Hairdressing Scene

From Deir el-Medina, Thebes.
Now at the Brooklyn Museum. 51.231 & 54.49.
These limestone fragments were originally part of a scene in which royal hairdressers attended Queen Neferu. The relief on the right represents Neferu, referred to as “The King’s Wife,” wearing a magnificent beaded usekh collar. Behind her, Henut, the hairdresser, has already pinned one strand of hair and twisted another. The relief on the left represents Inu, a hairdresser, holding a triple lock of plaited hair that she will attach to Neferu’s coiffure.



The Egyptian Museum catalogue describes it as “human hair from a mummy” (1852, p. 13, no. 130). Professor Newberry described it as a “mummified human head with hair plaited and plain” around 1910. In the 1928 Mayer Inventory, it was described as “Portions of Human Hair, plaited and plain”.
National Museum of Liverpool. M11139