Carved wooden comb

This comb has two sets of teeth, with different widths, based on wooden[1] and ivory[2] models that had been used in ancient and Coptic Egypt. A similar object was used in Iran under the Achaemenids[3], and it spread throughout the Mediterranean region during the Greek period. In the Middle Ages, they were common in both the East and France[4], Italy[5], and even in India (from the sixteenth century). Today, combs with two sets of teeth are still used by the poorer classes in Egypt, or to treat head lice in Europe.

According to the historian Maqrizi, the trade in Egyptian combs was so extensive that a souk[6] was dedicated to it. While those with a single set of teeth were used for straightening the beard, others with double sets were used for hair, for both women and men. A Coptic sculpture dating from the sixth or seventh century[7] shows a woman at her toilet, using a similar object. During the Mamluk reign, the ruling classes wore their hair long, until 1315, when Sultan al-Nāsir Muhammad ibn Qalā'ūn shaved off his hair, introducing a new fashion; native Egyptians used to cut their hair regularly.

The central part of the comb held in the Cairo Museum of Islamic Art has carved decorations. Two fine zigzags frame a wide band, which is arranged symmetrically and divided into five compartments. The comb’s extremities are inscribed with good wishes written in a cursive script, whose letters have high vertical lines, which was common under the Mamluks. This kind of writing was used in Iran and in Spain, with regional variations.

The ocelli are stamped and are in openwork in two compartments next to the inscriptions. Between these is a large rectangle, in the centre of which is a round blazon with a very stylized fleur-de-lys. Blazons were used in the Islamic world from the end of the Ayyubid period. The Mamluks also had a preference for them, until they disappeared completely with the dynasty’s decline in 1517. Unlike their Western counterparts, where they were linked to a family or social group, blazons were more related to individuals in Syria and Egypt, often symbolizing responsibility for various creations connected with their patronage or household.

Some decorations (symbols), like the fleur-de-lys, were common in both European and Eastern heraldry. The Arabic name for this symbol is faransīsiya, meaning ‘frank’, so it may have been imported during the Crusades, and may originate in the coat of arms of France (lapis lazuli with golden fleur-de-lys) or that of Florence (silver with fleur-de-lys de gueules), even though it is a very common decoration. Mayer refutes these origins, because the Western lily seemed (at least in medieval times) to emerge from a single stem, while in the East, it comprised (until the fourteenth century) three distinct parts linked by a horizontal bar. Its precursors exist on a seal of Ramses III, and on the decorations of Qasr Kharana (seventh century AD, Jordan). Whatever the origin, the lily appeared as an emblem under Nūr al-Dīn Mahmūd ibn Zangī, particularly in his Damascus madrasa (1154). It then became the blazon of several Bahri Amirs. The blazon’s application on the entire field dates this comb to the fourteenth century, as Mamluk blazons became more complex with time. Its spindly aspect can be seen in a contemporary Syrian fragment.

[3] Comb, with king taming a lion, ivory and gold; provenance: Susa, the Louvre Museum, Paris, Sb 9095

[4] The Louvre Museum, Paris, OA 11228

[5] Ivory comb, fourteenth century, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 151-1879

[6] The sūq al-amshātiyyin

[7] Woman at her toilet, bronze, the Louvre Museum, Paris, E 13931