A curious wig

The relief depicts the man with a wig consisting of two layers. In the New Kingdom (ca. 1539-1077 BC), men wore wigs like these on top of their real hair, or a shaved head. In ancient Egyptian tombs, we’ve found several examples of such wigs (Fig. 1). The bottom layer of the wig consists of long, thin braids covering the back of the head and the neck. The layer partially covering that consists of curly or wavy hair. In surviving examples, the top part is often shrunk, uncovering a bigger part of the bottom layer.

The forger paid a lot of attention to the different locks and curls, but apparently didn’t study the other parts of the wig closely enough. On the forehead, the angle of the wig is too steep, causing the contour of the top of the head to become too rounded.

In authentic ancient Egyptian reliefs, the front of the wig is much higher (Fig. 2). The wig in the forged relief isn’t wide enough either: in ancient Egyptian art, the wig covered a bigger part of the shoulder. In front of the ear, we see a sideburn that’s supposed to depict the real hair of the man peeking out from under the wig. While this is a detail that sometimes occurs in finely executed Egyptian reliefs, this sideburn is too narrow, and too short. In the next step, you’ll read how the way the wig covers the ear further betrays the hand of the forger.