Historical story

What did the Egyptian Merit Beauty-Case contain?

Merit's beauty-case preserved at the Egyptian Museum of Turin

When I was working for the news.it portal, I had to write an article about a particularly fascinating find, a trousse of beauty it belonged to an Egyptian woman named Merit now preserved in Turin.

The beauty-case tells us a lot about the daily habits and habits of the ladies of the time:below I report the post.

Another image of Merit's beauty case

What you see in the photo is a very interesting find preserved at the Egyptian Museum of Turin :it is a super-equipped beauty-case female belonging to an Egyptian woman named Merit, a rather high-ranking lady as she was Kha 's wife , official architect of the pharaoh Amenhotep III (1390-1352 BC).

What strikes the observer's eye most is the variety of accessories contained in the refined painted wooden box, all objects for the daily toilet , from vases and jars of different sizes that were used to carry creams, ointments and perfumed oils, to finely crafted bottles, perfumes, and even sticks for face makeup.

This beauty-case is enough to fully understand the importance of body beauty in ancient Egypt, where it was considered completely normal to devote hours and hours of the day to taking care of one's appearance, with hygiene above all, but also with the help of cosmetics, emulsions, powders and wigs.

Indeed, it can be said that among the most ancient and culturally evolved peoples, that of Egypt was perhaps the most tenaciously anchored to firm aesthetic principles, which ended up strongly characterizing it and expanding well beyond national borders with the conquest from part of Alexander the Great before and with the Roman domination then (Article taken from:Notizie.it).