Iron age British hairstyles

[Christian]

Hello,

As far as I know the only contemporary description is Caesar’s of simply “long hair”. Reenactors and artists seem to frequently go for the ubiquitous ‘Celtic’ spiked do – which I had always put down to standard Gaulish projecting onto the Britons, until I saw the gravestone of Catavignus in D’Amato’s famous/notorious book. He really does seem to have spiked hair (and is he moustached, I can’t tell, it kinda looks like it? If so he was truly flying the ethnic flag).

I have also seen illustrations, notably one in Cunliffe’s Iron Age Briton, which gives a hill fort defender something very similar to a Suebian knot (they give a similar hairstyle in some of the illustrations in the Avesbury Bronze Age display).

So, my laboured question is: what evidence is there to support the hairstyles we put on the Iron Age Britons?

Thanks,

Christian

[Chock]

Not very much hard evidence at all unfortunately. You might want to check out Osprey Publishing's Men At Arms Vol 158 - Rome's Enemies Vol 2, Gallic and British Celts, although even this book pretty much admits that really hard evidence is fairly flimsy, most of it being stuff the Romans wrote about which then gets the 'Chinese Whispers' treatment as it is repeated and copied through the ages, for example, we aren't even absolutely sure what Boudica's name actually was, nor what she looked like, and she's probably the most famous ancient Briton of them all.

It's worth noting that when we read stuff such as Caesar's Commentaries in an attempt to determine facts, we can take a fair bit of it with a pinch of salt, since its main purpose was to make JC look good upon returning to Rome and in that sense, to demonise enemies in order to justify having gone to war and to open up Rome's coffers in much the same way as the military today bang on about potential threats in order to get the budget for any new weaponry they want. So we always have to remember the standpoint from which such stuff is written.

Much of what is written is relative too. For example, using the description of someone having 'long hair' is of course dependent on how long your own hair is, i.e. if you have a crew cut, then everyone has long hair in comparison to you. As a modern example we can relate to more easily, back in the 1960s, the media chose to describe The Beatles and the Rolling Stones as having 'long hair', but when we see that kind of hairstyle today we'd probably call it pretty short, it was simply long in comparison to the short back and sides most men tended to have.

Having long hair myself (i.e long enough to be in a pony tail) and being from the grim north of England where it can rain quite a bit, I know that long hair is a pain in the ass when outside doing practical things, especially in inclement weather - it blows in your face, getting in your eyes and mouth etc - so it is more often than not tied back into a pony tail or I wear a hat or a bandana. I suspect that's probably something the Ancient Britons would have done too on occasion, simply as a practical measure, they may also have plaited their hair too, and probably did, possibly weighting it with beads to prevent it blowing around and irritating them, especially since we do know ancient Britons loved a decorous appearance if the beautiful torcs and brooches that survive today are anything to go by. After all, you don't need any documentary evidence to know that the last thing you'd want when facing off against a Roman Legion would be to have your hair flick into your eyes in the wind, blinding you just as someone is jabbing a gladius at your unarmoured body.

When not tied back or plaited, we know such ancient warriors would use lime wash or clay to hold their hair out of their eyes in a manner similar to today's hair gels and sprays are used for the same thing, so we can surmise one or two might have chosen to spike it up in a fashion similar to punks did circa 1977, which would have had the effect of making them look taller amongst other things, that probably also having a useful psychological effect when going into battle, since we can recall in modern times the shock value punks gained with the media for appearing with their hair in that fashion.

There is of course also the cultural significance of having long hair to consider, for example, it is known that in some tribes, neophyte warriors would only cut their hair when having made a kill in battle, it being a rite of passage to do so. In practical terms, we also know that if you do wash your hair with lime, or even clump it into a mass with mud or clay, it will either temporarily or permanently tend to bleach it out and make it look lighter, especially to Roman eyes, where dark hair is certainly the norm as opposed to the blond and red hair one finds more in northern Europe.

What all this boils down to, is that the cliche look of a nordic or celtish warrior with a beard or drooping moustache, long hair streaming in the wind or slicked into a style of some kind with lime wash, is probably not too far off what they would have really looked like, even though there is little documentation to actually say for a fact that this was the case.

Al

[Nathan Ross]

There is some evidence from the portraiture on coins produced by various British rulers around the time of the Roman conquest.

One popular image is this one, which appears in various forms:



The hair seems to be spiked, at least on top - although this may represent a crest on a helmet or hat. Some of these images clearly show the face to be clean shaven, although the chin area on many of them is hard to discern! There may be a beard going on there.

Interestingly, other coins produced in Britain show a quite different image. These are presumed to represent more 'Romanised' groups. The coins from Iceni territory, once thought to be issued by Prasutagus, but apparently more correctly 'Esuprastus' (whoever he might be!) show a clean-shaven head with a distinctive hairstyle:



This tiny image is the best I could find on-line, but hopefully you can see what I mean. The hair appears to braided and drawn back over the head, with a knot, or a clubbed ponytail at the base of the neck. Other versions of these coins are clearer - one actually resembles a curly 'mullet', which might suggest an emulation of Nero's Imperial coiffure! But probably it's intended to show the same style as the others)

- Nathan

[Christian]

Thanks guys for two very full and informative answers.

Christian

[Gobae]

Don't forget to check out bog bodies and anthropomorphic sword hilts too.

One of our friends had done research on bog body hair styles and was able to find about 4-6 different patterns. Enough that we had a "Bog Body Hair Log" where she styled our hair.



Unfortunately I don't have ready images of the sword hilts, but one style was very similar to a modern "French Braid". The others I don't remember well enough to describe.

Hope this helps some.