Page 6 - Oundle Life July 2021

In our Roman section we have many artefacts from local excavations, some of these are hairpins.
Mediterranean Roman women would have always worn their long hair pinned up into the latest fashionable hairstyles. Many women
in Britain embraced and copied these Roman ideas, effectively becoming ‘Romanised’. The most fashionable hairstyles would have spread through the empire by way of portraits on coins, intaglio’s and sculptures.
Display of Hairpins in the British Museum
OUNDLE MUSEUM
The Roman writer,
Apuleius (c.123-c.170 AD),
wrote the following tribute
to women’s hair giving us an
insight into the hairstyles
of the time; “What joy it
is to see hair of a beautiful
colour caught in the full rays
of the sun, or shining with a
milder luster and constantly
varying its shade as the light shifts. Golden at one moment, at the next honey coloured; or black
as a raven’s wing, but suddenly taking on the
pale bluish tints of a dove’s neck feathers. Give
it a gloss with spikenard lotion, part it neatly with a finely toothed comb, catch it up with a ribbon behind and the lover will make it a sort
of mirror to reflect his own delighted looks. And oh, when hair is bunched up in a thick luxurious mass on a woman’s head or, better still, allowed to flow rippling down her neck in profuse curls!
I must content myself by saying baldly that such is the glory of a woman’s hair that though she be wearing the most exquisite clothes and the most expensive jewellery in existence, with everything else in keeping, she cannot look even moderately
This photo shows a simple bun created by students at York University using original bone hairpins and replica jet ones.
Roman Hair Pins
This photo shows preserved hair found in a grave in York, the hair had been twisted into the simple style of a loose bun held in place by a couple of jet pins with cantharus- shaped heads.
Bone hairpins on display in the Museum
Gold Aureus coin of Faustina the Elder (died 140 AD) showing her elaborate hairstyle
well dressed unless she has done her hair in proper style.”
Hairpins are common finds on Roman sites, being either lost or dropped in buildings and along roadways. Some are beautiful and intricately carved certainly made to be seen or shown off
in the latest hairstyle by wealthy women, poorer women would have been able to copy the less elaborate styles using cheaper simple hairpins.
Hair pins found in Britain are mostly made of bone and bronze but discoveries abroad show they were also made from antler, ivory, jet, silver, gold, iron and even glass.
Carole Bancroft-Turner Oundle Museum www.oundlemuseum.org.uk
6