Adornment
In
Byzantium, barbers and hairdressers
(emplektries or Kourides) dressed the hair of both men and women. Caring for
their hair seemed to have been very important for the Byzantines, so much so that
Church
Fathers
criticized this
excessive
devotion
to the body. They
argued that
altering a persons’ appearance by artificial means
(psimythia ) and adornment altered the form God gave us
(people were created in
the
image of God) and also prevented people from trying to achieve salvation
of their soul. However, surviving
Byzantine beauty tools, perfume bottles,
jewelry and clothes indicate that secular Byzantines
ignored
these
admonitions.
Archaeological remains
and written sources testify to the existence of hair dyes, pencils, lipsticks,
powders, combs, tweezers, rollers, curlers and scissors. The extravagant and
often extreme Late Antiquity hairdos that were influenced by the earlier Roman
style began to disappear during the middle Byzantine period, when even
empresses were depicted in official portraits with simple braids. After 1204
and the forced cohabitation of the Franks and the Byzantines in the empire,
many Western hairdressing habits passed to the Byzantine society, especially
the upper classes.
The texts mention the
following words:
aplothrix= someone
with straight hair
sgouros or katsaros=
someone with naturally curly hair
foundomallis= someone
with thick, bushy hair
karamallos= someone
with black hair (from the word kara which means black)
xanthos or hrysomallos
or kalotrihos= someone with blond hair. Blond hair was considered attractive so
they had devised several ways to lighten it.
Ladies
had
long
hair
-
short hair was imposed
as punishment, or
during
mourning.
They used
various
oils
and
tonics and often
dyed it,
usually blonde. Brides traditionally
dyed their hair red. After
combing
it they used
a hairpin to hold it at back of the neck, or they braided it using colored or
golden ribbons. Young girls usually let it fall freely on the shoulders. During festivals or
celebrations they wore more elaborate
hairstyles:
curls
or
buns
with added
braids, usually blond. When leaving the house women covered their head with a kerchief, a white cloth or net over which the maphorion, a veil
worn by
all women,
was wrapped. They also cared for their faces:
they used cleaning masks
to nourish and
moisturize
the skin, removed
facial hair and
applied
makeup.
They
used natural materials: for example they painted their
faces
and
necks
white
using
white
lead
carbonate
powder; for
the
eyes and
eyebrows
they
used black stimmi
(antimony
sulphide), pine nuts or
liquid
tar, even if
they had dyed their
hair
blond; finally,
the red
color used on cheeks, lips and
the tip
of the chin
was provided by seaweed.
Men also cared for
their appearance and there is evidence that some of them wore make up either because
they were effeminate or wanted to achieve the look of a monk or a saint who ate
poorly and had pale face. They also groomed their hair and beard and wore wigs
known as prokomia. Solders wore their hair short for hygienic reasons, while
monks cut it short during their initiation ceremony. Originally this was dome
mainly for hygienic reasons, but soon it came to symbolize humility and
penance. In the West, but also in the East, priests shaved the top of their
head, and the remaining hair formed a wreath that symbolized Christ’s crowns of
thorns. With regard to facial hair, the
general trend was to grow beard. Army officers were “Barbatoi” (Barbatus is the
Latin word for bearded man), while palace eunuchs were beardless and therefore
considered effeminate. Church writes strongly criticized shaving beards,
something they believed was appropriate only for those acting in the theater
(mimes, magicians) and charlatans of any kind, who need to hide their gender to
sham people.
Jewelry
The special interest
of the Byzantines towards beauty is also evident in their jewelry. They were made from
precious materials such as silver and gold, decorated with precious stones and
pearls. However
cheaper materials, such as iron, copper and glass were also used. There
existed almost all kinds of jewelry known today: earrings (enotia), chains, necklaces,
bracelets (Psellia), wristbands, belt buckles etc. The
agonovrachila or agonaria were jewelry for the elbow, while for the feet the
periskelides or podopsellia were used. Rings, worn by both men and women, were
the most loved kind of jewelry. Their decoration depended on the occasion they were
intended for, ie wedding bands.
They often had gems or a
simple glass, but also monograms and stamps, which were used as signatures to
ensure the authenticity of messages or orders.
Late Antiquity jewelry making was a continuation of the Roman tradition.
During the Middle Byzantine period special techniques and specific motifs were
developed, which mostly used enamel and Christian themes to protect against
evil. During the Late Byzantine period, rich people’s jewelry was directly
influenced by Western traditions, while cheap jewelry became even cheaper as
they were thinner, with more sketchy adornment.
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