Archaeologists have discovered the remains of a 3,300-year-old woman who wore a complex hairstyle with 70 hair extensions in the ancient Egyptian city of Amarna.
The ancient woman was not mummified, her body was found wrapped in a mat.
She wore "a very complex coiffure with approximately 70 extensions fastened in different layers and heights on the head," said Jolanda Bos, an archaeologist working on the Amarna Project.
"Whether or not the woman had her hair styled like this for her burial only is one of our main research questions," Bos told 'LiveScience'.
"The hair was most likely styled after death, before a person was buried. It is also likely, however, that these hairstyles were used in everyday life as well and that the people in Amarna used hair extensions in their daily life," Bos said.
The woman's name, age or occupation is not known, but she is among hundreds of people, including many others whose hairstyles are still intact, who were buried in a cemetery near an ancient city now called Amarna.
The city was constructed as a new capital of Egypt by Akhenaten (reign ca 1353-1335 BC).
Amarna was abandoned shortly after Akhenaten's death, and today archaeologists are investigating all aspects of the ancient city, including the hairstyles its people wore.
Many of the other skulls Bos analysed also had hair extensions. One skull had extensions made of gray and dark black hair suggesting multiple people donated their hair to create extensions.
The research was published in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology.
