delight
A hairstylist cracked a mystery scholars missed for generations
The scholars never actually tried to do the hair. She did.
A Baltimore hairstylist named Janet Stephens spent years proving that the elaborate updos on Roman busts were not wigs, overturning a scholarly consensus that had stood for generations. It started in 2001 at The Walters Art Museum, where the busts were displayed away from the wall. Being able to circle them let Stephens see the logic of the braids. At home, with modern tools, she failed to recreate them anyway. Reading the academic literature, she decided the authors had never actually done hair. In 2005, using Google Translate for languages she did not read, she caught a clue everyone else had missed. The Latin word acus meant both single-prong hairpin and needle and thread. Translators chose the hairpin. Stephens tried sewing the braids in place, and they held. Her findings ran in the Journal of Roman Archaeology in 2008. In 2013, she became the first person to recreate the hairstyle of the Roman Vestal Virgins.
