Were Ancient Egyptians Attractive?

Were ancient Egyptians actually attractive? And would they have found YOU attractive? Almost certainly not. Your tan, your gym build and your straight white teeth would have marked you as hired labour in Thebes. This video covers what beauty meant in Egypt for three thousand years: eyeliner that doubled as medicine, wigs that cost a fortune, the wax head cones nobody believed were real until one was dug up in 2019, and the eighteen-square grid every Egyptian body was drawn on. Also: why the red-men-yellow-women colour code is about sex rather than wealth, why a fat official was showing off while the ideal body stayed slim, what tattooed women actually were, and why Egyptian teeth were ground down by sand in the bread. And at the end, the part that breaks the usual story: Egypt's beauty standards barely moved for three millennia, and there is a reason for that. CHAPTERS 0:00 You Are Ugly 2:25 Skin 4:59 Body Type 7:26 Grooming 10:11 Why These Characteristics Mattered 10:43 Weird Things Egyptians Found Attractive 13:59 Why You Are Ugly (In Egypt) 16:21 Tattoos 19:08 Why It All Mattered SOURCES Canon of proportions and the Egyptian art grid (UCL Digital Egypt) Colour and gender in Egyptian art (UCL Digital Egypt) Mary Ann Eaverly, Tan Men, Pale Women (University of Michigan Press) Walter et al., Making Make-up in Ancient Egypt, Analytical Chemistry (2010) The wax head cones recovered at Amarna (2019, Smithsonian Magazine) McCreesh et al., fat-based hair product on mummified hair, Journal of Archaeological Science (2011) Anne Austin's infrared imaging of Deir el-Medina tattoos (Science News) Rageot, Beck et al., embalming workshop chemistry at Saqqara, Nature (2023) Papyrus Ebers (Leipzig University Library) Hatshepsut and the false beard of kingship (Britannica) Egyptian jewellery and ear ornaments (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) #ancientegypt #beautystandards #history #ancienthistory #historyexplained #didyouknow #historyfacts