Tresses and Distresses: Literary and Social Aspects of Women’s Hair in Second Temple Jewish Literature

Abstract

This article explores the literary context of three types of hair modification in Second Temple Jewish literature: disarranging, unveiling, and cutting, when they occur and the social categories they embody. All of these behaviors mark women as mourners, with the tearing/cutting and disheveling of hair further identifying them as suppliants. While some depictions are based on biblical models, the supplication scenes clearly reflect Greek and Roman motifs ‒ women wearing their hair wild and addressing the troops and defendants wearing mourning dress and engaging in keening gestures. Outside these contexts, female figures rarely cut/dishevel their hair of their own accord, the majority of those who do so being slaves/captives/prisoners subject to the whims of authority figures ‒ masters/mistresses or priests.