Cultural Relic: Ancient people’s Ivory Comb

Copyright: A Journey into China’s Antiquity– Chinese History in Cultural Relics, Blossom Press

When you tidy your hair, have you ever thought about how ancients do it? It turns out that dating back to Neolithic age, there had already existed comb.

Made of thick ivory, this comb has 16 fines, and closely spaced teeth and is decorated with an openwork pattern in triple lines that looks like the Arabic numeral 8.

It is the best-preserved comb of primitive society that has been discovered. An ivory pot, probably for holding combs, was retrieved at the same time.

At the Neolithic Age sites, many zan and gu, made of bone or jade for fastening or giving a beauty treatment to the hair, have been unearthed, indicating that people in ancient days already knew how to tidy their hair or wear it in a bun or coil.