Recipes of Ancient Egyptian kohls more diverse than previously thought

Abstract

Kohl, a dark eye cosmetic, is a well-known part of Ancient Egyptian culture. Modern chemical analyses of kohls have largely found lead-based inorganic constituents, whereas earlier studies argued for a much broader range of constituents. Furthermore, organic materials in kohls remain severely understudied. This raises questions regarding the true diversity of materials and recipes used to produce kohls. We analysed the contents of 11 kohl containers from the Petrie Museum collection in London. The objects selected cover a broad range of times and locations in Egypt. Our multi-analytical approach allowed us to characterise both inorganic and organic components. Our data show that inorganic ingredients in kohl recipes are not only lead-based but also manganese- and silicon-based. Our analyses also revealed that organic ingredients derived from both plant and animal sources were commonly used in kohl recipes and sometimes even represent the main constituent. All these findings point towards more varied recipes than initially thought and significantly shift our understanding of Ancient Egyptian kohls.

Figure 1

Map and pictures of the 11 kohl containers from the Petrie Museum. Objects UC7321 (A) and UC6742 (B) are from Lahun; objects UC43078 (C), UC42810 (D), UC43107 (G), UC43148 (H) and UC43159 (I) are from Abydos; object UC46343 (E) is from Amarna; object UC7890 (F) is from Gurob; object UC31613 (J) is from Diospolis Parva Cemetery; and object UC64751 (K) is of unknown provenance. Full description of each object is provided in the Supplementary Table S15. The map was created using QGIS (QGIS.org, 2022. QGIS Geographic Information System. QGIS Association).

Figure 2

Percent distribution of main organic constituents identified by GC/MS. Chromatograms and detailed peak identification are described in Appendix 2 in the Supplementary Information.

Figure 3

Photographs of the wooden kohl container UC7890 showing the 4 cavities for kohl powder, two of which still contained material that was analysed in this study. Image credit: Courtesy of the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, UCL.

Figure 4

Overview of the inorganic constituents identified in kohls analysed since 1930, indicating the number of objects in which the constituent was identified in at least one analysis (see Supplementary Table 1 for details). The boxes on the right indicate the time periods of the kohl samples in which the listed ingredients were found based on literature (blue), this project (red), both (purple).