Many women in America who have at one time or another worn fake hair. Whether it is a hair piece, extensions, or maybe just a wig for Halloween, fake hair is a large part of our culture. The origins of wigs and hair pieces come to America from across the ocean. In Egypt some 1500 years ago, the Egyptians started the concept of using artificial hair. When it was first invented, the purpose of a wig was to complement festive and/or holiday attire.
Wigs in Museums
In many museums, Egyptian wigs are on display today. Historians have chemically analyzed the wigs and discovered the wigs were made from vegetable and human hair. Some of the pieces during that time were enormous and weighty. Documents have stated that the wig Queen Isimkheb wore in 900 B.C. was so heavy that she needed attendants to help her walk. This wig is currently in the Cairo Museum and is massive. It was tested and found to be made entirely of human hair and covered, as other wigs of that time, with beeswax.
In Rome wigs became very popular during the first century B.C., while the Greek courtesans preferred bleaching or powdering their own hair, Roman women opted for the beautiful blonde hair of their German captives. Ovid, the Roman poet of the first-century wrote that the Roman’s never had to worry about being bald considering the amount of German hair that could be scalped.