Women's make-up in Pre-Islamic Arabia

Adornment and cosmetics are an intrinsic part of human existence. Throughout history, various civilizations such as the Ancient Egyptians, Romans, Greeks, Persians, Chinese, and Indians have had traditional beauty regimens that span millennia. These time-honored practices encompass a comprehensive array of beauty rituals and preparations dealing with body cleanliness, makeup, skincare, haircare, and dental care.

To procure these treatments, they concocted beauty mixtures, ointments, perfumes, and creams from locally sourced plants and natural ingredients. People performed these beautification routines to adhere to cultural norms dictating specific aesthetic canons and to treat various skin diseases and imperfections. Such practices were not strange to the Arabs.

Unlike the civilizations surrounding the Arabian Peninsula, such as Egypt, Iraq, the Levant, and Persia, not much is known about the beauty regimens and facial makeup of pre-Islamic Arabs.

Inferences on the adornment ways of the inhabitants of Arabia are relatively difficult to decipher due to limitations on the surviving archeological artifacts (of their toiletries and cosmetic containers) and pictorial representation, in addition to literary accounts, especially those of a feminine nature. Studies and research of anthropological archaeology on pre-Islamic Arab civilizations are significantly underdeveloped compared to other regional civilizations.

The most common facial adornment closely associated with Semitic peoples and Arabs in general is kohl. This cosmetic is first mentioned in the famous Arabic tale Zarqaa’ Al-Yamama.

The proverbial al-Yamamah was known for her sharp eyesight and was said to be the first among the Arabs to wear kohl. She was a Najdi woman who was said to be able to see a person three days away. It is said that in one of the wars, the enemy hid by cutting down trees and carrying them in front of them.

Zarqa al-Yamama warned her people, but they did not believe her. When the enemies reached her people, they annihilated them, demolished their buildings, crucified her, and pulled out the eye of Zarqa Al-Yamama and found it stuffed with ithmid, a black stone that she used to pound and line her eyes with it.

So, it was said after that for those who are sharp-sighted: “Zarqa al-Yamamah’s sharp eyesight was attributed to the kohl she used.” This shows how deeply rooted the idea of kohl has been in the Arab consciousness and cultural mythology since ancient times.

Strabo, a Greek historian, was the first to mention the usage of kohl in antiquity when he wrote about the women of the Troglodytes, or cave-dwellers: “The women paint their eyelids carefully with stibi [antimony], and they wear shells for amulets round their necks.”¹

This description is consistent with the surviving material evidence from Arab civilizations and other Empires in their proximity. Female statues, sculptures, and iconographic traditions of various Middle Eastern civilizations such as the Sumerian, Assyrian, Nabataean, Phoenician, and Yemen show women dressed in the most exquisite garments and adorned with the most marvelous jewelry, in addition to the emphasis on the beauty of women, the most important of which is the wide, big eyes and the flowing and carefully coiffed hair, which are two of the most important manifestations of Arab beauty.

Alabaster Sculpture, Yemen, Sabaean, 1 BC – 1 C.

Looking at ancient Assyrian sculptures and reliefs, the eyes usually take prominence in the composition at the expense of the other parts, so they incise around the eyes to give the impression of a lined eye or color them black to signify the eyeliner.

In ivory sculptures, eyes and eyebrows were often inlaid with dark materials or blackened with pigment, thereby further emphasizing them. Ancient Near Eastern art delineates the upper and lower eyelids, which might originally have been painted black as if the eyes were outlined in kohl (a lead- or antimony-based cosmetic). The eyes of the “Mona Lisa of Nimrud” sculpture preserve their black outline.²

The Egyptian civilization that arose on the banks of the Nile is one of the richest, if not the richest, in archaeological artifacts and textual sources in history. Especially in terms of the manner of female adornment and the materials used to make cosmetic pigments, perfumes, and preparations for skin improvement, and hair-care, as well as the containers used to store them, such as flasks, boxes, pots, and the applicators used to apply them to the face, such as the brush, spoon, and kohl-stick/spatula.

This stems from the funerary traditions of the ancient Egyptians, who buried their dead with the finest clothes, jewelry, and objects to take with them in the afterlife, in addition to Egypt’s hot, dry climate and methods of mummification and burial that which was conducive to the preservation of these funerary items from perishing for thousands of years.

The history of Ancient Egyptian women’s dress, personal grooming, cosmetics, and hairdressing is one of the most archaeologically researched due to the abundance of figurative artworks and depictions of Egyptians, and the availability of female bodies in Pharaonic tombs, which are almost completely preserved and placed in tandem with the personal belongings they used, whether they were high-born or commoners.

Nefertiti bust — Bust of Queen Nefertiti, 1345 BCE.

Ancient Egyptian women are known to have pioneered the use of Kohl in the ancient world. Green and black eye cosmetics have been found in some of the excavated predynastic sites/tombs of Ancient Egypt. Green eye kohl (Malachite) was found as early as (c. 3600 BC). In contrast, black eye kohl (Galena) was occasionally found as early as the predynastic period. Still, the green dominated until the start of the proto(dynastic) period from (c. 3100 BC), when black began to dominate.³

Queen Hatshepsut is known to have used eyeliner made from burnt frankincense. Murals on Pharaonic tombs, in addition to busts, reliefs, and statues of Egyptian goddesses and queens, emphasize the beauty of ancient Egyptian women by showing eyelined eyes as the most important component of the artistic composition. The bust of Queen Nefertiti is a prime example of the standard beauty of the time: wide black-lined eyes in an almond shape, defined eyebrows, rosy cheeks, and lips.

In second place regarding the abundance of archaeological heritage are the Mesopotamian civilizations of Iraq, especially the Sumerian and Assyrian civilizations. The burial methods of the ancient Iraqis have also helped historians and researchers understand the enhancements of ancient Iraqi women, as cosmetic containers and applicators were found in many royal tombs even after thousands of years.

Like their Egyptian counterparts, Mesopotamian women used various cosmetics to make themselves attractive. They used powders with white, red, yellow, blue, green, and black pigments to beautify their eyes and skin. Remains of herbs on shells have been found in the royal tombs of Ur. Sumerian women also used lipstick, as it is mentioned in a Sumerian list translated into (gold paste) and the Akkadian equivalent translation is (red pigment for the face), and in literary texts in a poem by Inanna to King (Shulgi), which states:

When with.., my sides shall have been adorned,
When with amber my mouth shall have been coated,
When with kohl my eyes shall have been painted,⁴

Since the different regions of Arabia had different trading partners and political allies and were at varying distances from centers of state power, they were exposed to different foreign influences.⁵ Naturally, aesthetic ideals and external physical manifestation, whether in attire, hair, jewelry, or cosmetics, would reflect the prevailing influences emanating from the sociopolitical hegemons in the region. The geographical situation of Arabia, sandwiched between various Asian and Mediterranean civilizations, has made it susceptible to being absorbed within different spheres of cultural zones from the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Persians, and the Indian Subcontinent.

The iconography from various parts of Arabia throughout the Bronze Age to the 1st millennium CE reflects the diversity in their artistic forms based on which dominant empire/civilization was nearby. East Arabia was greatly affected by Mesopotamian and later by Iranian ideas, and Hellenism had an impact in the northeast.

South Arabia initially cultivated its own local forms but became progressively more influenced by Hellenistic and Roman art, and North Arabia was, of course, bound to feel the pull of the great empires of the Middle East that often sought to bring it into their orbit.⁶ The geographical location of South Arabia (Oman and Yemen) on the Indian Ocean trade routes made it susceptible to influences from the East in the Indus Valley and Iran.

The inhabitants of Arabian settlements, especially on the coasts of Arabia, would’ve imported objects used in quotation activities like pottery, vessels, objects for religious rituals, weights, and also grooming items, and Jewelry.

Archaeological diggings in multiple ancient Arab kingdoms/city-states/polities erected across the wide geographical bounds of Arabia have found intricately crafted personal adornment tools such as jewelry, combs, pins, mirrors, glass vessels, beads, bottles, and flasks. These objects were either physically imported from these regions or made locally but emulated in Iranian, Mesopotamian, Hellenistic, or Roman forms, etc.

The reconstruction of Arab female cosmetic conventions can be extrapolated from dispersed cosmetic objects discovered at various archeological sites over the Peninsula. There have been very few material objects (usually found in tombs in ancient settlements) that belonged to ancient Arab peoples (and women in particular), which could aid us in shedding some light on their daily beautification observances and makeup traditions.

The reason for the dearth of these instruments was either natural perishing over time, burial traditions that were not conducive to their preservation, or human tampering and looting. The absence of their cosmetic containers (with surviving substances and pigments) hinders our ability to analyze the chemical and crystal composition of the prevailing constitutions of the cosmetics used by ancient Arabs and their basic formulations.

Sources for ancient pigments

Green

Arab women's makeup in pre-islamic arabia — **The cosmetic shell from Tell Abraq, UAE, with its atacamite pigment.**

In 1992, half of a Marcia hiantina shell in an early Iron Age context, which contained a green substance (Thomas and Potts 1996), was discovered. Richard Thomas, a metallurgist at the University of Western Sydney, analyzed this mystery matter using the x-ray powder diffraction technique and found it to be atacamite (Cu₂Cl(OH)₃), a mineral which, in antiquity, was widely used for eye makeup when crushed.⁷

Eleven bivalve shell halves and two fragmentary halves were found in the tomb at Sharm, Fujairah (second half of the 2nd Millennium BC). Ten of the shell halves and the broken examples contained concentrations and/or traces of green matter adhering to their interior surfaces. The concentrations vary in both size and shape. It appears that these shells were used as containers to hold the material located in their interior recesses. These pigment shells were comparable to the shells at Tell Abraq.⁸

When the pigment within these shells was analyzed, they found that its two major components (present in approx. equal amounts) are a copper silicate (assumed to be chrysocolla) and a copper oxide/carbonate/hydroxide (assumed to be the oxide cuprite).⁹

Excavations in the cemetery at Kish, an important third-millennium site in Mesopotamia, revealed that similar shells containing kohl and green pigment occurred in the graves of both men and women.¹⁰

These three bi-valve shells contain red, green, and black cosmetic pigments. (The British Museum, London).

In Mesopotamia, cosmetic containers at the royal cemetery at Ur, already from the third millennium, pertain to the popularity of cosmetic preparations, the most popular pigments colored black and green, though other colors are also in evidence.¹¹

According to X-ray diffraction analysis of these shells, the most prominent colors were black and green with varying shades, then came in second were blue and yellow, and lastly red, and purple.¹² Two green shades analyzed for their crystalline composition were formulated with atacamite, azurite, and apatite.

The Ancient Egyptians were known for their copious consumption of malachite (blue/greenish color) as a cosmetic pigment on their eyes, but there is no substantial evidence of atacamite being used as a cosmetic green pigment.

Yet, a study on Ancient Egyptian eye cosmetics at the University of Manchester found, focusing on two samples, that one sample in particular, 6621B, comprised 62.9% copper chloride (paratacamite, a basic copper hydroxy-chloride) and 20.2% copper silicate (assumed to be amorphous Chrysocolla), 13.0% quartz, and the remainder of copper oxide/carbonate (malachite), calcite, and a calcium silicate.

The researchers attributed the presence of an ample percentage of paratacamite to the degradation of the natural malachite, chrysocolla, and quartz deposits due to their proximity to the Red Sea coast, which, over an extended period when in constant contact with saline sea waters, converted it to paratacamite.¹³

It is more apparent that atacamite was employed in art rather than bodily paints. A recent research identified atacamite as a substance used with Egyptian blue (cuprorivaite CaOCuO(SiO₂)₄) to produce a green pigment found on several papyri.¹⁴

According to a study analyzing the pigments on an Egyptian polychrome wooden sarcophagus dating to the Graeco-Roman period, atacamite (or one of its polymorphs, paratacamite or clionoatacamite) was identified, which gave a dark pigment to the sarcophagus. These are products of the degradation of the Egyptian blue when in contact with high-chloride concentration solutions.¹⁵

COMB – Oman
Ra’s al-Jinz (ash-Sharqiyah South Governorate) Origin: Indus Valley (modern-day India/Pakistan) Ivory 3,000 BCE (Early Bronze Age)

The Arabian dwellers living on the western side of the Persian Gulf would utilize the abundant local materials found in the surrounding environment, such as ground stone, soft stones, seashells, corals, soapstone, or local minerals (copper) to make various utensils and storage vessels.

In ancient Sumerian sources, Magan (ancient Oman) was known as the sole supplier of copper to Mesopotamia. Manganese-rich deposits were also found in Oman.¹⁶ These two ores, responsible for making green and black pigments would’ve been mined locally and made into cosmetic pigments for the inhabitants.

Archaeologists who scanned all archaeological sites across the UAE discovered a large number of molluscan remains (more than 18 different gastropods and 20 different bivalves), a logical outcome for human occupation near coastal shores. The availability of seashells to settlers seems to have made them the most convenient tools to use as containers for various items used in daily life. There is evidence that shells were used as feeders for infants. They found several shells at Tell al-Abraq that were used as feeders that women used to give their children water, milk, and medicine.¹⁷

They were also used to hold various cosmetic pigments and the mixing of various facial pigments. There are physical archaeological examples of the use of shells as containers for cosmetic pigments in many ancient civilizations, such as the Greeks¹⁸, Phoenicians, Carthaginians¹⁹, Sumerians, Egyptians, and others.

Receptacles for holding various face pigments and grinding palettes produced locally would’ve been made from these materials. However, high-quality containers would’ve been imported directly or made within the region from imported materials like ivory (Indus), gold (Iran), alabaster and faience (Egypt), or wood (Mediterranean). An ivory kohl container was discovered in the Dhahran burials, in eastern Saudi Arabia, dating back to the third millennium BC.²⁰

Archaeologists found hundreds of seashell remains at the Masāfī excavation site in the UAE, a 3,600-year-old settlement, particularly in the section Masāfī 5. The molluscans in the shell assemblages had mainly a dietary purpose for the local inhabitants in addition to other non-dietary ones. The shells were used for making personal ornaments, utensils, fishing items, and various kinds of containers, even cosmetic ones.

The use of shell valves as small containers for pigments (possibly used as cosmetic products) is frequently reported from Bronze Age and Iron Age periods in Eastern Arabia (e.g., Thomas and Potts 1996; Masia 2000; Cleuziou and Tosi 2007: 177, Fig. 181; Borgi et al. 2012). Strangely, the shells used as containers frequently belong to the same taxa: mostly bittersweet clams, ark shells, and, less frequently, venus clams and scallop shells (Pectinidae).

Green and black residues are respectively identified as copper and manganese oxide-based products (atacamite and pyrolusite) (Giardino 2019: 83, Fig. 7.30).²¹

Shells with pigment residue in their inner valves. Images: K. Lidour; scale: 1 cm.

In the Saruq Al-Hadid archeological site, a number of bivalve or bivalve shells, some closed and others open, with serrated ends and longitudinal grooves on the outside of the shells, were found to contain a green substance, copper oxide or copper carbonate, and a black substance, which may represent the remains of pigments used for cosmetics or eyeliner, fig 16.²²

Excavations at a necropolis at the Wadi Suq site in Bilad Ash Shuhum (Adh-Dhaira, Oman) have unearthed several items for everyday usage, including ornaments, beads, and miscellaneous seashells. Two shell fragments (cat. 41, cat. 42), probably of the species Anadara sp. or Trachycardium sp., were found in grave G 3-B (fg. 18.14-15). They could have served as containers for cosmetic items (a kind of kohol), as attested in graves of the Wadi Suq period at Adam North (Gernez, and Giraud, 2015:117), and even as early as the 3rd millennium (Borgi, and Maini, 2020:133, fg. 10.4).²³

Figure 18: Bilad Shahum. Copper, stone, and shell objects from the graves (plate: G. Gernez).

Sometimes, shell-like receptacles were synthesized from precious metals. Inside some of the tombs of Sumerian queens, shells were found there and made artificially of gold, silver, or copper. Inside these shells, they found the remains of pigments that were petrified, i.e., hard paste. The remains of these pigments indicate the white, red, yellow, blue, green, purple, and black or dark brown colors.²⁴

The Penn Museum has a cockle shell cosmetic container which is made of gold with green paint (hard paste) that was found in the burial chamber of Queen Puabi, in Ur, dated to the first half of the third millennium B.C.

Red

Lipstick’s appropriately colorful history began with Queen Schub-ad of ancient Ur. Circa 3,500 B.C., this Sumerian queen used lip colorant made with a base of white lead and crushed red rocks.²⁵

The investigation of the constitution of the cosmetic shell containing powdered red pigment excavated from the royal cemetery at Ur has revealed the usage of haematite (iron oxide), a natural pigment acquired from earth.²⁶

A Chlorite vial containing a red pigment, a face rouge, ca. 2nd millennium BCE, was excavated from the Jiroft region of Kerman province in Iran. The mineral components of the reddish substance were identified as hematite, darkened with manganite and braunite, and traces of galena and anglesite, mixed with vegetal waxes and other organic substances. The mixture, thus observed, bears a striking resemblance to the recipes of contemporary lipsticks.²⁷

The Phoenicians, an ancient Semitic-speaking group that dominated the Mediterranean during the Bronze Age, used several red colorants as cosmetics. Analysis of red/pink cosmetic powders found in several Phoenician sites has revealed cinnabar and hematite as the main red colorants used in Phoenician rouges. They also identified madder as another red colorant, but on a much smaller scale.²⁸ Pigments extracted from Madder were a common colorant found in ancient Roman cosmetics.²⁹

Ancient Egyptians used red ochre to color their lips and cheeks red. Many cosmetic implements were found in ancient Egyptian tombs, and traces of these colors were found on cosmetic palettes in the tombs. For an Egyptian woman, her cheeks and lips would have been dyed with a mixture of red ochre combined with fat or oil, and, in the case of the rouge, a little gum resin was added as an ingredient. The palms of her hands and her fingernails were reddened with a dye made from henna, and the nipples of her breasts were gilded with gold paint.³⁰

Cleopatra, the Macedonian queen who ruled Egypt during the Ptolemaic era, is said to have made lipstick out of crimson pigment from the Kermes insect, which grows on oak trees (Quercus Coccifera L.) throughout the Mediterranean.

Polished hematite stones from the Grave at Ras Al-Hamra

It looks like women settlers in the Arabian Peninsula utilized similar materials to make rouges. In Grave 83 of the RH-5 cemetery (in a site in Ras Al-Hamra in Oman), the body of an 18 to 21-year-old woman was interred with a wealth of mortuary gifts including entire shells, a string of 27 shell beads, two bone pins, three pale red pebbles, two polished haematite stones and a bi-pointed bone tool.³¹

Black

Cosmetic container. ca. late 3rd–early 2nd millennium BCE

The Jerusalem exhibition also displayed some elaborate animal-shaped bronze kohl containers from eastern Iran and Bactria of the second millennium, B.C.E.³²

Shells with black pigments were found during excavations in Ras al-Jinz, along the coast of Oman, in circa 2300 BC (locality RJ-2 in Cleuziou and Tosi, 2007, p.175). The coloring substance in this shell was identified as the manganese mineral pyrolusite (MnO₂), and lime was identified as an additional component. The shells themselves were identified as Anadara Ehrenbergi, which belongs to the family of Arcidae. They are therefore similar to the cosmetic shells from Ur.³³

Two cosmetic shells with green (Anadara shell/atacamite+gypsum powder) and black pigments (Pecten shell/Pyrosulite) were reported from another Iron Age settlement in Oman, namely Ras al-Hadd, from the second half of the third millennium BCE.³⁴

The findings from these excavations, mainly from Southeast sites in Arabia, correspond with a recently published study discussing six marine cosmetic shells with dark and greenish pigments found in Bronze and Iron Age sites in the Salut and Bisya Oasis in Oman. The green pigments contained copper hydroxyl-chlorides atacamite/paratacamite, while the dark pigments were a result of different manganese-bearing minerals.³⁵

Given the general uniformity of the basic source material for various facial colorants across nearly all Near Eastern civilizations in antiquity (rouge-hematite/red ochre/cinnabar, eyeliner-galena/iron oxide/manganese oxide, eyeshadow-malachite/atacamite, white face powder-ceruse/calcite/laurionite), we wouldn’t be dissuaded from believing that Peninsular Arabs would’ve used these same base materials for their cosmetics.

Whilst there is little to no material evidence of red, blue, white, yellow, and purple cosmetic pigments found in archeological contexts throughout Arabia, as is the case with other regional counterparts, it seems that the usage of black and green cosmetics (eyeshadow and eyeliner) was the most archeologically substantive.

Cosmetic implements:

Miscellaneous implements seemingly negligible in their merit, however, providing utilitarian objectives for everyday beautification routines like small spoons for stirring cosmetics, flat spatulas to apply the pigments to the face, and blunt pins or sticks for applying kohl to the eyes were also discovered with the buried. An archeological site of Ed-dur in the UAE, which dates back to ca 2000 BCE – 200 CE, has unearthed thirty-seven artifacts that can be grouped as ‘pins’, spatulas, and needles.³⁶

Traces of facial grooming items like tweezers and razors for plucking the eyebrows and shaving beards found in Ancient Egyptian toiletry boxes have been found in scattered amounts in Arabia. Excavations in Wadi Suq found several metal artifacts, including bow-tie-shaped razors from Samad and Shimal.

A tronconical razor from Nizwa may represent a Late Wadi Suq or early Iron Age example (al-Shanfari and Weisgerber 1989 fig. 2: 4). Objects of a similar shape were found in Sh 102 (Vogt and Franke-Vogt 1987 fig. 18: 15-17).³⁷ Several examples of tweezers were excavated from Saruq Al-Hadid.³⁸

Cosmetic containers, ivory. Shakhoura necropolis, 1st cent. A.D. The Bahrain Museum. Tylos: The Journey Beyond Life.³⁹

Excavations from necropolises and burial sites from ancient Bahrain (called Dilmun, from 2300 to 600 BC) and Tylos (from 300 BC to AD 300) have unearthed various objects of glass bottles, pottery, bronze, vases, jewelry, and seals. Ancient Bahrain was the seat of various local civilizations and was an important trading nexus connecting Mesopotamia, the Iranian plateau, and the Indus Valley.

Terracotta figurines and funerary stelae from Tylos between the 1st century BCE and the 2nd century CE reflect an adoration of Hellenistic and Parthian prototypes.

Cosmetic implements such as ivory containers for kohl or pigments, date-shaped perfume bottles, palette slabs, small spoons, and mirrors were found in burial tombs in Tylos. There were also glass and stone beads, ointment jars, jewelry, and various bottles and flasks for storing perfumes and cosmetics.⁴⁰

The sheer number of unguent and cosmetic pots suggests that the deceased were carefully treated before inhumation. In women’s graves, kohl tubes, combs, and mirrors were common. Similarly numerous are glass vessels, which were probably filled with perfumes; the omnipresence in the graves of these imported items (from Egypt, the Levant, and Mesopotamia) is one of the best illustrations of the Bahrain international trade network at this period.⁴¹

Wealthy and noble ladies would’ve been likely the only strata of society with the resources and means to afford these instruments of physical enhancements and the elaborate cases that carried them, especially those meticulously crafted from precious materials imported from other regions in the Mediterranean, Iran, and the Indus Valley.

Alabaster cosmetic container with two circular flat cavities, ʿAtaq, Yemen, Museum, ATM 434.

Excavation in South Arabia has unearthed a small collection of 25 objects probably between the 6th – 4th centuries BC and the 3rd or 4th century AD.

Three fragmentary compartmented calcite vessels were excavated in the residential quarter at Khor Rori, where they were interpreted as cosmetic containers, as one had dark staining inside and the shape was compared to traditional Yemeni cosmetic containers (Ar. masbarah).⁴² They also found a Tall-necked oil jar (alabastron), probably used to store aromatic oils and perfumes.

Lidded pyxis on four legs carved from white gypsum, 1st C BC-1st C, Yemen. Loan.111 © The Trustees of the British Museum

Unlike the ample collections of pyxides or cosmetic boxes containing different toiletries, unguentariums, perfumes, and facial colorants that have reached us from surrounding Empires in Mesopotamia, Iran, Greco-Rome, and Egypt, very few cosmetic boxes have been found in the Arabian Peninsula. If they were found, they were partially or severely damaged. If a complete one is found, they are devoid of the components stored inside, hampering any endeavor for its analysis and precisely capturing a comprehensive image of contemporary Arab personal beauty kits, especially women’s.

Several chlorite jewelry boxes and lidded square vessels from the Umm An-Nar culture in the UAE (2600-2000 BCE) have been excavated. The chlorite box bears a unique style of concentric surface decorations, probably imported from the Indus Valley or Bactria (ancient Iranian civilization), or is a local replica of Indus or Bactrian archetypes. Fragments of an ivory cosmetic box have been excavated from the Shakhura Necropolis around the 1st century BC – 1st century AD. They also found a bone jewelry box from the Qaryat al-Faw area dating back to the third century BC – third-century AD.⁴³

Oil-jar (alabastron), made from calcite, is used to store aromatic oils. Yemen, 1985,0223.127. © The Trustees of the British Museum

Silver pyxis from Yemen, Wādī Ḍuraʾ 6A, 1ST CENTURY, ʿAtaq, Museum, ATM 296

Cosmetic Box Inlays
Ivory – Shakhura Necropolis
Middle Tylos, 1st cent. BC- 1st ⁴⁴

Most likely, the grooming habits of Arab dwellers in various settlements around the Peninsula were almost uniform in their substance or techniques but varied according to the available local materials, socio-material status, or influence, and geographical distance from the surrounding civilizations.

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