A bust depicts Queen Nefertiti (1370 – 1330 BC), chief consort of the Pharaoh Akhenaten. New research suggest that thick black eye make-up worn by the Ancient Egyptians may have protected against infection.
Credit: Wikimedia
SYDNEY: Elaborate eye make-up worn by Ancient Egyptians not only made for a dramatic look, but also protected against disease, says a new study.
Starting 4,000 years ago, Egyptians manufactured the make-up with lead and lead salts in mixtures that sometimes took a month to concoct, said lead author Philippe Walter, of the National Centre for Scientific Research and the Louvre Museum in Paris, France.
"We knew the Ancient Greeks and Romans had noted that the make-up had medicinal properties, but we wanted to determine exactly how," he said.
Immune stimulator
Ancient Egyptian texts, paintings, statues and toiletries indicate that green and black eye make-up was used extensively for its aesthetic, ceremonial and therapeutic properties.
But experts now know that the make-up also reduced susceptibility to eye diseases, such as bacterial conjunctivitis, from exposure to contaminated water in the marshy Nile Delta region.
Experiments by Walter's team revealed that lead ions at low concentration stimulate skin cells to produce nitrogen monoxide, which alerts infection-fighting white blood cells and increases blood flow in capillaries.
"The eyes of Egyptians wearing the black eye make-up were [ready] to immediately resist a sudden bacterial contamination with extreme efficiency through the spontaneous action of their own immune cells," says the study, detailed this week in the journal Analytical Chemistry.
Magical properties
"This conclusion seems amazing because today we focus only on the well-recognised toxicity of lead salts," it continues.
The scientists had previously analysed make-up recovered from containers in the collections of the Louvre. They found the residue of a range of lead-based substances, including two lead chlorides: 'laurionite' (Pb(OH)Cl) and 'phosgenite' (Pb2Cl2CO2), which don't occur in nature.
Roman authors from the first century, including Pliny the Elder, record that these compounds were intentionally synthesised for their beneficial properties and were widely used in eye make-up and lotions.
The Ancient Egyptians ascribed these benefits to magical properties, says the study. They "associated a magic role with these cosmetics according to which their bearers would be directly protected by [the gods] Horus and Ra against several illnesses."
The Egyptians even increased the concentration in order to maximise those benefits, said Walter, but until now modern science dismissed the possibility of health benefits because of the well-known toxicity of lead-based substances.
Lead toxicity
Peter Baghurst, an epidemiologist at the Adelaide Women's and Children's hospital, in South Australia, said the findings were very interesting and added that "they'd be among the first people in the world to make a health claim for lead."
The effects of long-term, low-level exposure to the lead in these cosmetics are uncertain, said Bagshaw, and it's difficult to say if they would have experienced negative health effects over and above any benefits they got from the make-up.
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with AFP.
