Shaking, Pulling, Cutting and Offering the Hair in Ancient Egypt Funerals.

If we take a look at all documents compiled by category the results are these ones:

There are more examples of these women shaking their hair forwards than pulling their front lock of hair and it seems quite safe to affirm that in Ancient Egypt there was the habit of cutting and offering hair to the deceased.

We could conclude that Egyptian mourners shook more their hair than pulled it before cutting it, but it would not be precise, because archaeology and ancient history are not exact sciences and we just count on the documents the chance has preserved.

From the chronological point of view it seems that the New Kingdom has more activity, although it is obvious that it comes from the amount of examples of decoration it remains.

But anyway, still some questions come to our mind related to shaking or pulling hair:

• Was really the nwn m gesture the main one during the Old Kingdom?
• Was the nwn gesture more in vogue from the Middle Kingdom on?

If both gestures coexisted, was still shaking hair the preferred one?