was found in a disturbed grave at the
site (Welsby and Anderson 2004: 456, no. 21). This comb was
found in isolation because the burial had been disturbed.
The small size of these early combs has led academics to suggest
that they may have functioned as decorative personal adornments
rather than tools for combing the hair. It might also be possible
that the combs were models or smaller representatives of objects
that were used during the lifetime of the deceased and that it was
the representation of the object that was crucial for its ability to
function in the afterlife. This is certainly true for later periods
of Egyptian and Sudanese history. However, other objects in the
principal grave at KD1 were full-sized, which would suggest that
this practice did not occur at this time. The question is whether there
existed larger combs that were functional and that on account of
their symbolic importance people also chose to wear them in their
hair as decoration. It is worth noting an observation that some of
the contemporary female figurines that were also placed in graves
during this period show elaborate hairstyles with curls piled high
forming a crown on top of the head (Welsby and Anderson 2004:
45, no. 20, and 46). This suggests that hair, its styling and possibly
its adornment were important social factors in this culture. It is
also possible that the smaller hair combs functioned appropriately
25
for the hairstyles of these early people and that

other methods such as pins or styling with fingers
were also used on hair.
Badarian
Further north, members of the Badarian culture

were the earliest people to be buried with hair
combs for whom we have evidence in Upper Egypt,
around 4400 to 4000 BCE. There are two different
types of comb from this period.
The first type of comb (figure 20) is a hybrid of
those from the Badarian period and the subsequent
period (Naqada). Dating to around 4000 BCE
this hair comb, also from the site of Badari, had
eleven teeth with relatively wide gaps between
them. The handle, which is roughly half the height
of the comb, is decorated at the top with a motif
that is also found on stone make-up palettes of this
Figure 20 Ivory comb, around 4000 BCE, period, the double bird head. The grave in which
Petrie Museum, UC9194, 9 cm high this comb was found (5130) had been disturbed
and so it is possible that not all of the items that
were buried with the deceased were present when
it was excavated by Brunton and Caton-Thompson
(1928: 8, pl. XXIV; XXVII). Their publication
suggests that rather than being a functional comb,
this example was worn as a hair ornament, and
compares it with a Spanish comb of the present
day. This was largely due to the form, which was
different from the longer/narrower Naqada period
combs. However, at 9 cm in height it is substantially
larger than many later examples and could have
functioned in terms of its form as a wide-tooth
comb for shorter hair.
The second type of comb has extremely fine
teeth and it is difficult to see how this might have
functioned as a tool for combing hair. It is more
than likely that although such objects are inter
preted as hair combs they may have served a
wholly different purpose, such as creating the wavy
lines and imprints found on pottery of this period,
26
Combs from Kemet
Figure 21 Horn comb,

Mostagedda, Egypt, around
40003500 BCE,
British Museum, EA 63060,
6.8 x 5.4 x 0.3 cm
as suggested by the excavators (Brunton and Caton-Thompson

1928: 30). This comb is one of two found in the grave (5390) of
a female that was excavated at the site of Badari in Middle Egypt.
The combs, along with four hippopotamus ivory vessels, a needle,
a pebble, most probably used for grinding pigment for make-up,
and three flint tools were placed towards the head of the woman;
she also wore a bracelet consisting of beads (Brunton and Caton-
Thompson 1928: 11).
A similar combination of combs was found at the site of
Mostagedda in Upper Egypt (Brunton 1937); many are now
housed in the British Museum. In addition to the usual ivory
and bone examples one particular comb, made from horn, was
found (figure 21) and is one of several similar combs from the site
(Brunton 1937: pl. XLII.42; 43; 49). The teeth on this comb are
unusually fine and short, and the piece is similar to an example
now housed in the Metropolitan Museum in New York (Patch
2011: 59, cat. 59). The teeth of the Metropolitan comb are longer,
but still relatively short, compared to other examples, even though
it is dated to Naqada II. The British Museum comb is dated to
the slightly earlier period of Naqada I; however, it has more in
common with the Badarian combs. Another unusual feature
27
of the British Museum comb is the hole at the top, perhaps for
hanging the comb (Brunton 1937: 87). It is also possible to deduce
from the remains that this comb had teeth at two ends, in which
case it is more likely to have been functional; whether it was for
hair or served another purpose is unknown. Like the Badarian
combs of this form, it is possible, even likely, that the object was
not associated with hair, but some other production activity.
More conventional pick-like combs (type 1) were found at the
site, including an ivory comb with especially wide teeth from grave
428 (Brunton 1937: 54; pl. XXIV.21; XXII.24). This example has
a bird on top of the handle but it is not of the usual form or style,
as even Brunton observed. There are examples of the more typical
combs from the Pre-Dynastic period from the site (Brunton 1937:
pl. XLII.45) showing that in this early period there was quite a
variety of forms of hair comb in circulation, and that some of
these forms influenced what became the standard hair comb in the
Naqada, Proto-Dynastic and Early Dynastic periods.
Only two hair combs were found in situ at Mostagedda (Brunton
1937: 87). The first belonged to a child (grave 320) and the second
a woman (grave 1880); in both cases the combs were placed close
to the hands of the deceased. Two other burials contained combs,
but the graves had been disturbed and the sex of the occupants
was uncertain (Brunton 1937: 87; graves 1825 and 1883).
Naqada period
As noted, the largest variety of combs, both in terms of form and

decoration, occur in the next period, now often referred to as the
Pre-Dynastic, and so-called because it is before the country became
a unified state. When Petrie identified this period/culture he named
it the Naqada period, after the site where he first discovered it. He
eventually identified three main phases, which were also named
after cemetery sites where he excavated: Amratian, Gerzean and
Semainian. He did this by using a technique that he pioneered called
sequence dating in which he used objects, in this case pottery,
to identify developments and changes in forms or decoration.
Because he did not know the actual dates (an absolute chronology)
he came up with what archaeologists call a relative chronological
sequence, in other words the order in which he believed the objects
appeared. Amratian was allocated the sequence dates of 31 to 37;
Gerzean the sequence dates of 38 to 62; and Semainian 63 to 76.
28
Combs from Kemet
Subsequent work was undertaken on the sequences

by a German scholar named Kaiser (1957), who
further divided the groups, and more recently
Hendrickx (1996). The periods became Naqada I
ac (40003500 BCE); Naqada II ac (35003200
BCE); and Naqada III ac (32003000 BCE).
As with the Badarian period material there are
two basic forms of comb, which may have served
different functions: those with shorter teeth and a
plain handle (figure 22) compared to those with
longer teeth and a plain handle (figure 23). Petrie,
who excavated the majority of these combs and
developed typologies accordingly, believed that
those with the shorter teeth were later than those
with the longer teeth (1920: 29). However, as noted,
he also suggested that those with longer teeth were
for fastening the hair rather than combing it; an
assumption that reveals his lack of knowledge of
African combs, where quite the opposite is the case.
There is, however, the possibility that the two forms
of comb did indeed serve different functions, but in
reverse to those suggested by Petrie; that is, those
with the longer teeth were more functional and that
the combs with shorter teeth may have been worn
in the hair. I draw these conclusions by comparisons
with the way in which similar forms of comb from
Nigeria are worn. Another interpretation that may
well explain the differences in form would be that
people of different status, who wore their hair in
different styles, required a variety of forms of comb.
If we again look at more recent parallels from West
Africa we see several different forms of comb that
were used as tools for different hairstyles, as well as
decorative ornaments for the hair.
The plain-handled combs with shorter teeth are
similar to the Neolithic combs found in Sudan.
Figure 22 (top) Ivory comb, Abydos, Egypt, around 35003000 BCE

Fitzwilliam Museum, E.59.1900, 4.6 x 2.8 cm
Figure 23 (below) Ivory comb, Hierakonpolis, Egypt, around

35003000 BCE, Fitzwilliam Museum, E.4.1898, 6.3 x 2.6 cm
29
They vary in size between around 10 cm and 4 cm and although

more typically the handles are square (Petrie 1920: pl. XXIX.17
19; Ashton 2011: 24), there are some with a rounded end (see
figure 22). Many examples of combs were discovered in situ in
burials of both men and women, although it has been suggested
that they were more of a female adornment (Patch 2011: 59).
Carved out of bone or hippopotamus ivory, many have ornately
carved handles representing birds (figure 24) or animals, and some
even have human forms (figure 25). Dating to Naqada I, this comb
is one of two in the form of a human bust that were found at
Naqada (Petrie 1920: 30, pl. XXIX.234). Both representations
wear necklaces, perhaps suggestive of status, but it is not certain
whether they are mortal or divine.
Petrie (1920: 2930, pl. XXIX) created a chronological
typology for these forms of hair comb, based on the complexity
of their decoration. He suggested that the plain-handled combs
(figure 23) were among the earliest, and that the more elaborately
carved theriomorphic (animal/bird) combs appeared later, so the
more complex designs indicated a later date. What this hypothesis
does not take account of is that the more decorative combs may
have referenced cultural groups or status. The fact that a double
bird motif comb with shorter teeth was found in a grave dating to
the Badarian period (figure 20) would support the idea that some
decorative motifs transcended cultures and existed over longer
periods of time.
If we consider combs from a single site and time period, Naqada
II at Naqada, we see a range of forms and decorative motifs on
the combs (Baumgartel 1892: LX.1863 M).* In grave 1863, the
burial of a woman, a vertical (type 1) bone comb with a decorated
Figure 24 Ivory comb,
Egypt, about 41003000 handle and five widely spaced teeth was found with an imported
BCE, Fitzwilliam Museum, seal from Mesopotamia, jewellery, and the more usual palettes
E.GA.3204.1943, and bowls. The comb (UC5371; Petrie 1920: pl. XXIX.15) was
8.2 x 1.7 cm
positioned close to the body, just in front of the deceased at chest
level, alongside bracelets and a pebble for grinding pigment for
make-up. The comb is 9.3 cm in height but is not fully preserved.
In grave 1858 a simple comb (UC4444) with rounded handle
and seven shorter teeth was found alongside beads, pottery and a
pendant made from lapis lazuli, and an imported stone. The combs
are completely different in their form and decoration and yet they
*For reconstructions from the notebooks see Digital Egypt for Universities:
http://www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/naqadan/bone.html
30
Combs from Kemet
are dated to the same period and come from the same site. The
imported goods are most likely a deliberate reference to the status
of the individuals.
In grave 260 from the site an ivory comb (UC5370; Petrie 1920:
pl. XXIX.16) with seven widely spaced teeth, and a handle that
is reminiscent of the staffs or standards with flags that appear on
painted pottery from this period, is also perhaps suggestive of status
or cultural identity. This particular comb, which measures 11.5 cm,
was placed at the feet of the deceased alongside a flint knife. The
pottery vessels were, as usual, positioned around the boundaries of
the grave. So what can we learn from a comparison of three graves
from a single site? That placing objects in a typological sequence is
a useful way of cataloguing material culture, but that in addition
to the form of the objects other variables such as their intended
function, and the status, cultural affiliation and the gender of the
individual with whom they are associated also need to be taken Figure 25 Ivory comb,
Naqada, Egypt, 40003000
into consideration. Today in the twenty-first century we have far BCE, Petrie Museum,
less choice of the hair combs that we use because we are largely UC4308, about 5.5 cm high
dependent upon globally mass-produced material.
This is also demonstrated by the great variety of handle motifs
found more widely during this period (Petrie 1920; Patch 2011:
579). Birds, antelopes, hippopotami, humans and what appear
to be staffs or standards all appear on combs. An analysis of the
types of animals/birds on comb handles indicates that birds were
the most popular and this is also true of hairpins from the period
(Martn del Ro lverez and Almenara Rosales 2004: 887).
These subjects connect the comb to nature and the world around
it, which may in turn be references to deities. On some of the
painted pottery vessels from this period there are hunting scenes
showing a man chasing antelopes, for example, and on the boats
that are frequently shown at the front of the scene, men carrying
staffs similar to those on combs appear. This might suggest that
referencing these two subjects on hair combs represented status.
In contrast the double bird motif (see figure 24) is also frequently
found on make-up palettes and pendants and so its appearance on
combs would seem to be a natural link to personal adornment. It
is impossible to know for certain what these symbols represented
to the owners of hair combs. The practice of decorating the tops
of combs with animals continued into the New Kingdom and
Late period.
31
A small comb in the Fitzwilliam Museum

(figure 26) is without a provenance, but came
from one of the Pre-Dynastic sites (Ashton 2011:
25). This comb measures 5.1 cm in height, with
teeth between 2 and 4 mm in length. The ends of
the teeth appear to be worn, as if used, and it is
possible that they were originally longer. There is
also a wear mark around the top of the handle,
which might suggest that something was tied
around it, perhaps for attaching it to clothing. I
initially wondered if this comb was an amulet, but
such objects typically have holes pierced or drilled
through them for hanging.
Some of the hair combs that appear to fall within
this period are forgeries, produced for people like
Petrie who were keen to build a full typology of
early combs. Looking at the material, tool marks
and wear marks are all essential in terms of authent
icating combs.
Figure 26 Ivory comb, Egypt, 40003000

BCE, Fitzwilliam Museum, E.W.6, Early Dynastic period
5.5 x 2.7 cm
There were two key developments in relation to

combs in the Early Dynastic period (before 3000
to around 2650 BCE). The first is that with the
advent of writing there are examples of hair combs
with names written on them, and second, we see
the emergence of larger combs than appeared in the
Pre-Dynastic period.
Dating to around 3000 BCE a small comb (figure
27) was found in grave 213 at the site of Tarkhan.
Like some of the earlier combs this small fine-tooth
example has a small hole at the top. However, unlike
earlier combs this particular example has the word
Kad carved on the handle; Kad is probably the
name of the owner. However, no body was found in
the coffin when the grave was excavated. This comb
is incredibly small, at only 6 cm in height, and like
the earlier examples it raises the question of whether
Figure 27 Ivory comb, Tarkhan, around
30002750 BCE , Petrie Museum, UC16076, these objects were intended as models rather than
6 cm high functional items. There are no wear marks on this
32
Combs from Kemet
Figure 28 Predynastic
comb from Abydos,
around 30002750 BCE,
Egyptian Museum Cairo,
JE47176, 8.2 x 4.7 cm,
Courtesy Heritage Images
particular example and the gaps between the teeth are so narrow
and short that it is hard to see how it might have functioned. Unless,
as suggested, it was a decorative ornament, and then the question of
why a hole was incorporated into the design has to be asked. The
other possibility is that the comb was worn as a pendant. There is
an example of this (Brunton 1937: pl.XLII.41) which also has the
hole incorporated into the design.
A comb from Abydos (figure 28) bears the name of King Djet on
the handle (Petrie 1925: 4, pl.XII.5; Obenga 2007: 15; Egyptian
Museum Cairo, JE 47176). The comb was found in grave 445,
which was one of 154 subsidiary graves within the enclosure of the
King Djet (Petrie 1925: pl. XVII and XXI). The name is contained
within a standard surmounted by the falcon, and is protected by
wings, above which is a barque. On each side of the standard
are was sceptres and to the right an ankh with a double lower
section. The teeth are short and the gaps are relatively narrow,
but are distorted, probably due to soil conditions rather than use.
The comb measures around 8.2 cm in height and is 4.7 cm at its
widest point. It is difficult to see how it might have functioned as
an object and this fact coupled with the royal inscription suggests
that it was symbolic rather than functional.
33
An example of the larger comb can be found at the cemetery of

Abydos and is now housed in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge
(figure 29). This comb is carved out of bone and has widely spaced,
long teeth and a motif on the handle that is reminiscent of bulls
horns, another motif that appears on Pre-Dynastic painted pottery.
If we compare this motif on other objects from the period it
represents masculinity and power and therefore status. We do not
know whether the owner of this comb was a man or a woman: it
was not recorded. This comb, however, is one of the earlier full-sized
combs that compares to examples in the modern day and there is no
doubt that this example functioned as a tool for combing the hair.
The Old Kingdom
As noted, no combs have been identified from the Old Kingdom,

with the exception of two combs that are referenced by Petrie
(1927: 25, pl. xxviii, 55) and which will be discussed in more detail
below under the New Kingdom section. In his typology Petrie
also referenced a vertical, plain-handled comb from Meir in the
Egyptian Museum Cairo (JE 44320), which he dated to the Middle
Kingdom, but which I have not been able examine closely enough
to confirm or dispute the date. The site is multi-period. It would
certainly be logical for combs of this period to follow the same
form as their predecessors.
There were certainly professionals who styled and cut hair
during this period (Tassie 2008: 10120). There are references
to professional barbers, hairdressers, stylists and wig makers in
ancient Egypt. These roles were defined by the type of work that
was done rather than the gender of the worker (Tassie 2008: 101
20). The titles associated with hairdressers in particular indicate
that their role was associated with status, particularly for those
Figure 29 Bone comb, linked to the royal house (Tassie 2008: 10120).
Abydos, Egypt, around
3500 BCE, Fitzwilliam
Museum, E.62.1900,
20.8 x 4.5 cm Middle Kingdom
In his typology Petrie dates two combs that are different from
earlier examples to the Middle Kingdom (1927: 25, pl. XX, 16
and 17). The most striking change is that the majority of combs
are no longer of a type 1 variety as found in early periods, but they
are horizontal in form, with shorter teeth and with narrower gaps
34
Combs from Kemet

Kahun, Egypt, about
19761793 BCE,
Petrie Museum, UC7097,
7.3 cm wide
between them. This does not necessarily represent a change in hair

type; it does however suggest that there were changes in hairstyles.
The other key development is the material that was used for these
combs: all of them are carved from wood.
In terms of their manufacture the combs are similar to some
of the Roman and later periods, but they have single row of teeth
and belong to the type 5 variety. The similarity is particularly
pronounced in relation to the terminal teeth, which are modelled
at the ends. There is another connection in relation to the con
centric circles that decorate the lower section of the handle.
Although the concentric circles appear in the Middle Kingdom
as a form of decoration, they are more commonly found on hair
combs dating to the Late Antique period. Petrie recognized this in
relation to one of the combs that he dated to the Middle Kingdom
in Objects of Daily Use (1927: 25, pl. XX. 16 and 17, figure 30
here), although he states that the concentric circles occur from the
New Kingdom onwards. I originally thought that the excavated
combs from Kahun to which Petrie refers came from a later period
of occupation at the site. The flared terminals are not a feature
that appear on combs of the New Kingdom, but they do feature on
Roman and later combs. A comb now housed in the Metropolitan
Museum New York from Lisht South and dated to the Middle
Kingdom does have flared terminal teeth (33.1.29). This particular
comb came from a surface burial and so cannot be securely dated
35
Figure 31 Limestone
relief, painted, of
hairdresser Inu, about
19561911 BCE,
Brooklyn Museum, Charles
Edwin Wilbour Fund,
51.231, 13.2 x 24.5 cm
to this period. Its form is unusual because the comb is equally

divided between the handle and teeth. However, there is another
comb in the Metropolitan Museums collections that can be more
securely dated and which is similar in design to the comb from
Kahun (figure 30; Petrie 1927: 25, pl. XX.16). The comb was
excavated in Silo 143 at the cemetery in Lisht North (accession
number 15.3.336). It measures 7.4 cm and is carved from wood
with a wave-like pattern on the handle and two rectangular holes
carved beneath it. It is roughly finished, whereas the Petrie example
has more of the handle carved away and has concentric circles
compared to the wavy line decoration on the Lisht Metropolitan
Museums comb.
In addition to combs people also used hairpins to style the
hair. Two hairdressing scenes from the Middle Kingdom show the
hairdresser styling hair without using a comb. On both occasions
a hairpin is used to hold the hair in place while it is styled, and the
hairdresser prepares in one instance an extension for the hair, and
in the other she styles the hair with her fingers (figures 31 and 32).
The first relief comes from the eleventh dynasty tomb of Neferu,
who was the wife of Senusret I (19561911 BCE). In one fragment
from the scene a woman named Inu, who is described as she who
makes hair prepares a piece of thick, tightly coiled hair to attach
to the royal wifes own. Then on the right hand part of the scene
the hairdresser Henut attaches the piece of hair to what I assume
to be the royal wifes own hair, but which is often described as a
36
Combs from Kemet
Figure 32 Limestone relief,

painted, of Queen Neferu,
about 20041995 BCE,
Brooklyn Museum, Charles
Edwin Wilbour Fund, 54.49,
19 x 23.6 x 1.9 cm
Figure 33 Photograph from

the Northcote W. Thomas
Collection, south Nigeria,
taken before 1914 CE, MAA,
P.119607.NWT
wig. She does this by holding back part of the hair

with a pin and twisting the attachment in at the
base of the hair.
In another Middle Kingdom scene, this time
from the coffin of a woman named Kawit, who was
married to King Montuhotep II (20041995 BCE).
Kawit sits in a chair holding a mirror in one hand
and drinks from a bowl with the other while her
hair is being styled. The kings wife wears her hair
in a short style, with twisted locks, and once again
the hairdresser uses a pin to hold back the hair and
then simply twists the hair with her fingers. It is
remarkable that we see a very similar hairstyle from
the photographs of Northcote W. Thomas taken at
the turn of the twentieth century (figure 33). These
two sets of reliefs show that combs were not always
needed to style or prepare hair.
37

Egypt, 12921185 BCE,
Fitzwilliam Museum,
E.GA.2696.1943,
5.5 x 8.9 cm
New Kingdom, Third Intermediate period and Late period
A similar design of comb as those dated to the Middle Kingdom

(type 5) continued into the New Kingdom. In fact an example
that would be difficult to distinguish from the Middle Kingdom
material was found at Saqqara (Firth and Gunn 1926: vol. 1: 69
and vol. 2: pl. 44.c.1). The wave-like handle in particular seems to
replicate those of the earlier period.
There are enough securely provenanced and dated hair combs
to enable a reasonable survey of material from the New Kingdom.
The majority are carved from wood, although an ivory version of
this form of comb was found in the tomb of Ani (Taylor 2010: 36,
fig. 13), no doubt a reference to his status. The comb was found
inside a toilet box with other items for personal grooming. It is
typical in form of New Kingdom combs (see figure 34).
Rather than the wave-like pattern on the handle, these combs
have a notch decoration across the top; they are thought to appear
in the nineteenth dynasty. To check this one of the Fitzwilliam
Museums combs was radiocarbon dated and came back at 1405

Egypt, around 12921185
BCE, Fitzwilliam Museum,
E.1.2009, 4.3 x 9 cm
38
Combs from Kemet
1265 BCE with a 95 per cent probability (E.GA.509.1947; Ashton

2011: 278). There are variations in terms of the number of
notches on the handles, but they all fall into the same basic form.
The gaps between the teeth vary considerably, and some have wear
marks clearly visible on the teeth, as can be seen in figure 34. It is
perhaps significant to consider people combing out braided hair
today, because the wider end of a plastic short-tooth comb will
often be used, combing the hair in sections, starting from the ends
and gradually working towards the scalp, which is the opposite
way to which I would comb my (European-type) hair. The design
of these New Kingdom combs would have worked perfectly for
this type of hairdressing; they can be held easily by the thumb,
index and middle fingers to enable a gentle combing motion, while
the hair is supported in the other hand. They could also be used
for separating the hair before plaiting or braiding. It is not certain
what the notches on top of these combs represent; it is possible they
are simply decorative. Another explanation is that the notches may
be an abbreviated form of an earlier comb handle design found
in the Middle Kingdom (figure 30). Some hair combs from the
nineteenth dynasty have plain handles and there are also examples
with much wider gaps between the teeth (Metropolitan Museum
of Art 11.151.34). As with the hair types, there is considerable
variation among the combs in this period.
Dated to the eighteenth dynasty, there are a number of combs
with what appears to be a mountain symbol decorating the top of
the handle (figure 36). This hieroglyph for mountain, djew, is a
Figure 36 Fragment of a
wood pintail comb, around
15501334 BCE, British
Museum, EA 55084,
4.8 x 4.2 x 0.7 cm
39
double form of a related sign called akhet or the

horizon, which is associated with the afterlife, and
at many sites the sun descends behind mountainous
terrain. This type is considerably shorter than the
New Kingdom notch combs (figure 34) as it was
attached to a pin. This example measures 4.8 cm
high by 4.2 cm wide; it is not, however, preserved
in its entirety. Another example in the Metropolitan
Museum New York shows that the comb was
on the end of a long handle (26.2.21; Firth and
Gunn 1926: vol. 2: pl. 44.c.3). The Metropolitan
Museums comb was excavated at Saqqara and
is dated to the reign of Seti I (around 12951070
BCE). There is a third, fragmentary, example housed
in the Petrie Museum, which is included in Petries
publication of Objects of Daily Use (UC 40520;
Petrie 1927: 25, pl. XX.1). However, Petrie dated
the comb to the Middle Kingdom. It is possible that
this type of comb and pin started earlier, but the
excavated examples would suggest that this was a
New Kingdom form.
There are other examples of miniature combs
without a pin attached. It is possible that these
combs were worn as decoration in hair, although it
is worth noting that we do not have any examples
of representations of people in tombs or temples
Figure 37 Wooden comb, Egypt, around
12921185 BCE showing these objects used in this way. Combs
Fitzwilliam Museum, E.GA.4577.1943 belonging to this group are decorated with animals
4.9 x 2.1 cm on the handles. The most commonly found are
ibex (figure 37), but an example in the Fitzwilliam
Museums collections has something that looks
like a bear (Ashton 2011: 29). Ibex and gazelles
also appear on make-up palettes of the period and
it is likely that there is an intentional connection
between the two. It is possible, during this period,
that the combs were models, made specifically for
the deceased in the afterlife.
As with the very early combs from Egypt, as
excavators and collectors became familiar with
hair combs, forgeries started to appear. A version
of the standard New Kingdom comb can be found
in both the British Museum (figure 38) and the
40
Combs from Kemet

Egypt, probably 20th
century BCE
British Museum, EA 2678
7.3 x 4.4 x 0.9 cm
Petrie Museum collections (UC 40525). The combs on first glance

appear to be damaged or re-carved versions of the aforementioned
New Kingdom combs with notches on the top. However, on closer
examination it appears that one end has been carved into the head
of an animal, possibly a bovine. The head was carved in addition
to the length of the main section of the comb, as indicated by the
two wider terminal teeth. This means that the head of the bovine
was carved at the same time as the teeth, because if it were a later
addition the teeth would not be in their complete form. Since there
are no examples of this form of comb from secure contexts it is
likely that they are forgeries, possibly from the same workshop.
There are other anomalies. The teeth on the British Museum comb
are not in a straight row, as one sees on other New Kingdom
combs. Furthermore, the Petrie Museum example has very clear
chisel marks on the top of the handle, which are not of the usual
type. The British Museum comb was purchased from Joseph Sams
who was a dealer who lived from 17841860. The Petrie Museum
example was purchased in Cairo.
Although typologies can be helpful in dating hair combs
they need to be used with caution. This is probably because the
manufacture of such items was a local craft-based phenomenon.
When looking at combs in the Metropolitan Museums collections
I was struck by one example dated to the New Kingdom (figure
39). This comb has narrow-spaced teeth of equal length at both
ends; it was found in a toilet box in the grave. I had not seen
another comb dating to the New Kingdom of this double form and
I wondered if the comb was much later in date. After discussing
with colleagues in the Egyptian Department at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, and looking at the original publication (Firth and
Gunn 1926: vol. 1: 70, vol. 2: pl. 44.c.2) we concluded that the
41

excavated from the tomb
of Tjetji, Egypt, around
15501295 BCE,
Metropolitan Museum,
Rogers Fund 1926 26.2.22,
11 x 6.5 cm
Courtesy of the
Metropolitan Museum,
New York
Figure 40 Ivory comb,

Sanctuary of Artemis,
Orthia, Sparta, Greece,
Museum, GR.135.1923,
4.4 x 3 cm
grave was intact when it was excavated and that it

had not been contaminated, as is so often the case,
with a later burial.
The closest parallels that I could find for this
particular comb were on red-figure Greek and
southern Italian vases (Trendall and Cambitoglou
1978: 20, pl. 7.1; Schmidt 1963: 512, pl. 89.
25/05.2). Similar examples with two sets of evenly
spaced teeth have been found in the Athenian
Agora dating to the sixth century BCE (Ling 1988:
86). If we look at the earliest Greek combs dating
to around 65030 BCE (figure 40) they in fact
emulate the standard form of the New Kingdom
42
Combs from Kemet
notch combs. The grave goods that accompanied

the Metropolitan Museums comb are notable,
because they include non-Egyptian pottery, and
I then wondered if the comb might have been
influenced by a foreign culture. However, the
Greek combs are much later than the Metropolitan
Museums combs New Kingdom date (15501295
BCE) and it is possible that they were influenced by
Egyptian examples. A key difference between the
Metropolitan comb (figure 39) and later Egyptian
combs with two sets of teeth in that its teeth are
both evenly spaced, whereas the whole point of
the later combs is that they combine a very narrow
gaps with wide gaps on the other side.
Another unusual comb from the Fitzwilliam
Museums collections consists of a form that is
more typical of fan handles (figure 41). Only
a small number of teeth survive. They are thin
but widely set; unfortunately it is not possible
to determine how long they were because all are
broken. Since hair decoration was common in the
New Kingdom, largely in the form of diadems or
similar headdresses, it is not possible to rule out the
possibility that this comb was a hair ornament, hence
the unusual appearance of the teeth. However, the
sizeable handle would suggest that this object was
more functional rather than decorative. The wood
is covered in Egyptian blue and is intricately carved
with a lotus design. In Objects of Daily Use Petrie
(1927: 25, pl. xxviii, 55) included a drawing of an
ivory comb from Zaraby that is of the same form,
but undecorated. He dated it to the sixth dynasty,
although the grounds for this date are uncertain.
In the case of the Fitzwilliam Museums comb the
decoration places it firmly within the eighteenth or
nineteenth dynasties (Ashton 2011: 29).
The Fitzwilliam Museum has a second unusual hair
comb, made from ivory and with a representation
of the goddess Taweret on the handle, in the form
Figure 41 Wooden and Egyptian blue
of a pregnant hippopotamus with a crocodile comb, Egypt, around 15501295 BCE,
or mane on her back (figure 42). It is uncertain Fitzwilliam Museum, E.GA.2704.1943,
from where it was excavated but it came into the 16.3 x 5 cm
43
Fitzwilliam Museums collections in 1943 as part

of the Gayer-Anderson Collection (Ashton 2011:
256). Taweret protected pregnant and nursing
women and often appeared on household furniture.
She appears in the same form as the comb on
wands dating to the Middle Kingdom (Gundlach
1985: 4947). There are a number of examples of
combs dating to the Pre-Dynastic period that show
a pregnant hippopotamus on the handle. However,
as on vases and with pendants of this period, the
hippopotamus is on four legs rather than standing
upright on two. The wear marks on the teeth of the
comb appear genuine enough. Therefore it is not
possible to date this comb with any certainty. The
material and style suggest that it is early, but the
way in which Taweret is depicted would fit more
comfortably in the Late period. Radiocarbon dating
is not possible on this particular piece, and so it
must remain something of an enigma. Although
wooden combs were more common than any other
material in the New Kingdom and Late period,
there are exceptions such as the ivory version of
the notch comb found in the tomb of Ani.
8
Petrie included two wooden combs surmounted by
a bull and a cat in his list of combs dating to the
New Kingdom (1927: 25, no. 12 and 13). The two
combs were purchased rather than excavated and
in my opinion would fit more comfortably within
the Late period (1070665 BCE). The form of
cat (figure 43), most probably a reference to the
goddess Bastet, is typical of the Late period.
There were further stylistic developments during
the later periods of Egyptian history. Excavated
at Saqqara and now housed in the Fitzwilliam
Museum (figure 44) this comb came from a context
Figure 42 Ivory comb, Egypt, possibly
around 1070525 BCE, Fitzwilliam Museum, dating to the Late period or Ptolemaic period
E.GA.3178.1943, 9.6 x 2.7 cm (Martin 1971: 256). The comb is one of the
earliest double combs with finer teeth at one end
and more regularly spaced teeth at the other. This
44
Combs from Kemet
Figure 43 (left) Wooden

comb, Egypt, around
1070525 BCE, Petrie
Museum, UC40667,
13 x 4.8 x 1.3 cm

Saqqara, Egypt, around
Museum, E.81.1975,
12.2 x 4 cm
form of comb is still found in Africa today. Examples collected in

the early twentieth century show that either differently sized gaps
or length of teeth were produced on some combs, presumably to
serve different lengths of hair. The comb was clearly discarded by
its owner because it was found in the room of a house rather than
a grave. This form of comb was the precursor of the Roman period
double combs and was possibly influenced by the New Kingdom
version. This is the earliest example that I have found with the
differing sets of teeth at each end. A version of this form was
adopted by the Romans (figure 45) and the later Islamic settlers
and continued until the early twentieth century in Egypt (figures
51, 52 and 53).
45
4
The impact of the Romans,
Christianity and Islam
on African combs
o
Roman Egypt
The combs found in Egypt during the Roman occupation draw

upon earlier Egyptian combs in their design, but are nonetheless
distinctive (figure 45). The Roman comb is horizontal in form
(type 6) and has a row of short teeth at each end; on one side the
gaps are still wide, but on the second end they are very closely
spaced. There are wider terminals at the ends of each row and
the overall appearance of the ends is rounded. This form of comb
was not unique to Africa, but was found elsewhere in the Roman
world. Variations such as combs with finer teeth on both ends were
also found (Jenkins 1986: 28). The example from the Fitzwilliam
Museum illustrated in figure 45 has been radiocarbon dated to
between 256 and 407 CE.
A comb found in a mid-fourth-century CE tomb at Hawara in
the Fayoum (Petrie 1889: 12, pl. XIX.23) is similar in form to figure
46, found at Oxyrhynchus. Both are a variation on this standard
type as represented by figure 45. The drawing of the Hawara comb
suggests it was longer in form and with more closely set teeth on
both sides than the Oxyrhynchus example. During the Roman
period there are two identifiable forms of comb: the first has
rounded ends, while the second variety has ends that are square, a
form that continued into the Late Antique period. Both forms of
comb were found at Mons Porphyrites in deposition levels dating
to after the late second century CE (Peacock and Maxwell 2007:
12, 33031) suggesting that more than one form of comb was in
circulation at any one time.
It has been suggested that the Roman-period combs included
very narrow teeth on one side in order to comb out head lice. On
46
The impact of the Romans, Christianity and Islam on African combs

Egypt, 256407 CE,
Fitzwilliam Museum,
E.W.20, 8 x 8 cm
a wooden comb found at Antino in Egypt, similar in form to

the Fitzwilliam comb, eggs were found between the teeth (Palma
1991: 1945). It was this form of comb that continued in Egypt
and which has also been found in Sudan after the Roman and
Meroitic periods respectively. The key difference between these
two regions is that in Sudan the more traditional pick with long,
widely spaced teeth continued to be produced.
Combs similar to these double combs have been excavated
from contexts dating to the early Roman period at Berenike
(Sidebottom and Wendrich 2007: 52, pl. 4.20). The teeth on the

around 200400 CE,
British Museum, EA 50143
5 x 7.5 cm
47
illustrated example and the Fitzwilliam Museum one are wider

than the later Islamic examples.
The people who used these combs were not part of a single
cultural or ethnicized group. We know that Romans and Egyptians
married and that Romans were keen to adopt Egyptian ways
of life. This included the adoption of Egyptian religion and of
Egyptian burial customs. The mixing of Africans and Europeans
would have impacted on the hair types of many of the inhabitants
of this region. It is also the case that combs were manufactured
locally and we can see a variety of different forms from the same
period at the same site. The hair comb from Berenike was found
with what the excavators described as balls of human hair; as a
consequence they suggest that they derive from domestic contexts.
What they mean by balls of human hair is uncertain, but if this is a
continuation of the much earlier practice of dedicating balls of clay
mixed with human hair, then the context may be ritual or funerary
rather than domestic. It might also suggest that the person who
owned the comb was following long-established African tradition
rather than a Roman cultural practice. Both Ptolemaic and Roman
Egypt presented a melting pot of cultures and religions, and it is
never easy identifying an individuals cultural identity.
The Late Antique period in Egypt and Sudan
This period describes Egypt during the late fourth to the seventh
centuries CE. Culturally it is one of the most diverse periods of
Egypts history because it encompassed large-scale changes to
religion and language. Outside influences had of course appeared
during Dynastic Egypt through conquest and trade, and when
the Ptolemaic Dynasty ruled the country (33230 BCE) the
population included many Greeks in addition to the royal house.
The key difference between these periods and even that of Roman
occupation when compared to the Late Antique is that the
religions changed. Christianity had been present in Egypt from
a much earlier period, during the Roman occupation. However,
from the fourth century CE we see conversion on a much greater
scale. This form of Christianity, known as the Coptic Church, was
developed in East Africa and as such maintains a much longer
history and con nection with African people than the Western
canons of Christianity that have more recently been adopted in
48
Western and Central Africa. Indeed many of the

traditional symbols that were adopted by early
African Christians continued earlier Egyptian
traditions, perhaps most notably the ankh.
Such continuity is not really surprising when we
consider that the cultures that had occupied Egypt
during the Roman period included both Africans
and Europeans, who were still resident during the
Late Antique. The main changes were in administr
ation as the Roman Empire collapsed, and in the
religion that people adopted. The continuity of
population alongside the new developments in
religion prompted the manufacture of a fascinating
group of combs (figures 4750). Petrie included
such combs in his typology in Objects of Daily Use
(1927: 26, pl. XXI.4755). He categorized these
combs as long combs and dated them all to the
Late Roman period, suggesting the following with
regard to their function:
From the awkward size of these, and the decoration,
it seems likely that they were show pieces of the bridal
trousseau, seldom or never taken into use. (1927: 26)
Petrie believed that any damage to the combs was

on account of them having been buried, with only
one example showing signs of wear. There are
examples of these combs in a number of museums,
including those illustrated here that are now
housed in the British Museum and Fitzwilliam
Museum, Cambridge. The Fitzwilliam Museum
examples (Ashton 2011: 314) were bequeathed to
the museum by E. T. Whyte in the 1930s. Those
now housed in the British Museum were purchased
from a dealer named Mohammed Mohassib, who
was trading in antiquities, and forgeries, in Luxor
in the early 1880s. Other examples were purchased
from a Cairo-based dealer named Denis P. Kyticas
and his son, entering the museum collections in
Figure 47 Wooden comb, Egypt, 400600
1930. There are also examples in the Metropolitan CE, British Museum, EA 54474
Museum of Art, New York. These combs were 24 x 7.2 x 0.58 cm
purchased from a dealer named Nicholas Tano
who worked in Cairo until 1912; they are said
49
to have a provenance of the town of Maghagha,

which is in Middle Egypt. The museum database
gives a reference to an unpublished manuscript
on glass stating that one of them, UC 22480 with
glass inlays, is from Memphis. However, there is no
evidence to support this provenance. However, one
example (12.182.86) is remarkably similar in style
and design to the British Museums comb (figure
47) and a second comb in the same collection (EA
54475). It would appear that the all three originated
from the same workshop, the only difference being
that the comb in figure 45 has an animal on the
lower register, whereas the other two have a mirror
image of two birds. There are subtle variations
on all three combs, with regard to the number of
incised concentric circles on the costumes of the
women, but they are remarkably similar.
The Late Antique combs such as the one in figure
47 show people, who, probably from their dress,
are women, with animals such as boars, sheep
or gazelles, peacocks, and lions. There are also
examples that are decorated with incised concentric
circles forming a variety of geometric patterns on
the main body of the combs (figure 49). These
examples would have been easier to carve, because
they retain the central section of wood rather than
it being partially removed to create the figures.
Some examples (Petrie 1927: 26, pl. XXI.52 and
53) have glass inlays decorating the central section,
Figure 48 Wooden comb, Egypt, 400600 and one example in the Metropolitan Museum
CE, British Museum, EA 54477,
20.2 x 8 x 0.7 cm
of Art combines both the figurative decoration
and the glass inlays (12.182.90). The figurative
motifs and animals copy such representations on
Egyptian textiles during this period (Pritchard
2006; Baginski and Tidhar 1980), which is perhaps
no coincidence given that the combs, like dress, are
part of grooming and of maintaining appearance.
Married women in Roman and Late Antique Egypt
covered their heads; women also used hair nets to
protect their elaborate hairstyles, particularly in
the later Roman periods and Early Late Antique
(Pritchard 2006: 12945).
50
There are visible differences in the appearance of combs

belonging to this wider group; however, the similarity in their Figure 49 (left) Wooden
comb, Egypt, 400600 CE,
overall design and manufacture would suggest that they came from Fitzwilliam Museum,
a single workshop, but with multiple craftsmen. As Petrie rightly E.361b.1932, 20.5 x 8 cm
pointed out there are virtually no signs of wear on the combs,
Figure 50 (right) Wooden
which suggests that they were never used. Rather than this being comb, Egypt, 400600 CE,
on account of them functioning as part of the bridal trousseau, British Museum, EA 54478
I would suggest that they were excavated and originated from 19 x 7.2 x 0.5 cm
an abandoned workshop somewhere in either Middle or Upper
Egypt. One of the Fitzwilliam Museums combs was radiocarbon
dated to 411537 CE, placing the group firmly within the early
to mid-Late Antique period, which was what Petrie had originally
thought, even though he classified the period as late Roman.
51
The teeth of these combs vary. At one end are medium length
teeth that are set with a reasonable gap between them. At the
opposite end are finely separated teeth, which reference the earlier
Roman double-sided combs, but which are medium-length rather
than short. It is possible that this form of hair comb, with long or
medium teeth, was also manufactured in Egypt during the first to
fourth centuries CE during the Roman period. Certainly examples
have been found on sites that include Roman occupation, but we
need more work to establish when this comb first emerged. Or,
perhaps another way of looking at it would be to see this form
of comb as a continuum from the New Kingdom examples with
double ends.
Islamic Egypt and Sudan
With the early Arab settlement in Egypt from 642 CE a new

language, culture and religion arrived. The difference between the
types of hair combs from Sudan and Egypt suggests that the former
region maintained links to traditional African culture for a longer
period than Egypt, where few long-tooth picks are found after the
Dynastic period. Islamic culture is represented in both Egypt and
Sudan in the form of similar hair combs. The hair combs from this
initial period were not dissimilar to the Roman and Late Antique
examples in terms of their shape with regard to the former, and
their decoration when compared to the latter. The key difference
seems to be the move away from the representation of people
Figure 51 Wooden hair

comb, Egypt, around 7th
to 10th century CE, British
Museum, EA 51073,
8.4 x 6.4 x 1.1 cm
52
Figure 52 Islamic comb,

around 7th to 10th century
CE, British Museum, EA
51071, 11.3 x 7.8 x 0.8 cm
with a preference for floral or geometric motifs.

The combs are of a basic type 6 with wider gaps
between the short teeth at one end and narrower
gaps at the other. Rather than the combs being an
imported innovation, they continue the established
culture; a phenomenon that is found elsewhere in
the Islamic world (Hirsh 2011: 103) in relation to
personal grooming and ideals of beauty. Similar hair Figure 53 Wooden hair
combs have also been found in Sudan, but as with comb, Egypt, 20th century
CE, MAA, Z 25458,
the early periods, the pick form is maintained in 6.9 x 6 x 0.8 cm
this region for centuries after it disappears in Egypt.
Petrie dated one of the examples of this form of
comb that he included in his Objects of Daily Use
typology (1927: 26, no. 42) to around 1250 CE on
account of the lettering. He dated another example
(1927: 26, no. 42) to the fourteenth century CE,
although this is on account of the style of foliage
and less certain. A twentieth-century version of
the double comb survives (figure 53), although as
on the most recent hair combs, the gaps between
the teeth are equidistant. I have also seen plastic
versions of this comb in Egypt and northern Sudan
in the twenty-first century.
The continuation of the traditional pick (type
1) form of hair comb in Nubia separates it from
the archaeological evidence further north in Egypt.
A number of these combs were found during
53
excavations at Qasr Ibrim in Nubia. The one in

figure 14 is broadly dated between around 400
CE and 1300 CE and that in figure 15 is dated
to between 1100 CE and 1400 CE. As with the
Roman combs, it is not possible to determine the
culture or religion of the people who used these
hair combs. Other examples from the same site are
the same as figures 51 and 52 suggesting that there
were different hair types or styles.
Geometric designs
of the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries
The concentric circle was a popular design on hair

combs in East Africa as shown by the ebony type
5 comb (figure 54), decorated with inlaid silver
Figure 54 Wooden comb, Kulubnarti, concentric circles on the handle. This comb was
Sudan, about 18001900 CE, British excavated in Kulubnarti, Sudan; it was found in
Museum, EA 77658, 5.5 x 3.3 x 0.4 cm
a domestic context and has been dated tentatively
to around 18001900 CE. The teeth are short in
length and the gaps are narrow. The shorter-tooth
comb may represent either a change in hair type,
because of the people who had settled in this region,
and/or changes in hairstyles.
Elsewhere in Africa, artists continued to produce
the traditional pick with widely spaced long teeth
on one end, and shorter more closely spaced teeth
on the other. The central panels are decorated with
concentric circles (figure 12). We do not know the
origins of these combs because examples have been
sourced from Egypt, Zanzibar, South Africa and
Nigeria. These combs were used, as indicated by
strands of hair that has been found among the teeth
on one of the Fitzwilliam Museums examples. This
hair is of an African type in that it is tightly coiled.
There are other examples of geometric patterns
on hair combs in West Africa. The zigzag patterns
found on combs from southern Nigeria (figure 55)
are common among a number of different cultural
54
Figure 55 Bamboo and cotton thread pintail comb, Edo, south Nigeria, before 1914,
MAA, Z 12753, 27.2 x 2.1 x 0.6 cm
Figure 56 Bone comb, South Africa, before 1895, British Museum, Af1895,0806.10,
22 x 5 x 2 cm
groups in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries CE.

In northern Ghana, which has been predominantly Muslim for
two centuries, the combs are also decorated with geometric forms
rather than the usual traditional symbols (Antiri 1974: 345, fig.
26 and 27).
Geometric designs and concentric circles also appear on the
hairpins and combs from South Africa (figure 56). However, it
is possible that these patterns represent a natural feature rather
than being merely geometric in form. The incised decoration on
some Akan combs for example represents water (Antiri 1974: 35,
fig. 25). Certainly the concentric circle was a popular design that
crossed religions, regions, and time in Africa.
55
The adoption of Christianity

by the Ashanti people
As this chapter has shown, comb designs can transcend new
cultural influences. The iconography, however, only rarely
reflects the old and new. One such example of this phenomenon
can be found on twentieth-century hair combs belonging to the
Ashanti culture (figure 57). The figure is female and on her face is
traditional scarification, but round her neck is a cross, suggesting
a link to Christianity. There are many different versions of this
form of comb (Antiri 1974: 33). Some have no adornment around
the neck, others wear beads, and on one example in a private
collection the figure wears a heart-shaped motif on her necklace.
Although the artist references Christianity, the form and meaning
of the comb remains unchanged.

Ashanti, Ghana, before
1935 CE, MAA, 1935.225,
23.5 x 7.9 x 2.6 cm
56
5
Cultural symbolism on combs
National and cultural symbols
Some of the symbols found on African combs are easy for us to

interpret because they are well known, the golden stool (figures
58 and 59) being a good example of a much more widely known
icon of the Ashanti people of Ghana. The golden stool (Sika dwa)
is both royal and divine in that it is the seat of royal power but
it is also believed to house the spirit of the Ashanti people. The
Ashanti people have fought wars to maintain the sanctity of the
golden stool, perhaps most notably in 1900 against the British,
who demanded that it be handed over to them. Thus the stool
Figure 58 (left) Wooden

comb, Ashanti, Ghana,
about pre-1927 CE, British
Museum, Af1978,22.237,
23 x 10 x 0.5 cm
Figure 59 (right) Wooden

comb, Ashanti, Ghana,
before 1927, British
Museum, Af1978,22.235,
22 x 10.5 x 0.5 cm
57
has multiple meanings: it represents the king of the

Ashanti people, it represents the spirit of the Ashanti
people, and it represents their victory over colonial
forces in trying to take their right to rule away.
The golden stool is not the only example of this
form of object; there is a series of ten black stools
representing the connections between the living,
the dead and those still to be born (Kyerematen
1969). Because the combs depicting stools are
without a context it is impossible to know exactly
what they represented to their makers and possibly
owners. It is not only among the Ashanti in this
region that there is evidence for cultural symbolism
on hair combs. The wider Akan communities have
also traditionally produced a number of culturally
symbolic hair comb designs, many of which relate
to proverbs or sayings (Antiri 1974). Other combs
reference day-to-day activities of the people who
made them, such as fishing.
Headrests also feature on the handles of hair
combs. A possible example of this motif can
be found on an example from the Democratic
Republic of Congo (figure 60; compare Sieber and
Herreman 2000: 127, cat. 121). This compares
well to the cradle-shaped headrests that are found
in this region (Massing and Ashton 2011: 4265).
Headrests are typically used by men and they are
often used as stools or headrests when they take
their animals out to pasture. Variations of the
representation of this motif are found among other
cultural groups including the Baule people of the
Ivory Coast, and the Chokwe people in Central
Africa (Cruse 2007: 99, fig. 3.61).
Figure 60 Wooden comb, Bakuba, Demo
cratic Republic of Congo, before 1925 CE,
MAA, 1925.388 B, 13.8 x 5 x 2.8 cm
Human figures
Africans used the human form to decorate combs

on some of the very earliest examples (figure 25). We
are not certain what these male figures with shaved
heads represented to the people of Pre-Dynastic
58

Lwena or Luvale, Angola or
Zambia, before 1954 CE,
British Museum,
Af1954,+23.396,
21.5 x 6.5 x 2.5 cm
Figure 62 Wooden
comb, Lunda or Chokwe,
Democratic Republic of
Congo, before 1954 CE,
British Museum,
Af1954,+23.382,
21 x 9.75 x 3.5 cm
Figure 63 Wooden
comb, Lunda or Chokwe,
Democratic Republic of
Congo, before 1954 CE,
British Museum,
Af1954,+23.386,
Egypt. Nevertheless they indicate that the human form was seen to 13 x 7 x1.5 cm
be a valid handle decoration. Much later, the importance of hair
with regard to status is something that is referenced on the combs
of the Lwena or Luvale peoples from Angola or Zambia (figure
61). The height of the hair indicates that the subject is someone of
status, and thus the comb was probably made with such an owner
in mind. Other examples of combs from the Chokwe peoples show
headdresses that also indicate status, and scarification denoting
a cultural affiliation (Cruse 2007: 101, fig. 3.67); this means of
denoting a cultural group is also found among the hair combs of
the Luba people in the southern area of Democratic Republic of
Congo (Cruse 2007: 101, figs 3.67 and 3.69).
Status is indicated by a man on horseback, as seen on the late
sixteenth-century Benin comb (figure 16). Following the coloniz
ation of Africa, depictions of Europeans became part of masquerade
repertoire in some cultural groups, and this also transferred to
the hair combs. On a comb (figure 62) now housed in the British
Museum a man wearing a pith helmet sits upon a horse; his skin,
gloves and trousers are painted white.
Other figures of power and authority were commonly found on
combs belonging to the same region, but to a different workshop
and cultural group. One such example is a comb showing three
small figures (figure 63) each wearing a distinctive hat. Hats were
often used to represent officials such as the policeman character in
masquerade, or before the colonization of Africa they represented
palace guards, as we see on the carvings from the palaces of the
59
60
Oba of Benin. Headdresses also reference status or Figure 64 (opposite, left) Wooden comb,
Yaka, Democratic Republic of Congo, 20th
a ritual role. century CE, MAA, Z 23049,
Figures can have a symbolic meaning, and this 17.5 x 2.9 x 2.3 cm
is the case for combs manufactured by the Yaka
Figures 65 and 66 (opposite, centre and
people of the Democratic Republic of Congo. right) Wooden combs, Yaka, Democratic
The work made by artists became particularly Republic of Congo, before 1940 CE,
collectable in the first half of the twentieth century, MAA, 1940.90 A-B, 16 x 2.9 x 2.8 cm and
15.9 x 3.1 x 2.2 cm
and collectors and anthropologists commissioned
objects such as headrests and hair combs (Massing
and Ashton 2011: 612). The work of the Yaka
people seems to have proved especially appealing
because of their figurative pieces.
The hair combs typically have three widely set
teeth, and may have functioned as parting combs
or decorative adornments for the hair, possibly even
both (figure 64). The upturned noses and large ears
with the small official hat placed on top of the head
are typical of Yaka art. Another example shows the Figure 67 Wooden comb, Mozambique,
same figure, this time with a different hat (figure before 1926 CE, MAA, 1926.53,
65). These two combs, the other representing a 14.3 x 7.8 x 3 cm
dog (figure 66), were probably carved by the same
workshop and were purchased together.
The upturned noses are a reference to the
importance of smell among the Yaka people and
its association with sexual appetite (Devisch 1993:
135). The Yaka noses are often interpreted as
phallic, although it is not known whether the link
to sexual activity and fertility is shown literally
with a phallic nose, or symbolically through the
association with the olfactory sense.
A representation of a helmeted man is found on a
comb that probably has its origins in Mozambique
and is now in the collections of the Museum of
Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge
(figure 67). With a broken tooth and the remains
of hair in the teeth, this comb was clearly used at
some point rather than having been commissioned
for collection.
A comb made by an artist belonging to the Baga
people of Guinea (figure 68) depicts a powerful
representation of a female figure wearing an
elaborate hairstyle. The figure may be a reference
61
to status, fertility or religion. The accompanying

chequerboard pattern is one that is referenced in
a number of African cultures, and can highlight
opposites such as dark and light, male and female,
good and bad. On another comb that was collected
at the same time as this example the chequerboard
dominates the design on the handle (British
Museum: Af1965,03.3).
Combs depicting women on the handles (figure
69) often represent fertility. This is the case for the
kneeling figure on a comb that was roughly carved
around ten years ago, because the artist intended
to sand the surface when the comb was purchased.
Three out of a much larger batch were bought in
Figure 68 Wooden comb Baga, Guinea, Edo State, Nigeria in December 2012; they were
before 1965 CE, British Museum, stored in the back of the shop because nobody
Af1965,03.2, 36.5 x 8 x 4 cm had wanted to buy them. This was probably due
to the availability of plastic combs and because
the older wooden combs are not always the best
type for maintaining modern hairstyles. It is also
possible that the subject matter was not relevant
to an increasing number of people. The depiction
of humans on hair combs is something that goes
back to Pre-Dynastic Egypt (figure 25). With the
adoption of Islam geometric designs replaced
figurative combs. However, during fieldwork in
Edo State in 2012 Dr Ohioma Pogoson reported
that some Muslim artists still produce hair combs
decorated with figures, and do not see this as
conflicting with their religious beliefs.
Women are also represented on Akan combs,
representing beauty, fertility and life (Antiri 1974:
34). These combs are a direct reference to the
akuaba or fertility figures (Sieber and Herreman
2000: 85, 87, cat. 96). Women who are hoping to
conceive own akuaba figures; they carry the figures
with them and also care for them. And another
standard type of Ashanti comb shows a female
Figure 69 Wooden comb with a kneeling woman, Edo, Nigeria, late

20th century CE, Fitzwilliam Museum, 23.1 x 9 x 2.2 cm
62
figure with scarification on her face, again representing an ideal of

beauty (figure 57).
Animals and birds
Animals and birds appear on the earliest African hair combs and
remained a popular decorative element for the handles of combs and
reappeared in the Egyptian New Kingdom, continuing through to
the Late Antique period (chapters 3 and 4). The traditional animistic
religion of African cultures meant that gods were also represented
on hair combs in the forms of animals. Animals are also seen to
protect; they can represent fertility or status or a national symbol.
Animals are often tied to stories or legends relating to individual
cultures. The leopard in Benin, for example, is associated with the
legend of the elephant and leopard fighting for supremacy over the
land. Thus in this culture leopards are linked to royalty. The handle
of a large hair comb (figure 70) from Nigeria is carved in the form
of a female figure with raised arms holding what appears to be a
leopard, on the back of which are two birds. In many traditional
African cultures, including ancient Egypt and Sudan, birds are
associated with the soul. The fact that this hair comb is so large
suggests that its owner was someone of status. The figure is possibly
a fetish, accompanied by symbols of status and life.
Figure 70 Wooden comb

Ishan, Nigeria, before 1981
CE, MAA, 2010.19,
48.6 x 8.6 x 1.7 cm
63
The Ashanti comb (figure 59), mentioned above in relation to

the stool, is also carved with a serpent, a heart, palm trees, and
a sankofa bird. Hearts often appear on marriage combs, but can
also represent tolerance; and there is an abbreviated form of the
sankofa bird that resembles a more intricate heart-shaped design
(Antiri 1974: 34, no. 20). The serpent can represent a number of
different deities or protection. Finally, the sankofa bird represents
the cultural leader (Antiri 1974: 34). This particular comb is
recorded in the British Museum as the gift of the daughter of a
former government official, Sir Cecil Armitage, as part of a large
collection that he formed both during and after his time in West
Africa. We do not know whether the comb was purchased or a
given as a gift during Armitages time in Ghana. There are parallels
for the motifs on other Ashanti combs. An example now housed in
the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art (accession no.
70-34-34) bears similar symbols, with the bird as the central motif.
Lions also appear on combs, and like leopards are associated
with strength and power. Lizards, another symbol of masculinity
are also frequently found on traditional combs in Nigeria and
Ghana.
Trade and status
Trade with other cultural groups or regions symbolizes wealth and

is referenced on hair combs. The South African snuff spoons are
one example of this. Pins can also denote status, for example the
pin in the form of the staff of a leader (figure 71).* The combs
and snuff-spoons that are part of the traditional cultures of South
Africa, including but not exclusively Zulu, are worn as decorative
elements in the hair, but also convey status and spirituality (Nel
2000: 1589). Snuff was, at one time, a rare commodity and so
owning it represented wealth; at the same time the effects of snuff
linked the user to their ancestors (Nel 2000: 158). Snuff spoons
(figure 72) were worn in the hair in a pin-like form, but there are
also examples where three or four teeth have been carved at the
end of the handle in order to enable the object to be held more
securely in the hair (such as the pins in figure 71). There are even
versions of pod-like snuff holders on the end of such a pin, thus
* I am grateful to Dr Nessa Leibhammer for pointing this out.
64
Figure 71 Bone and elephant-hair hairpins, South Africa, before 1912, MAA, E 1914.90.27-31, 11.7 x 0.8 x 0.3 cm (x 5)
65
enabling the owner to store their snuff in a secure

place (Nel 2000: 157, cat. 148), while using the
object to advertise the owners status.
In addition to carved hair combs, beaded versions
with teeth of midribs of palm leaf and bamboo
were also produced in Malawi and Mozambique
in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Beads represent status, involvement with trade,
and so wealth, and can also signify key points on
a persons life (Carey 1986: 21). The Yao people
traditionally manufactured combs that were
decorated with beads, most usually black and white
glass beads (figures 73 and 74) but also pink and
lilac (figure 75; Carey 1986: 256 and 29 fig. 21).
Even though beads had been made in Africa for
thousands of years, including glass beads in Egypt,
the examples found on the Yao culture combs
were imported from Italy and Czechoslovakia
in the seventeenth century (Carey 1986: 5). Such
beads are manufactured by separating a tube of
glass into individual beads. There is a rich variety
of patterns and designs found on Yao combs, and
the same types appear in the modern countries of
Malawi and Mozambique, the latter being their
cultural home. In the 1830s Yao people moved into
Malawi, where similar combs are also found. The
access to glass may have come through the Arab
traders on the coast of Mozambique, with whom
they had contact. Contact with Arab people may
also have influenced the Yao leaders conversion to
Islam, which is now the primary religion alongside
the continuation of animism. These particular
combs are probably decorative rather than simply
functional; the heavily decorated handle would
accord with the use of beads for items of clothing
that were worn by Yao people, such as girdles
(Carey 1986: 289).
Figure 72 Bone and elephant-hair snuff spoon hairpins, South Africa,

before 1912 CE, MAA, E 1914.90.25 and E 1914.90.26,
21.4 x 1.7 x 0.2 cm and 19.7 x 1.6 x 0.3 cm
66
Figure 73 (above left)

Bamboo, midribs of palm
leaf, glass beads and
cotton thread comb, said
to be Angoni, possibly Yao,
Malawi, before 1895 CE,
MAA, E 1895.47,
9 x 5.6 x 0.4 cm
Figure 74 (above right)

Bamboo, midribs of palm
leaf, glass beads and cotton
thread comb, Yao, Malawi,
19th or 20th century CE,
MAA, Z 20968,
11 x 15.6 x 0.4 cm
Figure 75 (left) Bamboo,

midribs of palm leaf, glass
beads and cotton thread
comb, Yao, Malawi, 19th
or 20th century CE,
MAA, Z 20968,
5.7 x 3.2 x 0.5 cm
67
In Ivory Coast the Baule people traditionally manufactured

combs with gold leaf (Sieber and Herreman 2000: 126, cat. 115
16). And in Calabar, Nigeria, an early twentieth-century comb
with tin sheeting decorating the handle, gives the illusion of silver
(figure 76).
Politics and affiliation
Colours can also be symbolic in African art, and more recently

in the material culture of the African Diaspora. Hair combs often
have red and green handles, with a black body referencing the red,
green and black of the pan-African flag. Similarly the Black Fist
comb represents a political movement and is probably the best
recognized example of symbolism on an African comb. The Black
Figure 76 Wood and tin
comb, Calabar, Nigeria, Fist Afro comb (figure 1) is an iconic symbol of the second half on
before 1902, British the twentieth century (see chapter 7). The reference to the Black
Museum, Af1902,0516.17, Power movement and the re-emergence of the pick in the USA to
20 x 6 x 1 cm
serve the Afro hairstyle were not only part of an era and a political
affiliation, but for many the comb has become a representation of
Black pride and identity (Tulloch 2008).
As part of the preparation for the Origins of the Afro Comb
exhibition (2013), I interviewed a number of people who, when
asked what the comb means to them have responded with: Black
Power, Black pride, Nelson Mandelas release, its just a nice
shape and unity. For younger generations this form of comb
seems to take on a sense of retro or old skool; it is even referenced
in a song by the Chicago-based group BBU: look for the homes
with the Black Fist combs in their 2009 song Chi Dont Dance.
The early examples and those still manufactured by the original
company, Antonios in the USA, have the peace sign in the circle
at the base of the handle but examples for sale that have been
manufactured in China tend to have either an A or a B cut out of
the central hole. These early combs were appropriately moulded
from black plastic; however, during the 1980s a faux wooden
version appeared. The wood-look version is now difficult to find,
and in most instances where people possess one it seems to have
been something that was passed down through the family.
Ironically, the combs are now being manufactured in China, as
indicated by the embossed words, which sit, incongruously, on the
front of the comb. A variety of different picks and combs are also
now available, including those with metal teeth. Not surprisingly
68
the variety of forms now available reference the range of traditional

combs in Africa, which have served different types of hair and
hairstyles for thousands of years.
In addition to being manufactured in the USA and then China,
the combs were, and still are, manufactured in Africa. In December
2012, in preparation for the exhibition, Dr Ohioma Pogoson,
a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of African Studies,
University of Ibadan, purchased a variety of different-coloured
plastic combs from Nigeria for the 2013 exhibition. Several were
in the form of the Black Fist comb, but they were produced in a
variety of different colours, including pink, blue, red, green and
yellow (some are illustrated on the title page above). Purchased
on a local market, there were two distinctive forms: one embossed
with the word Elegant, and the other with a reference number
discreetly positioned above the teeth. It is assumed locally that
the Elegant combs are made in China, as indeed are many of
the plastic combs that are for sale in Nigeria today, as indicated
by their wrappings. However, I am unsure whether the name is a
brand, a company, or an aesthetic statement (figure 2). Moulded
on the surface of the second group of combs is: SMCL 0043 NIG.
I believe that these combs are manufactured in Nigeria and that
they are evidence of the adoption of African American culture in
Africa. That SMCL 0043 is a product number and that NIG refers
to the country of origin. This would not be the first example of
such an exchange. Many of the painted wooden barbershop signs
in a number of African countries reference hairstyles such as the
Mike Tyson or American. This form of cultural exchange is not
a new phenomenon.
In 2013 I was presented with a remarkable example of the
Black Fist comb by the artist Atta Kwami, with whom I have also
had the pleasure to work on the Origins of the Afro Comb project
(figure 77). The comb is interesting for two reasons. First, there
can be no doubt that it was manufactured in Nigeria as it bears
the statement: papilon industry limited / a natural beauty
product / made in nigeria. Second, we know about its history.
The comb belonged to Attas mother, the artist Grace Salome
Kwami, who purchased the comb when visiting her sons who were
working in the Cross River State, Nigeria in 1982 or 1983. Atta
remembers his mother buying the comb at either the market or
station on her way back to Ghana via Ibadan. In an interview
about the comb, Atta now wonders if his mothers involvement in
the Kumasi realism school influenced her choice of colour, and if
69
Figure 77 Plastic comb made and purchased in Nigeria, early 1980s CE, Fitzwilliam Museum, 16.4 x 7.4 x 1 cm
70
she identified with the depiction of the clenched fist not necessarily
for what it represented, but on account of its form (Kwami 2013).
Having access to such knowledge is a stark reminder of how we
are prone to make assumptions about objects and what they meant
to their owners. This form of comb may have been mass-produced,
but as the story of Grace Salome Kwamis comb demonstrates,
each example has its own history and meaning. Unfortunately for
the majority of African hair combs we have lost this thread and we
can only guess or assume what they meant to their owners.
71
6
More than just a comb
Alternative functions and new forms
Symbolism
In Ghanaian Adinkra symbols the comb or duafe represents

femininity, fertility and beauty. Outside Africa the duafe has also
become a popular motif for jewellery in the USA and UK, and has
even been incorporated with other Adinkra symbols into tattoo
designs. In her article The resounding power of the afro comb
(2008) Carol Tulloch explores the meaning of the comb among
people of the African Diaspora, and references a connection and a
sense of pride that the image of a Black Fist comb instils in many
people, partly because of the cultural reference to the Black Power
movement, but also because of the comb itself. In the opening pages
of her article the Black Fist comb and the word beautiful on a T-shirt
gave the symbol of the comb a newly imbued meaning in addition
to the existing political cultural messages associated with it.
Status
In the early cultures of ancient Egypt and Sudan combs were

placed in graves (chapter 3) and were associated with the burials
of men, women and children. Their designs reflected items that
were associated with the animal kingdom such as bulls horns,
representing strength and power. Some motifs like the double bird
were also found on other objects relating to beautification, such as
the stone palettes for grinding make-up. This link continued later
in the New Kingdom, where ducks and ibex that decorated comb
72
Figure 78 George Weeks

photograph, taken in
southern Nigeria, about
19101920 CE, MAA
handles were also found on cosmetic dishes and containers. Such

items were associated with wealth and status and so, in an indirect
way, combs in the Dynastic period retained their original meaning.
Even in more recent traditional African societies the quantity of
combs and the materials from they were made represented a clear
statement of wealth and status (figure 78). Larger hair combs are
often associated with the royal house (figure 16). The Sowei masks
that were worn by Mende women in Sierra Leone indicate that
hairstyles and, in some cases, the inclusion of a comb in the hair,
(figure 79) were seen to represent ideal beauty (Siegmann 2000:
715).
Home furnishing
In some parts of West Africa large combs are manufactured

according to traditional ways and are used as decoration for the
home. On one such example, dating to the mid-twentieth century
and now housed in the Smithsonian National Museum of African
73
Figure 79 Sowei mask

worn by Mende women,
before 1948, British
Museum, Af1948,02.5,
38 x 24 x 26 cm
Art, a mirror belonging to the Ashanti cultural group is supported

by a frame in the form of a hair comb (accession no. 68-36-302),
complete with a stand at the back to assist usage. Some of these
items were doubtless made for the outside art markets, or for the
anthropologists and later tourists who were commissioning combs
in the areas where they were working or visiting in the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries. On another example from the same
museum four traditional reed combs (accession no. 71-3-17), are
74
Figure 80 Wooden comb

Edo Nigeria, a Benin-style
comb, modern commission,
2012 CE, Fitzwilliam
Museum, 24.2 x 12.4 x
2.7 cm
fastened together, creating what appears to be a wall decoration,

rather than a hair ornament on account of its form and size.* The
newly produced combs from Nigeria (figure 80) have a hole at the
back to enable the comb to be hung on the wall (Pogoson 2013). It
is of course possible that the symbol of the comb has a talismanic
or cultural reference and it is for this reason that some people may
choose to hang combs on their walls. Sometimes people simply
like African combs.
* I would like to acknowledge and thank Dr Bryna Freyer for suggesting this as
we looked through the hair combs in the NMAA collections in December 2011.
75
Protection
From its earliest appearance in Africa the combs use as a talismanic
symbol has been referenced. An abbreviated comb on the end of
hairpins in the Pre-Dynastic period, alongside a spoon, and pins
with representations of animals (figure 81) suggests that the comb
could represent something other than a tool. This form of hairpin
can also be found in the New Kingdom (figure 36), although it is
unclear in this case if the miniature comb was symbolic or part of
a tool. Supporting this idea, the early Egyptians wore amulets in
the form of a comb (Brunton 1937: pl. XLII.41; Petrie and Quibell
1896: 28, pl. LXIII.52; Petrie 1920: pl. XXX). Stone versions of
combs were interpreted as scratch combs (Petrie 1927: 25), but
may also have functioned as amulets. Amulets in the Pre-Dynastic
period usually have holes drilled through them, as figure 27 on a
miniature comb with very short teeth and a name, probably that of
the owner, inscribed upon it. The form of the early comb amulets
is different to the full-sized hair combs of this period. The amulets
are wide, horizontal in form with shortly defined teeth, in contrast
to the combs, which are of the pick variety (type 1).
The power of the comb
The comb is believed to have special properties in more recent

African cultures. Doris (2011) recorded the importance of the hair
comb in Yoruba culture in the 1990s. The comb is an important
tool in the detangling of strands of hair and as such one Yoruba
name for the comb is y, which means to be apart or to separate
(Doris 2011: 268). The combing of hair is seen to be a painful,
time-consuming act (Doris 2011: 269) and as such the y is
linked to separation and suffering. Thus, if a man sends a comb to
his lover or friend it means that they separated (Opadotun 1986;
Olabimtan 1977; quoted in Doris 2011: 269).
This connection is referenced by the use of the hair comb in l
in Yoruba culture. l are used to protect property and consist of
a variety of objects that are intended to warn any prospective thief
of the punishment that will be received if the items or object is
taken (Doris 2011: 46). Once the appropriate items are assembled
a medicine or words are spoken over the l (Doris 2011: 523).
Among the l that Doris recorded in Ondo State in 1998, one
76
Figure 81 Excavation
photograph from the
cemetery at Abadiya
showing a Pre-Dynastic
skull with combs,
published 18989 CE
Courtesy of the Egypt
Exploration Society
included a hair comb (Doris 2011: 523 and 55, pl. 1.9) along
with a broom, a cloth, a worn-out shoe, fibre and wood. This l
represented poverty; the comb in particular meant suffering never
parts from it. Doris noted that during his research he only saw a
few combs used in l (Doris 2011: 268), but felt this was not
representative of their importance in such practices.
Many of Doriss informers and interviewees who had constructed
l practised Christianity or Islam (2008: 24). The traditional
practice did not seem to clash with conversion to new religions,
which has been found to be the case in many African regions
and among the African Diaspora. This has been the case since
the earliest conversions to Christianity and Islam in the East and
the continuation of traditional cultural activities alongside Islam
among Nubian people is another good example of the coexistence
of belief systems.
There is a certain degree of suspicion surrounding hair combs
even among community members in the UK. In March 2013, as
part of the outreach for the Origins of the Afro Comb Project,
Ohioma Pogoson and I took some newly acquired hair combs that
he had purchased in Nigeria to show a group of adult barbering
students in one of the prisons where I regularly work. Ohioma had
77
found that some taxi drivers strap a comb underneath their cars in
order to protect their vehicles by parting a safe way for their car
on the roads (Pogoson 2013). In relating this story to the students
some became uncomfortable with the combs, with one connecting
it to Caribbean Obeah, the practice of using traditional African
rituals to protect, resolve a problem or do harm to another. One
student said that he would like to try a comb, and when I said
that he would be welcome to do so, he declined and said that it
might be cursed. This prompted a discussion on the protection of
hair and how in many Caribbean cultures it was not acceptable to
share a comb, not only because of reasons of hygiene but for fear
of Obeah. During a subsequent visit when one of the students saw
me, he again referenced what had been said about the use of hair
combs in some regions of Nigeria, explaining to another student
who had not been present that it was voodoo. On a separate
occasion, during a lecture that I gave at the British Museum in
March 2013, a member of the audience raised the issue of African
people not wishing to throw away a comb because many people
still believed that if it fell into the wrong hands it could prove
dangerous for the original owner.
In contrast to Yoruba beliefs, among the Ashanti people combs
are often given as gifts to potential lovers and brides (Antiri 1974:
32) giving the object quite the opposite meaning to a Yoruba gift
of a comb. The power of a comb is acknowledged by the fact that
if one is presented as a gift it is not uncommon for a woman to
take it to a priestess to have it cleansed (Antiri 1974: 32). This is
because of the importance of protecting the hair with which the
comb would come into contact.
It is not only the visual that is symbolic on combs that were
manufactured by the Akan peoples. The way in which these
traditional combs were made is also a crucial part of their form.
Janet Adwoa Antiri (1974: 33) describes the ritual of making a
comb among the Akan peoples:
To carve a comb, the craftsman first purifies the tools by sacrificing a

fowl, or at least an egg, upon them. He then cuts a piece of sese or wawa
wood, removes the bark, splits it with his sosopayee (carving hoe), and
flattens the wood to the desired width with his pewa-pasuo, a kind of
carpenters plane. The single row of teeth is then marked with a sharp
needle and patiently carved and scarped out with the dawuruwa and
pewa, both chisel-like tools.
78
7
400 years without a comb?
Rethinking the Diaspora
In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries Europeans visiting Africa

were fascinated by the hairstyles that they saw (White and White:
51; Byrd and Tharps 2001: 24, 89). The social unacceptability of
African hair was very much a part of the later process of enslavement
and oppression that African people were forced to endure in a
racist, oppressive society. Pointing to differences between the
captive and the enslavers was a weak excuse to validate the way in
which people were treated. White western society was responsible
for the development of theories around the concept of race, which
became another way in which the dominant social group could
assert its authority over peoples who were seen to be different.
However, in addition to considering racism, social deprivation
and the class structure are also important for understanding how
African people were viewed following the initiation of the slave
trade; furthermore, gender is often overlooked when looking at
the subject of African hair (Banks 2000: 1012).
In the racist ideologies and classifications of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, hair, like skin colour and other physical
attributes, was used to distinguish and categorize people as other
(Mercer 1987: 35). Some historians have suggested that it was in
fact the texture of hair and not skin colour that divided the captives
from the plantation owners (Morrow 1973: 17; Patterson 1982:
61) and that this then became a social division among African
people of the Diaspora (Mercer 1987: 357), still evident today
in some Diaspora communities. Archaeology, historical and visual
sources from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in America in
particular suggest that many people of African descent maintained
their hair and their cultural connections, while developing new
African American styles.
Finding evidence for hair combs among the early African
79
Diaspora is not an easy task. I have attempted to assemble

information mainly from the research of others in order to
illustrate hair and so the types of combs that people might have
used. An important recent development in the literature is the
realization that many African traditions withstood the Middle
Passage through the resilience of the Africans who were captured.
I have endeavoured to focus on the continuation of traditional
African combs rather than exploring the history of the hot comb
or straightening combs, since this is covered perfectly adequately
elsewhere (Byrd and Tharps 2001: 35, 137; Cruse 2007: 72; Leone
2010: 18990).
Maroons
The English term Maroon comes from the Spanish cimarrn. As

with many references to African people the root of this word is
derogatory in that it was originally used for animals that ran into
the mountains (Price 1979: 12). The term is given to any group
of peoples who managed to escape from enslavement and to live
outside the control of the colonial powers. To protect themselves
people fled to higher ground, thus gaining a strategic advantage
over any attempts to recapture them. Maroons existed wherever
there was enslavement; some Maroon communities such as the
settlements in Jamaica and Suriname existed for centuries, but
many were temporary in their nature (Weik 1997: 812).
At the museum in Accompong, Jamaica, the displays demonstrate
strong connections to the Ashanti people of Ghana, through gifts
and exchanges that have taken place. The Maroon community
still functions traditionally with elected elders and a colonel. The
position of Accompong, high up in the Jamaican hills, is typical
of one type of Maroon environment; elsewhere people escaped to
rain forests or swamps (Price 1979: 5).
It is often assumed that for the Maroon communities in the
Americas and the Caribbean continuing their traditional cultures
and practices would have been easier than for those African people
who remained captives. We might assume that this included the
importance of hair and its maintenance. However, it is well to
remember that many groups of Maroons were faced with the
threat of attack on a daily basis by the Europeans who controlled
the island and mainland territories, thus creating an artificial
80
state with the constant threat of recapture. Two phases have

been identified for many groups, the first consisting of a nomadic
existence, the second of the establishment of settlements (Weik
1997: 82). It is also worth considering that recent studies suggest
that Maroon communities were far from isolated and that they
traded with outside groups, including Europeans (Weik 1997:
823). In Jamaica the British were forced to concede to a treaty
in 1738/9, thus awarding the Maroons a degree of autonomy and
considerable power. The local museum at Accompong celebrates
this with a copy of the treaty.
There are drawings and paintings of the early Maroons. As with
most visual representations of people of the African Diaspora, we
see these communities through the lens of Eurocentric and racist
eyes (White and White 1995). Many of the paintings of African
people in the eighteenth century show the traditional African
practice of wearing a decorative head-wrapping to protect the
hair; this is true of both men and women, and of Maroons and
captive African people. It is therefore difficult to fully understand
the importance of hair among Maroon societies. Furthermore, no
combs have been found on the excavations that have taken place
in the Caribbean, although it is fair to say that these are far from
extensive. Because many groups of Maroons have had more recent
contact with West African cultural groups, it is possible that the
tradition of comb making has been re-introduced to some Diaspora
communities, which is an interesting and natural phenomenon in
its own right, but it does not assist our knowledge of the types
of combs that earlier communities were using. In fact the art of
Maroon people is dynamic and responsive in the same way that
African crafts and art are not static.
Maroon communities did not necessarily originate from a single
cultural group; their arts and crafts potentially draw from a number
of mother traditions. However, it is important to note that if we
compare material from a number of cultural groups from Nigeria
for example, we find many connections, which suggest a single
cultural tradition with varying manifestations over place and time.
Evidence from Chesapeake also suggests that by the eighteenth
century African people came from the same regions and that the
initial mixing of cultural groups was no longer in practice (Walsh
2000: 4).
The adoption and production of Colonoware (Hulme 1962),
a type of pottery manufactured from the sixteenth to nineteenth
centuries, has been cited as an example of resistance among African
81
Americans (Ferguson 1992). Ferguson suggests this for two reasons:

first, that this type of ceramic follows a West African tradition;
and second, because the form of pottery was very different, and
Ferguson believes deliberately so, from the tableware that was
used by Europeans. This material also provides a good example of
cultural connections between African people and the First Nation
Americans.
The Maroon peoples both maintain their African heritage and
seem, in many cases, to have developed a strong independent
cultural identity of their own. The idea that displaced people create
a new society and identity for themselves is much debated with
regard to the extent to which people look back to their place of
origin in order to form a new identity (Alleyne 1988: 223). That
people came from a variety of different cultural groups needs to be
considered within the wider context of the connections between
these social groups. When people are removed from the isolation
of a single group it makes sense that they would make connections
with each others traditions, enabling a more concentrated merger
than would have perhaps naturally happened via trade. Trade and
contact between Maroon groups, and then with wider communities
as time progressed, has also impacted on traditional combs. The
anthropologists Sally and Richard Price noted an explosion of
copying in French Guiana among Saramaka carvers due, not only
to local external influences, but also to the use of books depicting
the arts of the Suriname Rain Forest (1999: 1689, fig. 5.50).
These combs were largely produced for the tourist market, another
external influence on the production of material culture among the
African Diaspora.
The Suriname Maroons have maintained a tradition of comb
carving, largely among the women. Dating to the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, it is clear to see that in form the combs are
like many African long-tooth combs with decorated handles.
These combs were collected by anthropologists and are currently
housed in European museums. As a group the combs lack the
variety of forms and decorative styles that are found in West Africa
at this time. The form of carving is also notably different with
flattened teeth rather than rounded, as found on the majority of
West African hair combs. Photographs from the early twentieth
century of Maroon people in Suriname reveal both short-cut hair
and more styled, perhaps traditional, hairstyles (Kahn 1931; Price
and Price 1999: 60). In fact parallel photographs from West Africa
at this time reveal a very similar division and occurrence among
82
people living in rural areas. On both continents some community

members adopted European dress, and a hairstyle that was for
men to encompass a single parting line.
It was not only the Maroons who resisted European control over
their cultural heritage and identity. Many other captives did so on
a daily basis and this is perhaps most apparent in countries such
as Haiti or Cuba, where African religious practices were continued
alongside the conversion to Christianity. It is in the USA where
we find considerable documentation relating to hair and grooming
among captive African people and where a more critical approach
to interpreting historical and archaeological data has enabled a
very different view of how people resisted interference with their
cultures on a daily basis. Patterson identified both passive and
active forms of resistance among captive people (1967) citing acts
such as tool damage through to organized revolts.
Although, as historians, we tend to focus on the experiences of
the captive Africans, it is well to remember that there were also
freed people of African descent during the colonial period (Weik
1997; Singleton 1991). Much important work is still being done
to explore the history and experiences of people belonging to the
African Diaspora; archaeology and critical historical approaches
have much to offer in terms of helping us to fully comprehend
this area. In their important 1995 article, Slave hair and African
American culture in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
Shane White and Graham White differentiate between attitudes
towards hair before the Civil War and those in the first half of the
twentieth century, when African-type hair had strongly negative
connotations, particularly among African Americans who held
positions of authority or power. Their study of historical sources
led them to conclude (1995: 48) that hair was one of the few areas
in which people of African descent were able to express themselves.
The archaeological record has more recently highlighted other
areas in which African people maintained a sense of cultural
autonomy.
Captive Africans and African American people
A key element when considering material culture associated

with people of the African Diaspora is the politics of race and
racialized identities. Historical sources and archaeology are open
83
to different interpretations. Those people who undertake the task

to interpret history bring their own subjectivity and potential bias
to the sources, and they have the power to dramatically impact
how we view the past. This point can be illustrated clearly in the
two very different interpretations of hair combs among Africans
and African Americans who were enslaved.*
On the one hand is Willie L. Morrows publication 400 Years
Without a Comb (1973), which argues that hair was neglected
on account of the conditions that many captured African people
found themselves in, especially in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, not only during their transportation, but also when they
arrived in the Caribbean or the Americas. Morrow goes on to
suggest that the resulting matted, infested hair caused Europeans
to hold African hair in disdain, and for Africans themselves to
become self-loathing (1973: 23). More recently, this view has been
challenged by academics.
An increasing number of historians have started to adopt a more
critical approach to the archaeology and history of the African
Diaspora, and the emergence of Diaspora Studies most notably
in the USA (Leone et al. 2005; Leone 2010). This movement has
involved the adoption of critical race theory to confront the Euro
centric and racist agendas that have appeared in the writing of
history in the past. This approach does not seek to downplay the
horrific levels of oppression that members of the African Diaspora
who were enslaved had to endure both in transport and their
subsequent lives. It attempts, though, to adopt a broader approach
to the history of the African Diaspora (Leone et al. 2005) and to
look equally at acts of resistance among this group of people, not
only with respect to the Maroons but in the ability of many African
people to continue aspects of their cultures in spite of the situation
in which they found themselves. The difference between these two
approaches can be best illustrated by two interpretations of why
some members of the African Diaspora straightened their hair:
Experimenting with his matted hair, the slave tried desperately to change
the hairs natural structure, from kinkyness to stringey-ness to look like
the masters (Morrow 1973: 51).
* I use these two terms in order to distinguish between the experiences of those
who endured the Middle Passage and had a direct and personal memory of
culture in Africa, and those people who were of African descent, but who were
born in the Americas or Caribbean.
84
Also known as a straightening comb. Hair straightening had a double

meaning and intention among African Americans, because straightening
was used to create the image of accommodating European tastes but was
done so deliberately, not to deny African American identity, but to indicate
knowledge of the White world and its racist demands (Leone 2010: 189).
Of course, it is impossible to know why an individual would choose

to style his or her hair in a certain way. The crucial difference
between these two interpretations is that the first denotes a
degree of shame with regard to how people of African descent
viewed their hair; the other implies a degree of resistance through
identifying a coping mechanism and adopting it. Many people
still feel the psychological impact of an enslaved ancestry (Akbar
1987; Patterson 1967). Frantz Fanon argued that these patterns
were because the ancestors of many people who are part of the
Diaspora survived the same horrific experiences of being taken
from Africa and sold into slavery, but each colony was unique,
indeed many plantations operated in different ways and when
looking at this subject it is important not to extrapolate across
chronological periods, countries or even regions. It is also true that
within a single group of people individuals responded to aspects of
the system differently over time.
Even with more recent oral histories or statements we receive
a single, albeit valid, view of an event or time period, and it is
likely that if you were to ask others, no two recollections would
be identical. It is important to note that members of the African
Diaspora cannot be viewed as a single autonomous group. This
observation is certainly true of the history of the Afro comb,
although interestingly patterns are emerging in the stories that have
been recorded for the Origins of the Afro Comb project among
members of the African Diaspora in different parts of the world.
There were also differences across time. Africans who arrived
in the seventeenth century entered a different society from those
in the eighteenth and nineteenth (Berlin 1998). These early people
had some knowledge of European culture (Walsh 2000: 12)
when compared to the African people who were brought from
the interior. Berlin categorized these two groups as the charter
generation and plantation generation. With regard to the
archaeological evidence Walsh observes that the key differences
were in fact between African people brought to the USA before
and after the Revolution and that it is here where a true African
American identity begins to emerge.
85
The USA in the eighteenth and nineteenth

centuries
As noted, we have evidence from primary historical sources and

visual representations of African people in America in the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries. However, this information is presented
through the eyes of colonialism and can prove to be confusing,
subjective and biased. Fortunately, we also have an archaeological
record to turn to, and while the interpretation of early excavations
often neglected the African American presence, reinterpretation of
data and new excavations have revealed important information
with regard to hair combs used by captive African people.
There are also hundreds of descriptions of captive people who
had escaped from the plantations where they worked, and some
of these contain references to styles of hair (Windley 1983). If we
consider references to some of the hairstyles they indicate that some
of the African people who were described maintained traditional
hairstyles (White and White 1995). However, this evidence is
unbalanced because the majority of the people who escaped were
young men who probably had no family ties; women are few
among the descriptions, presumably because it was more difficult
for them to flee along with their children (Heath 1999: 55; White
and White 1995: 53). Hair, like clothing, jewellery and other forms
of adornment, was one of the few ways people could maintain
their identity; in the case of clothing, it could even provide a better
means of escaping under the guise of being a freed person (Heath
1999: 534). Holding on to traditional material culture can also
be interpreted, as mentioned, as a form of resistance to the colonial
regime.
When people escaped from plantations, as they regularly did,
their descriptions were placed in local newspapers (Windley 1983).
In these adverts African hair is typically and ignorantly described
with the derogative term wool; a descriptive that was insisted
upon regardless of the texture of a persons hair (White and
White 1995: 578). A number of styles that are described seem to
incorporate parts of the head being shaved, with the hair grown
on other parts. A man named Tom was mentioned on 28 August
1777 in the Annapolis Maryland Gazette; his hair was described
as combed up before, and his crown is oftentimes shaved (White
and White 1995: 55). On 16 September 1784 an advert in the
Annapolis Maryland Gazette described a man named Jamess
86
hairstyle as the top of his head is cut short, and all of the other
part of the wool [sic] is left pretty long, turned up before in the
fashion (White and White 1995: 55).
Patterning of hair is also described in the advertisements. In the
Annapolis Maryland Gazette on 3 June 1790 Sams hair was cut
in a circular form on the crown of his head (White and White
1995: 55). The part-shaving of heads is mentioned on numerous
occasions in relation to African American men and was often
combined with the combing up of hair on top of the head (White
and White 1995: 545). If we compare the photographs taken by
early anthropologists working in West Africa it is possible to find
parallels for some of the descriptions of African people in America
(figures 82 and 83). Patterning, as it is now called, was one of the
ways in which men in some regions of Africa denoted their status
and/or cultural affiliations. Some of the photographs from the late
1800s and early 1900s have a remarkably modern appearance
and would not look out of place today. By the nineteenth century
men frequently shaved their hair or maintained a close cut. This
Figure 82
Photograph from the
Northcote W. Thomas
Collection, taken in
south Nigeria before
1914, MAA,
P.119614.NWT
87
Figure 83 Photograph
from the Northcote W.
Thomas Collection, taken
in south Nigeria before
1914, MAA
P.119615NWT
may have been a response to the society in which people found

themselves, but it is important to note that the shaving of heads is
found in a number of African cultures (White and White 1995: 59)
and, as mentioned, on representations of Maroons.
However, when men were captured in Africa and transported
their heads were often shaved, as recorded by Ayuba Suleiman Diallo
in his narrative in the mid-eighteenth century. For women having
their heads shaved was a punishment (White and White 1995: 54;
68; Heath 1999: 55). This often related to envy of long wavy hair
among captive women by the wife of the plantation owner. This
phenomenon was often the result of captive African women having
children who were part European, either having been raped or as
the mistress of the plantation owner. It must also be remembered
that given the numbers of different curl patterns found on African-
type hair, some women may have had hair that was deemed to be
acceptable by the European aesthetics of the day.
There are descriptions of womens hair dating to the 1770s
which suggest that some chose to wear their hair in a natural state.
A woman named Jemima was described on 14 November 1771
in the Virginia Gazette as having a large bushy head (White and
White 1995: 54); another woman named Jenny was said to have
a very bushy head of hair in the same newspaper on 28 January
88
1775 (White and White 1995: 54). A woman named Kate was
described in the State Gazette of South-Carolina on 18 February
1790 as having bushy hair, which she is apt to keep uncombed
(White and White 1995: 54). Whether or not Kates hair was
uncombed, given that the person commenting was not of African
descent, is not certain. It is possible that her hair was in its natural
state and combed but that it was simply not styled in a manner that
the European describing Kates hair understood (White and White
1995: 54).
As time progressed and African Americans outnumbered people
who were brought directly from Africa, styles and traditions would
have been affected. The architect Benjamin Latrobe recorded a
possible example of such a style in two paintings during his stay at
the home of Bathurst Jones in Hanover, Virginia, in 1797 (White
and White 1995: 46 and 56, figs. 1 and 3). One illustration shows
a man combing anothers hair; the formers hair is styled in such
a way that it is combed up at the front and then split into two
plaits at the back. Similarly, Latrobes profile drawing of a man
named Alic shows the same high-combed hair at the front, shaved
sides and a single plait at the back of the head. Such styles do
not replicate the wigs worn by Europeans at this time, which also
often incorporate small pigtails at the back, but seem rather to be
particular to African American people. Indeed, White and White
found examples of people of African descent owning wigs in the
eighteenth century; as for contemporary Europeans this would have
been a mark of social status (1995: 5960). It is possible that the
hairstyles described in advertisements and recorded by Latrobe are
a response to outside stimuli, but it is important to note that they
maintain their own style. Outside influence from another source
has also been postulated. It has also been suggested that some of
the hairstyles may have been influenced by contact with the First
Nation Americans, who like African people had a long tradition of
styling hair according to status and cultural affiliation (White and
White 1995: 5960).
There is another point to consider. When people were still in
their country of origin, not everyone was awarded the privilege of
wearing a distinctive hairstyle. As noted, status and also cultural
groups impacted on how an individual wore their hair. For those
working in the fields in America it would have been impractical
to maintain traditional styles even if they were desirable. One
interesting connection between people on both continents is the
use of head-wrappings to protect the hair while it was being
89
conditioned, maintained, or simply to keep it out of the way during

the day-to-day tasks that people performed (White and White
1995: 706). Like hair, scarves could also be used to mark status
and affiliation, and in typical African style people personalized
their head wrappings so that they became a part of African
American culture in the early twentieth century (White and White
1995: 734). The covering of the head and the wearing of scarves
is part of many African cultures (Sieber and Herreman 2000: 71).
In America the contrast between the week and Sundays is
highlighted by a description by Joseph. H. Ingraham published in
1835 (cited in White and White 1995: 45).
In every cabin the men are shaving and dressing the women, arrayed in
their gay muslins, are arranging their frizzy hair, in which they take no
little pride, or investigating the condition of their childrens heads the
old people neatly clothed are quietly conversing or smiling about their
doors.
Both here, and in other eighteenth-century descriptions of African

people preparing for church, there is a communal aspect involved
(White and White 1995: 46). Not only would such activities bond the
communities of people, but they also evoke parallel scenes in West
Africa at the same time. The activity of grooming and socializing
is something that is at the heart of traditional African culture and
one that can still be seen today in home salons in some parts of the
Caribbean. Young women who have mainly learnt to plait and
braid hair through observation are highly skilled at maintaining
the hair of family members, each other, and also members of the
local community. In this informal setting I observed that it was not
uncommon for people to cover their hair in between sittings or to
take out their braids and then have to wait to find someone who
was available to style their hair (see figure 3).
The archaeological record
It has largely been assumed that captive African Americans had no

tools with which to maintain or style their hair (Morrow 1973;
White and White 1985: 50). People who had been enslaved and
who were interviewed in the early part of the twentieth century
made reference to carding combs being used on wet hair, often in
90
Figure 84 Double-sided
comb excavated from the
cabin site known as KES
at The Hermitage, which
dates between 1804 to the
early 1820s CE
Courtesy of The Digital
Archaeological Archive
of Comparative Slavery
(www.daacs.org)
an attempt to straighten it (White and White 1985: 6970; Byrd

and Tharps 2001: 13). However, archaeological evidence from
eighteenth- and nineteenth-century plantations throughout the
American South indicate that enslaved individuals had access to
bone and metal hair combs (DAACS 2013; Sanford 1994: 126,
table 8.4)
Bone and metal combs from excavations at Thomas Jeffersons
Monticello estate in Charlottesville, Virginia, where enslaved people
were living, give direct clues to how people cared for their hair.
Fragments of two double-sided bone combs were found at Building
o, which dates to between about 1770 and 1800. Fragments of
another double-sided comb were found at the Building l site. A
single-sided fine-toothed comb was found at the Building s site.
These structures are located along Mulberry Row, Monticellos
main street of small stone, frame and log buildings that housed
enslaved, free and indentured house servants and craftsmen
(Neiman 2010). The closely set teeth of these bone combs suggest
that they were used as head-lice combs, often called nit combs.
This implies that they served a useful function promoting hygiene
and were not intended as adornment. These combs are very similar
in style and form to some of the hair combs from Roman Egypt
(figure 45). Although I am not suggesting any cultural link between
the two, it appears that the functional design has recurred because
it is both practical and effective.
Among the combs found at Building l was an unusual metal
example (figure 85) with widely spaced teeth. Unlike the bone nit
combs from Monticello, which all appear to have been used for
hygienic purposes, this one may have had an ornamental function,
91
Figure 85 Metal comb

from Building l, Monticello,
around 17751825 CE
(www.daacs.org)
used to adorn and dress hair. It is not dissimilar to examples

found in West Africa, in particular in Nigeria, among a number of
cultural groups. As with the Nigerian material this form of comb
could have functioned as both a tool and decorative adornment.
At The Hermitage Plantation outside Nashville Tennessee,
which was home to the seventh president of the United States,
Andrew Jackson, a number of bone hair combs were also found.
Both double-sided combs and combs with more widely spaced
teeth were recovered from dwellings on the site that dated from
the early 1800s to the 1860s. A particularly interesting hair comb
was found at the Cabin 3 site at The Hermitage. The teeth are
wider than the head-lice combs, and this comb is also inscribed
with a single letter, perhaps the initial of its owner (figure 86). The
comb is of the short-tooth variety, but this is still a form that was
used in Africa; it is, in fact, very similar to the combs that appeared
around 1550 BCE in Egypt.
Figure 86 Bone comb

from Cabin 3 at The
Hermitage, dating from
1820s to 1850s
(www.daacs.org)
92
Hair combs can therefore be associated with sites where

captive people lived. The archaeological data held by The Digital
Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery (DAACS; www.
daacs.org) indicates that over fifty-five bone comb fragments
have been found at fourteen domestic sites of slavery throughout
Virginia and Tennessee that date from the mid-eighteenth to mid-
nineteenth centuries (DAACS 2013b). Bakelite and rubber combs
were also found in later occupational phases at the sites, indicating
that occupants at these sites post-emancipation sought combs
for hygiene, grooming and adornment. Thanks to the broadly
comparative data in DAACS, we can see that no bone hair combs
have been found on the Jamaican and Nevisian sites currently
contained in the Archive, suggesting that enslaved people on these
islands were using alternatives to hand-made bone combs.
The twentieth and twenty-first centuries
The psychoanalysis of hair has been critiqued by a number of

scholars over the past thirty years (Mercer 1987). Scholars writing
on the subject of hair among people of the African Diaspora
divide between assimilationists and nationalists, and for the
latter any change in hairstyle that hints at being European in style
or inspiration is interpreted as representing self-loathing (Banks
2000: 8). Such subjectivity has been criticized by scholars (Tyler
1990; Kelley 1997), who argue that although the straightening of
African hair is often interpreted as a desire to associate with White
culture, this is not always the case, that people appropriate and
adopt aspects of other cultures for a variety of different reasons.
Qualitative studies have shown that this debate is not simply a
scholarly one and that among the African American community the
question of whether someone has good or bad hair is very much
an on-going issue (Robinson 2011 and Banks 2000). However, the
issue is more than simply the hair, but what hair stands for (Banks
2000: 31). What these studies have shown is evidence that colorism,
as it has been termed among African American communities, is still
very much alive; this is the preference for light skin and straighter
hair, which is embedded in European ideals (Robinson 2011:
362). In my own less formal research in Jamaica when exploring
the kinds of hair combs that people used the terms pretty hair,
soft hair, nice hair, Indian hair as opposed to n****r hair,
93
were mentioned without prompting by women whose ages ranged

between nineteen and sixty. As noted, the impact of gender on such
views is often played down in discussions relating to hair (Robinson
2011; Banks 2000), as is class and social status. In actual fact a
number of scholars have noted that the coarser and curlier the
hair the more versatile it is in terms of styles or holding decorative
adornments (Ashe 2010; Robinson 2011: 364).
The Afro hairstyle and dreadlocks are often seen to be legitimate
hairstyles, whereas changing the texture of the hair is interpreted
as an imitation of White culture and ideologies of beauty (Mercer
1987: 334). However, the Afro is not African in origin, or only
to the extent that it was devised by people of African ancestry in
America (Mercer 1987: 42, 445). In traditional African societies,
including ancient Egypt, the hair is styled, plaited and braided.
It has been suggested that people who belong to the African
Diaspora have developed their own distinct and unique style
(Mercer 1987: 34) and that although the emergence of the Afro
or dreadlocks is perceived to represent political statements of
resisting European aesthetics, both have, to some extent, lost their
significance by becoming part of mainstream culture and fashion
(Mercer 1987: 37, 412). However, the fact that dreadlocks have
become fashionable should not detract from their intrinsic link to
African Liberation (Kuumba and Ajanaku 1998: 156) and it would
be wrong to take the relevance of locks away from an individual
simply because they have become mainstream and even adopted
by some White people. An occurrence commented on by Mercer
debunks the idea that acculturation was a process of people of
African descent copying White culture:
By reversing the axes of traditional analysis we can see that in our era
of cultural modernity it is white people who have been doing a great
deal of imitating while black people have done much of the innovating.
(1987: 45)
Mercer also argued (1987: 45) that what was seen among the
overall emerging style of the Diaspora is not a continuation of
African traditions but what he terms Neo-African. I would
certainly agree with this idea with regard to the Afro, but not
dreadlocks or the practice of plaiting and braiding hair, which
have strong African traditions (Jackson 2000: 181).
The earliest depiction of dreadlocks dates to the Early Dynastic
period as seen on a stone representation of an early ruler from
94
Figure 87 Wood
Hierakonpolis (Egyptian Museum Cairo, JE32159; Tassie 2008: coffin panel (detail),
165). Geoffrey Tassie (2008) describes this form of hairstyle as Abydos, Egypt,
layered dreadlock. Later, in ancient Egypt dreadlocks were 17001550 BCE,
Fitzwilliam Museum,
associated with mourning and not combing and styling the hair, E.283.1900,
as be seen on a coffin panel dating to the Second Intermediate 39.3 x 111.6 cm
period (figure 87).The link between hair and mourning can be
found elsewhere in more recent African cultures with relatives of
the deceased shaving their heads (Sieber 2000: 8991).
Dreadlocks, of course, do not need a comb, whereas the Afro
needs constant styling in order to maintain it. That is not to say
that the majority of people with locks do not maintain their hair;
unlike the ancient Egyptian version of this style some people today
with dreadlocks keep them nourished and conditioned in order to
maintain their chosen hairstyle, while others do not.
In the second half of the twentieth century we can trace the
formal re-emergence of combs for African-type hair through the
patents that were issued by the US patent office (Tulloch 2008:
12833). The emergence of the pick or Afro comb in the US was a
response to the political changes of the 1960s and 1970s and the
emergence of what are seen to be new hairstyles, perhaps most
notably the Afro. However, the origins of this particular hairstyle in
the 1950s have been described as being embedded within societys
acceptance of the exotic female (Kelley 1997).
If we consider some of the descriptions of the hairstyles of
African Americans in the eighteenth century, the need for hair
combs would have been evident then, and the archaeological
record indicates that these combs had short teeth. However, in
Africa, what we would now label an Afro pick had been used for
thousands of years without an Afro hairstyle in sight. The long-
95
Figure 88 Patent for a

rake comb, no. 217997,
granted 1970 CE,
US Patent Office
tooth comb with wider gaps between the teeth was the preferred
tool with which to comb their hair for many African people. The
longer teeth clearly work well in terms of maintaining the Afro
hairstyle, but this was not their primary use. For this reason, it is
relevant to note that only the earliest patent is in the form of a rake
comb or pick (figure 88). The African Americans Samuel H. Bundles
and Henry M. Childrey, who owned the Summit Laboratories in
Indianapolis, submitted patent number USD217997 on 4 April
1969 (Tulloch 2008: 12930). Bundles married into the family of
Madam C. Walker; his wife ALelia Mae Bundles was the great
granddaughter of Madam C. J. Walker and Samuel Bundles ran his
96
Figure 89 Folding
plastic and metal comb
made in China, 21st
century CE,
17.6 x 6.7 x 0.7 cm
wifes family business (Tulloch 2008: 137, n. 6; Bundles 2001: 17).

A patent for the iconic foldable Afro comb (figure 89) was
filed on 17 June 1970 by Arthur Rogovin of Yonkers, New York
and issued on 12 January the following year (USD 219724). The
patent was granted for fourteen years. This comb, like the Black
Fist comb, is now made by a number of companies in several
countries, including the US and China. The combs are made with
both plastic and metal teeth and many symbolically have the red
and green handles, referencing the colours of the Pan African flag
(Antonios manufacturing inc. no. 1205). There is also a faux
wood version manufactured in China.
As noted the long-tooth pick has been used in Africa for
thousands of years but not for the Afro hairstyle per se. This
is perhaps reflected in the majority of early patents, which do
not take this form, but are wide-tooth combs with a horizontal
handle (type 10). The earliest example was patented on 7 March
1972; its inventor Anthony R. Romani named it the Afro rake
comb (Tulloch 2008: 1301). The comb was metal with a simple
horizontal handle. Anthony. R. Romani was the founder of
Antonios Manufacturing Inc., which as noted still trades in combs
for African-type hair today. The cake cutter, as his invention
became known, is made in five different forms, the handles and
length of teeth varying. Four versions have metal teeth (360c; 540;
523; 1001), and there is also a plastic version, which is now called
the big comb by some manufacturers and the Antomite King by
Antonios (911; compare figure 90, type 10).
In the same year that the cake cutter was patented Anthony R.
Romani made the first Black Fist comb with a peace sign.* Other
* Pers. Comm. Gina M. Romani, April 2013.
97
Figure 90 Plastic comb

purchased Nigeria, 21st
century CE,
21.3 x 10 cm x 0.5 cm
ranges today by Antonios include styling picks and combs, and

the comb and lift, which has a conventional narrow-tooth comb at
one end and longer teeth with wider gaps forming a pick at the end.
In addition to the previously mentioned folding pick, the handles
of the picks are plain, decorated with a Black Fist, a twisted longer
handle known as the sword pik (544 and 5445), and pick with
a shorter decorative design called the purse pik (548). Antonios
stopped making straightening combs in 2010 because people had
moved towards chemical relaxers for straightening their hair.
On 10 August 1977 Oscar E. Dawson of Sacramento,
California, filed a patent for a comb that was very similar in design
to Romanis cake cutter, but which had the purpose of distributing
oil to condition the hair (US patent office 4213473). The patent
was granted on 22 July 1980.
Willie L. Morrow also patented a comb for African-type hair
(figure 91). Applying the label Afro comb, the inventor explains
that there is a need for such a comb because conventional combs
for African-type hair still cause the hair to get caught between
the teeth. He describes the typical Afro comb as somewhat
awkward in that the teeth are extraordinarily long and in some of
these combs there is still a tendency for the hair to bunch (USD
4026307). This comb was inspired by the shampoo comb, which
was used by people with non-African hair to comb through the
hair while it was wet. The wider gaps between the teeth prevented
the hair from knotting. The patent was filed on 26 March 1976
and was granted on 31 May 1977. It still remains a popular form
of comb and its teeth with notches to prevent hair from bunching
were especially designed for African-type hair. The handle for
parting hair was similarly designed with a wider inner section.
98
Figure 91 Patent for an

Afro comb, no. 4,026,307,
1977 CE, US Patent Office
Nevertheless it is the more traditional vertical comb (type 1) that

has become eponymous and synonymous with the hairstyle.
Inventors continued to come up with new and novel ideas for
combs that were specially designed for African-type hair. From the
1980s a rather wonderful touch up pick with hair spray dispenser
patented by Elbert R. Smith (US patent office 614, 964), was
filed on 29 May 1984 and issued on 29 April 1986. A number of
styling combs and picks with wide teeth have also subsequently
been patented, however, they were not specifically identified as
being for the African American market (see for example 367129
from 1996 or 481168 in 2003). This perhaps reflects how combs
that were designed for African-type hair have been adopted and
are used by people with other hair types, the Afro comb being a
perfect example of this in that many White people own an Afro
comb, often using it to comb through their hair when it is wet to
avoid the knots that Morrow referenced in relation to African-type
99
hair. It is also the case that products designed by and for African
Americans are no longer the novelty that they were in the 1960s
and 1970s, and that African American identity and style now has
global appeal through music, fashion and entrepreneurship.
Carol Tulloch summarizes her thoughts on the cultural properties
of African American hair combs by stating that in many respects
they draw upon both Africa and America for their inspiration (2008:
133). If we consider the archaeological evidence for early African
American hair combs we can see that this really was the case. Even
in Africa today plastic combs are replacing the traditional picks,
and while some of these evoke the form of the original combs,
many follow the African American designs.
The Caribbean
No early hair combs have been found on the excavations of sites

where captive African people lived in the Caribbean (see p. 93
above). This does not necessarily mean that people did not use hair
combs, but there is no evidence to date. Many museums in the
Caribbean house highly ornate tortoiseshell combs, often decorated
with the arms of the family who owned plantations, or the coat of
arms of the country.
In talking to people in rural Jamaica who were born in the 1960s,
some recall making hair combs out of bicycle spokes that were
filed down to round off the ends so that they did not cut the scalp
(interview July 2012, St Elizabeth). Such teeth were then fitted into
a wooden handle, preferably made from the Lignum Vitae tree,
which has particularly hard wood perfect for manufacturing combs.
Combs were often carved by men for women and then dedicated to
them as a gift. One such example (figure 92) is a remarkable comb
in the form of the map of Jamaica, complete with parishes. On the
reverse is a dedication by the carver and artist. The teeth of the
comb fit cleverly into the case to form the map in its entirety, and
the other half forms the handle.
During one interview (Cambridge, March 2012) Eunice, who
was born in St Elizabeth in 1941, recalled first seeing an Afro pick
in 1963 when she came to England. The comb belonged to an
African friend of hers. She also recalls her mother using a bone
come when she was a child, and first seeing a plastic comb that had
been brought from America in the 1950s. She also recalled using a
fork in the fire to straighten her hair, with disastrous consequences.
100
Figure 92 Comb
showing a map of
Jamaica, late 20th
century CE,
39.8 open/31 closed x
10.4 x 0.9 cm
Today, people buy and use plastic combs. When I asked in a

hair salon in Black River St Elizabeth if the hairdresser, Taneisha,
ever used an Afro comb, she laughed and said no, people dont
really use them any more. When other people were asked why they
preferred plastic short-tooth combs with narrow gaps between
them for combing and styling the hair, they often responded by
saying that their hair did not require an Afro pick, or that their
hair was soft and so a European-style comb served the purpose
just as well. In many respects this reflects the practice in some
African countries. People now have more choice in the kinds of
combs that they use and some prefer to use a non-traditional pick.
The politics of hair and what is, and is not, acceptable is still
dictated by government authorities in some parts of the Caribbean.
In November 2010 the Jamaican police commissioner announced
women were only permitted to have fine corn rows, and that
they were not permitted weaves, extensions, rope twist, Chinese
or Nubian bumps, dreadlock twists or fat plaits. However,
the straightening of hair was seen to be acceptable by the male
commissioner, as was the wearing of European-style wigs (report
from The Gleaner).
Britain
African people have lived in England since the times of the

Romans. However, how people styled their hair and the tools
101
that they would have used depended very much on their status.
If we look at portraits of Olaudah Equiano in the mid- to late
eighteenth century, we see that his hair is combed and is styled in
a way that reflected the hairstyles of elite European men. Later,
during the reign of Queen Victoria, her adopted god-child, the
Nigerian Sara Forbes Bonetta (originally a member of the African
royal family with the name Egbado Omoba), wore her hair in the
same style as many middle-class Victorian women (Marsh 2006:
13). Her husband, Captain James Davies, who belonged to the
Yoruba cultural group, similarly wore the clothes of a wealthy
Victorian gentleman and had his hair cut short. If we contrast
the less fortunate Joseph Denny, who was photographed as one
of the prisoners at HMP Pentonville (Bressey 2006: 77, fig. 17),
we see that his hair was also cut short, like the other men in the
photograph.
In Britain, more recently, there has been a second wave of
resettlement for some members of the Diaspora with the so-called
Windrush generation. The men and women who came over to the
UK from the Caribbean in the late 1940s to 1960s found themselves
in a culture that they fully understood, but which discriminated
against them. It is important in this regard to remember that both
Jamaicans and Africans have been present in Britain for hundreds
of years. However, it is only relatively recently in that history that
their contribution and importance to the development of Britain
and British culture has begun to be acknowledged. It is also fair to
say that many people of African and Caribbean descent in Britain
today argue that their impact on British culture and history is still
not fully recognized by society.
There are companies based in the UK that distribute the
traditional Black Fist pick, but a closer inspection reveals that
these combs are imported from Africa. Today it is difficult to find
copies of the original Black Fist comb with the peace or CND
sign, although this is a form that many people remember from the
1980s. This has been replaced by a letter A or B or a superman
sign. There are a number of examples of the faux wooden version
of this design owned by people in the UK, but these are often
passed down through families rather than still being available.
Many people recall obtaining combs from relatives in the US in
the 1970s and 1980s. I have not, during the course of researching
this book, found any combs that were specific to the UK.
102
8
Wearing your comb in your hair
o
On 28 August 2012, while working on some of the African combs

that we have in the museum, I received a number of emails with
links to UK-based online news sites, which ran a story about a
sixteen-year-old girl who had been found guilty of murdering
another girl in south London in May 2011. The reason that many
of my colleagues and friends had drawn this particular news story
to my attention was because the perpetrator was said to have killed
her victim with an Afro comb. The photographs of the two young
women who were involved in this unfortunate incident showed
that they both had straightened hair, or that they were wearing a
straight weave. I wondered then what use they could possibly have
for a long-tooth pick or Afro comb. Fortunately the newsrooms
and papers included a photograph of a replica of the comb that
was used in the assault.
The comb was in fact a pintail comb with fine, narrow, plastic
teeth and a sharp metal point. This type of comb is sometimes
used by people on African-type hair; the tail is used to part the
sections before braiding, and a fine-tooth comb can be used to
comb out the dead hair if someone has had their hair cane-rowed
or braided. There is a much better suited African version of this
form of comb that is available in Nigeria today (figure 4) and it
is a form that goes back to at least the nineteenth century. Even
earlier still African people used hairpins to separate and style
the hair, as seen by the ancient Egyptian reliefs (figure 32). The
pintail type of comb is not however used exclusively by people
of African or Caribbean descent and yet because the two young
women involved in the case were Black, the comb suddenly took
on this identity.
Sadly, outside traditional African cultures the long-standing
custom of placing hair combs in the hair has been questioned,
demonized even, on account of the previously mentioned case
103
involving a pintail comb, as summarized and recorded by the BBC

News website:
Judge Nicholas Cooke warned parents to be aware of the dangers of

young girls wearing such combs as fashion accessories. We heard
evidence that a pintail comb can be used as a lethal weapon, he said.
We heard it can be worn in the hair as a fashion accessory. It can be as
effective a killing instrument as a stiletto knife. It is not a very nice thing
to have in your hair. (BBC website, 28 August 2012)
This is not the first time that Afro combs have been demonized
by White British society. A number of men have told me that
during the 1980s and early 1990s the police would confiscate
their folding metal combs when they were stopped and searched,
arguing that they might be used as a weapon. Another man in his
thirties said that he had been excluded from school for wearing a
Black Fist comb in his hair. And in 2011 one of my prison-based
students reported that men on his wing were being asked not to
wear their plastic prison-bought combs in their hair by officers.
While these reports remain somewhat anecdotal, they all point to
a similar view of hair combs and people of African, Black British,
and Caribbean descent in England.
So, why do people wear combs in their hair? People do so for a
number of reasons. Some of the people whom I have interviewed
have said that it is a convenient place to keep their comb and that
if they put it down they might lose it. For women who are plaiting
hair, keeping their tool in their own hair while they go about their
business is a useful place to keep it. People growing their hair or
with natural hair may well need to comb their hair during the day.
For some, keeping the comb in the place where you will use it
makes more sense than placing in your pocket.
For other people wearing their favourite comb in their hair can
be a way of celebrating their cultural heritage. This is especially
true of the Black Fist comb. In interviewing a young man in his
late teens about what his brown wood-look plastic comb meant to
him, he said that it was something he had been given as a child and
which he cherished and that to him the comb represented Black
Power but that he also had a sentimental attachment to the comb
itself. In fact this particular comb had been used so much that
the teeth were bent out of place and the plastic had started split.
Combs can therefore mean different things to different people.
Wearing your comb in your hair can be a political statement, a
104
fashion statement, a display of cultural affiliation, or just simply

convenient. It would be a great pity if society tried to stop this
practice and it would make no more sense than banning a woman
from wearing a hair slide, which has the potential to cover similar
functions to the comb: practical, decorative, fashionable, or
sentimental.
Moreover, the tradition of wearing your comb in your hair is
also firmly cemented in many different African cultural groups as
far back as the very earliest inhabitants of Egypt (figure 81), some
of whom were buried with their combs, and who wore pins with
the emblem of a comb on the end. In his publication of the Pre-
Dynastic cemetery at Ballas the excavator reported that he had
found an ivory comb was between the bones of the head (Quibell
1896: 15) suggesting that it had been placed in the hair.
Some traditional masquerade masks also show combs in the
hair. On one twentieth-century example depicting a woman from
the Mende peoples of Sierra Leone, now housed in the British
Museum, the artist has carved a single comb into the hair (figure
79). There are many other examples of masks without the comb,
which shows elaborate hairstyles that reference the status of the
subjects and perceptions of beauty.
On an mmo mask, belonging to the Igbo peoples of Nigeria,
four hair combs are positioned in the hair. The elaborately braided
style of this particular mask is replicated on another archive
photograph of a young woman in Nigeria (figures 93 and 94)
thus demonstrating that artists looked to their environment for
inspiration when completing the detail on such pieces. In addition
to copying rituals and practices the inclusion of combs on the
masks (figure 19) perhaps references the symbolism of the hair
comb in some African cultures.
Whereas some combs are essentially functional, to separate,
comb or style the hair, it has also long been a practice in Africa
to use combs to decorate the hair (figure 78). This practice can
be undertaken for beauty, protection or status. In this remarkable
picture from the photographic archives of the Museum of
Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge, taken in the early
twentieth century in southern Nigeria, we see a woman of high
status, as indicated by the staff that she holds and her attire; she is
flanked by two children, one bearing a fan. In her hair are at least
ten metal hair combs decorating an elaborately styled coiffure.*
* I would like to thank Dr Ohioma Pogoson for the suggested provenance.

105
Figure 93 (left) Photograph from the Northcote W.

Thomas Collection, taken in south Nigeria, before
1914, MAA, P.119602.NWT
Figure 94 (above) Side view of the Igbo mask of

the early 20th century in figure 19 showing the
same hairstyle, British Museum, Af1954,23.492
Some of the combs, such as the large example in the centre may be
ceremonial; other examples such as the two on either side of the
largest comb may have been functional as well as decorative. The
texture of the womans hair of course enables the combs to remain
comfortably, without risk of slipping out, as they would do with a
different hair type.
Throughout this book the question of a combs primary purpose
has been raised and in many instances we simply do not know
whether a comb was decorative or functional, or both. Combs are
not the only objects to decorate hair in African cultures. Pins, beads,
shells and headdresses are all part of traditional hair decoration,
and this practice is so embedded within traditional African cultures
that these items also appear on sculptures (Herreman 2000: 54).
A similar issue relates to hairpins. These we naturally see as
decorative, and yet in many African cultures, including that of
ancient Egypt, the pin is equally as much as a tool for styling hair
as is the comb. In addition to the aforementioned Middle Kingdom
Egyptian reliefs showing hairdressers using pins to part and style
the hair, there is an additional fragment of a relief from the tomb
of Neferu at Deir El Bahri in Upper Egypt that shows a woman
106
wearing a hairpin in addition to a beaded band. Later in the New

Kingdom, there were even pins with a small comb at the end of
them, which could have served as noted, a symbolic purpose.
However, it is also possible that these comb pins were a functional
way of having a small comb to hand.
So, wearing the tool for fixing your hair is certainly not a
modern fashion, implemented by a disengaged youth or a
means of cunningly hiding an offensive weapon in your hair. The
tradition of wearing combs is of long standing and can arise from
a variety of different cultural or personal reasons. Perhaps one of
my interviewees summarized this chapter perfectly; when I asked
why he wore his comb in his hair he simply shrugged his shoulders
and said because I can.
107
Map of modern Africa
o
Tunisia
Morocco
Algeria
Libya Egypt
Western Sahara
Mauritania
Mali Niger
The Eritrea
Gambia Sudan
Chad
Senegal
Burkina Djibouti
Faso
Guinea Benin
Guinea Nigeria
Cte Togo Ethiopia
Bissau Southern
dIvoire Ghana Central African Sudan
Republic
Sierra Leone Cameroon
Liberia Somalia
Equatorial Guinea Democratic Uganda
Republic of Kenya
Congo
Gabon the Congo
Rwanda
Burundi Cameroon
Angola
Zambia Malawi
Mozambique
Zimbabwe
Namibia
Botswana
Swaziland
South
Africa Lesotho
108
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Index
o
Abadiya, Egypt fig. 81 Comb names

Abydos, Egypt figs 22, 289, 87, 33, 34 aab in ancient Egyptian 24
Accompong, Jamaica 8o1 duafe in Ghanaian for 72
African Diaspora 2, 3, 11, 24, 68, 72, 77, 79, 80, y in Yoruba 76
815, 93, 94
African hair type 2, 11, 234, 83, 88, 95, 979, Deir El Bahri, Egypt 106
103 Democratic Republic of Congo fig. 11, 6, 58, 59,
Afro, hair and combs 2, 94104 61
Akan people ix, 55, 58, 62, 78 Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative
America 1, 2, 12, 19, 68, 72, 79, 8393, 94 Slavery (DAACS) 91, 92, 93, 109
Angoni people fig. 9, 73, 8 Dinka people 17
Antino47 Djet, Egyptian king 33
Arabs 52, 66 Dreadlocks 945, 101
Ashanti figs 579, 1819, 568, 62, 64, 74, 78, 80
East Africa 15, 16, 18, 48, 54
Badarian culture figs 201, 268, 29, 30 Edo figs 6, 8, 9, 55, 69, 80, 4, 5, 10, 12, 18, 20,
Bagam people 10 62
Baga people, Guinea fig. 68, 61 Eghap people, Cameroon fig. 10, 10
Ballas, Egypt 105 Egypt 4, 1217, 23, 59, 62, 66, 72, 76, 92, 105
Bakuba, Democratic Republic of Congo fig. 60 combs from figs 12, 24, 26, 348, 413, 456,
Baule people, Ivory Coast 58, 68 503
Benin figs 1618, 80, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 24, 59, hair figs 31 and 32, 24, 34, 94, 103, 106
61, 63, 75 Roman Egypt 4148, 50, 91
Berenike, Egypt 47, 48 modern combs from 53, 54
Black Fist comb figs 1, 2, 77, 2, 6, 68, 69, 72, 97, Egyptian hairdressers Inu fig. 31, 36
98, 102, 104 Henutfig. 32, 36
Black Power movement 2, 20, 68, 72, 104 Kawit 24, 37
Cairo 12, 16, 33, 34, 41, 49 French Guiana 82

Calabar, Nigeria fig. 76, 68
Caribbean 20, 78, 80, 81, 84, 90, 1001, 102, Ghana 55, 56, 57, 64, 69, 80, 112
103, 104 Grave finds fig. 13, 1314, 258, 302, 413, 45,
Chesapeake va, USA 81 72
China figs 2, 89, 1, 3, 20, 68, 69, 97 Greek 24, 423
Chokwe people, Central Africa figs 623, 589 Guinea 9, 61, 62
Christianity 16, 17, 489, 56, 77, 83
115
Index
Hairstyling figs 3, 31, 32, 14, 234, 34, 36, 39, Ondo State, Nigeria 76
8490, 101 Orthia, Greece fig. 40
Hawara46 Oxyrhynchus, Egypt 46
Hermitage Plantation, Nashville tn figs 84, 86,
912 Pan Grave culture, Egypt fig. 13, 14
Hierokonopolis fig. 29 Patents for combs
Oscar E. Dawson of Sacramento California 98
Igbo figs 19, 94, 4, 12, 18, 105, 106 Samuel H. Bundles and Henry M. Childrey
Ighodalo, Jimoh, artist 8, 22 fig. 88, 96
Ishan, Nigeria fig. 70 Arthur Rogovin of Yonkers, New York 97
Islamic culture 47, 524 Elbert R. Smith 99
Ivory Coast 58, 68 Willie L. Morrow fig. 91, 98
Petrie, Sir William Matthew Flinders 5, 12, 1316,
Jamaica fig. 92, 2, 3, 80, 81, 93, 1001 23, 2830, 32, 346, 40, 43, 44, 49, 51, 53, 76
Pre-Dynastic see Naqada
Kahun, Egypt fig. 30, 35, 36
Kassanga culture, Guinea 9 Qasr Ibrim figs 1415, 17, 54
Kemet see Egypt
Kulubnarti, Sudan fig. 54, 54 Roman Egypt 1517, 54, 91, 35, 45, 468, 54, 91
Kwami, Atta, artist 69 Romani, Anthony R., founder of Antonios 2, 68,
Kwami, Grace Salome, artist 69, 71 97, 98
Rwanda fig. 11, 10, 11
Lisht 35, 36
Lwena or Luvale people, Angola/Zambia fig. 61, Saqqara, Egypt fig, 44, 38, 40, 44
59 Saramaka people, French Guiana 82
Lunda people see Chokwe people Sierra Leone 4, 73, 105
South Africa figs 7, 56, 712, 8, 12, 54, 72, 64
Maghagha, Egypt 50 Sowei masks fig. 79, 73
Malawi 8, 9, 66, 67 St Elizabeth, Jamaica fig. 3, 100, 101
Maroons802 Sudan 12, 1317, 23, 25, 29, 47, 4854, 53, 54,
Mende people, Sierra Leone fig. 79, 73, 105 63, 63 ,72
Mesopotamia30 Suriname 80, 82
Mons Porphyrites 46
Monticello, Thomas Jeffersons estate fig. 86, 91 Tarkhan, Egypt fig. 27, 32
Morrow, Willie L. fig. 91, 79, 84, 90, 98, 99 Taweret, Egyptian goddess of fertility 43, 44
Mostagedda fig. 21, 27, 28 Tjetji, Egypt fig. 39
Mozambique fig. 67, 61, 66
Wadi el-Khowri, Sudan 25
Naqada period fig. 25, 13, 15, 23, 26, 27, 2832 West Africa 4, 15, 29, 54, 64, 73, 81, 82, 87, 90,
Natal, South Africa 10 92
Neferu, Egyptian queen fig. 32, 36 Wigs 1, 14, 234, 89, 101
Neolithic 13, 14, 25, 29
Nigeria figs 2, 46, 1619, 33, 70, 778, 823, Yaka people figs 64, 65, 10, 61
90, 4, 9, 10, 12, 15, 20, 29, 54, 55, 62, 63, 64, Yao people figs 735, 9, 66, 67
6870, 778, 81, 92, 103, 1056 Yoruba 76, 78, 102
Nok culture, Nigeria 15
Northcote W. Thomas fig. 823, 93, 4, 5, 12, 22, Zanzibar 12, 54
37 Zaraby, Egypt 43
Nubia 16, 17, 53, 54, 77 Zulu 10, 64
116

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What are some of the earliest types of combs found?

What are some of the earliest types of combs found?

What are some of the materials used to make African combs?

What are some of the materials used to make African combs?

6,000 Years of African Combs

6,000 Years of African Combs

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

5 Cultural symbolism on combs: national and

Map of modern Africa 108

I am very grateful to many people and institutions for their help

Kimani Nehusi for sharing his comments on the African

I would like to extend thanks to all the institutions that have

This book does not seek to present a definitive catalogue of

is because, although early anthropologists sometimes recorded the

debates and discussions we have had have proved invaluable in

Traditional African hair combs constitute a rich variety of forms,

If you ask most people in the UK to explain what an Afro comb

The designers, artists and craftsmen who created traditional

Figure 5 Photograph from

Types of African comb

2 Vertical comb/pick with fewer than four

11 Pintail comb with a single vertical set

12 Vertical comb with two sets of more than

9 Horizontal comb with a set of more than

Materials are often sourced locally. When asked to produce combs

Figure 8 (left) Brass comb,

twentieth century. Both small and full-sized

Perhaps the first question that needs to be answered is why so

in the Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese

Figure 13 Pan Grave

looked at have a securely excavated provenance;

comb in Egypt after the sixth century CE. As Africa

Figure 16 Ivory comb, Benin, Nigeria, 16th century CE,

see why combs featured among the possessions of

a single region we find many different forms, decorative motifs

Figure 19 Painted wooden

were able to carve traditional wooden hair combs (Pogoson 2013).

purchased them, except in the case of these examples nobody had

Hair types and styles

Many of the hairstyles that we recognize today were found in

The earliest combs

for the hairstyles of these early people and that

Further north, members of the Badarian culture

Figure 21 Horn comb,

as suggested by the excavators (Brunton and Caton-Thompson

As noted, the largest variety of combs, both in terms of form and

Subsequent work was undertaken on the sequences

Figure 22 (top) Ivory comb, Abydos, Egypt, around 35003000 BCE

Figure 23 (below) Ivory comb, Hierakonpolis, Egypt, around

They vary in size between around 10 cm and 4 cm and although

A small comb in the Fitzwilliam Museum

Figure 26 Ivory comb, Egypt, 40003000

There were two key developments in relation to

An example of the larger comb can be found at the cemetery of

The Old Kingdom

As noted, no combs have been identified from the Old Kingdom,