Oldest known lipstick found in country that has banned cosmetics
Beauty trends come and go, but one thing has been a makeup mainstay for millennia: deep red lipstick. Women – and, yes, men too – have painted their faces with this hue since the start of civilisation.
Now, archaeologists have identified the oldest known physical example of lipstick. Carbon dated to between 1936 and 1687 BC, the analysed contents of a small stone vial from Iran are a Bronze Age form of dark red lipstick that was probably applied with a brush.
“It is important to note that in the present state of knowledge, we hypothesise a lip paint, rather than a solid lipstick,” said Massimo Vidale, one of seven scientists who studied the substance.
Looking very much like a modern tube of lipstick, the cylindrical container carrying the suspected lip paint was unearthed in 2001 from a 3rd millennium BC cemetery near the Halil River in Kerman Province, in southeastern Iran. Vidale and his team of researchers recently examined the container, and have published their findings in a study in the journal Scientific Reports.
It’s ironic that the first known lipstick specimen was found in Iran, a country that banned cosmetics like lipstick and nail polish following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Though restrictions have been relaxed, many women – including government workers and medical students – are still prohibited from wearing makeup.
Vidale, a professor of archaeology at the University of Padua in Italy, said the vial’s contents were in powder form due to dehydration after more than 3700 years. Under a microscope, dark pigments were clearly visible, indicating that the original product was an “intense red colour”, the team reported in the study.
Using an environmental scanning electron microscope, the scientists were able to identify the makeup’s makeup. It features a large amount of hematite, a ferric oxide mineral whose name is derived from the Greek word for “blood” because of its red colour. The contents also include vegetable oils and waxes, which are found in today’s lipstick as well.
“Combined together, this is exactly what one would expect in a modern lipstick,” Vidale wrote.
The use of lipstick dates back more than 5500 years. According to ancient texts, Queen Puabi (also known as Shub-Ad) of Ur in Mesopotamia was the first to apply colouring to her mouth. The Sumerian sovereign apparently used a mixture of white lead and crushed red rocks around 3500 BC to rouge her lips. Ancient Egyptians were also known to use lipstick for ceremonial, funerary and everyday purposes.
Vidale and his fellow researchers, whose study of the lipstick was supported by the universities of Tehran and Padua and the International Association for Mediterranean and Oriental Studies in Rome, became interested in the vial when team member Nasir Eskandari spotted it in the collection of the Jiroft Archaeological Museum in Iran.
At the time, its purpose was unknown. The container was originally unearthed when the Halil River flooded ancient cemeteries in 2001 and exposed numerous artefacts. Many items were looted but then recovered by Iranian security forces.
Measuring approximately 5cm tall by 2cm wide, the stone vial is slightly smaller than a modern tube of lipstick. The hand-carved container is made of chlorite, and includes a hole on the top for extracting the contents.
The vial is believed to have been used by the Jiroft culture. This Bronze Age civilisation was unknown until the 2001 cemetery flooding. Its capital is thought to have been the city-state of Marhaši, which is mentioned in ancient texts but has yet to be located. – Washington Post