Tag Archives: Jane Draycott

‘From Past to Present – Natural Cosmetics Unwrapped’: Conference, Workshop, and Museum Exhibition

By Jane Draycott

For the past two years, the Arts and Humanities Research Council has been funding the ‘From natural resources to packaging, an interdisciplinary study of skincare products over time’ research project through an Early Career Development Award as part of its Science in Culture Theme. Early career researchers from the University of Oxford, the University of Glasgow, and Keele University have been working in conjunction with staff at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society Museum, and at the Boots Archive (on which see this Recipes Project post) to undertake a scoping project and investigate the evolution of skincare products over time. The aims of the project were to identify the natural substances used in skincare products in the past and identify what – if any – pharmaceutical properties they possessed; to study the packaging and advertising of skincare products and the ways in which ancient images were utilised in them; to recreate ancient skincare products using contemporary natural substances; and to undertake public engagement activities and so disseminate the information generated by the project.

Cosmetics containers from the Kerameikos Museum, Athens, circa fifth century BCE, image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The culmination of the project was a two-day event at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society Museum, the first day consisting of a conference, the second a workshop, accompanied by ‘Cosmetics Unwrapped’, a special exhibition at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society Museum, which draws on the museum’s collections as well as those of the Boots Archive and the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology.

On Thursday 15th February, eleven experts in different areas of the history of cosmetics from around the world presented their research. Thibaut Devièse, the Principal Investigator of the ‘From natural resources to packaging, an interdisciplinary study of skincare products over time’ research project, opened the conference with an overview of the project’s activities and findings.The first panel focused on literary, documentary and archaeological evidence for cosmetics in ancient and historical periods. Francisco Gomes from the University of Lisbon discussed evidence for perfumes and unguents in the Western Iberian Iron Age, noting that the containers are an under-studied item and minimal analysis has been done on either them or their contents. Mira Cohen Starkman from the Wingate Institute discussed a range of cosmetic recipes from Jewish literature in use in Ladino and observed that comparative research using contemporary tribal practices can be useful when attempting to understand how natural resources were utilised as cosmetics in the past. Finally, Kathleen Walker-Meikle surveyed Hieronymus Mercurialis’ skincare recipes and highlighted the amount of ancient Greek and Latin medical recipes that he had utilised as sources.

The second panel explored the scientific analysis and experimental reconstruction of ancient and historical cosmetics. Josefina Perez-Arantegui from the University of Zaragoza detailed the different types of chemical analysis that can be brought to bear on surviving samples of cosmetics, while Maria Cristina Gamberini from the University of Modena provided an overview of not only the chemical analysis of Phoenician pigments but also the recreation of the recipes that would have contained them. Finally, Effie Photos-Jones of the University of Glasgow surveyed the different types of white pigment recovered from burials in Attic Greece and presented evidence that some of these pigments had been synthetically created in accordance with instructions found in ancient Greek literature.

The third panel provided an opportunity to explore the reception of ancient cosmetics in later historical periods and in the contemporary world. Judith Wright from Boots presented a lively potted history of the company’s popular No7 brand, noting how the brand responded to social change over the course of the twentieth and twenty-first century. Peter Homan, President of the British Society for the History of Pharmacy discussed remedies for baldness. Anisha Gupta from Kings College London scrutinised the numerous approaches to oral hygiene undertaken throughout history. Finally, independent scholar Julie Wakefield investigated the used of the ancient Greek pharmaceutical writer Dioscorides’ work by herbalists in the Early Modern period. The conference was brought to a close with a guest lecture on the appeal of natural products from the botanist, science writer, and broadcaster James Wong, author of the internationally best-selling books Grow Your Own Drugs and Homegrown Revolution.

On Friday 16th February, a free to attend workshop open to members of the public, generously funded by the Institute of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Keele University and sponsored by G. Baldwin and Co. allowed experts in the recreation of historical cosmetics Szu Wong, Anisha Gupta, and Julie Wakefield to share their knowledge, expertise, and techniques. Parents and children from across London were invited to test a range of products recreated from ancient recipes such as Ovid’s face packs and face masks, Cleopatra’s solution for hair loss, and Egyptian kohl, and to create their own toothpastes and oatmeal moisturisers. Children were also encouraged to come up with ideas for cosmetics and design and make packaging and advertising for them.

Star Soap advert and soap, image courtesy of Jane Draycott

The ‘Cosmetics Unwrapped’ exhibition will be on display at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society until August and is free to view.

The team would like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Institute of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Keele University, the Royal Society of Chemistry, and G. Baldwin & Co for supporting the research project and these events.

In vino sanitas

By Jane Draycott

A well-known fresco from the household shrine of the House of the Centenary at Pompeii shows Bacchus, the Roman god of wine, standing at the foot of Vesuvius. This, in conjunction with the substantial amount of archaeological evidence for viticulture in the Campania region, gives us an insight into the importance of wine in ancient Roman culture and society, not to mention the ancient Roman economy. For those in possession of agricultural estates, wine was relatively easy to make and store, and for those who were not, it was readily available to buy. Wine could be drunk at all hours of the day and night, and depending on the occasion could be mixed with honey (mulsum) or spices (conditum), or diluted (either with water or with snow, depending on your budget). However, the Roman appreciation of wine went beyond its role as a beverage, whether taken in conjunction with a meal, or on its own.

Household Shrine, Bacchus and Vesuvius Fresco. Credit: Carole Raddato, Wikimedia Commons.
Household Shrine, Bacchus and Vesuvius Fresco. Credit: Carole Raddato, Wikimedia Commons.

Pliny the Elder, writing shortly before his death in the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE, stated that ‘grapes hold such an important place among [medicines] that they act as remedies in themselves, merely by supplying wine’ (Natural History 14.3.19). Recipes for wine that survive from the ancient world indicate that certain types were specifically designed to serve as medicaments, whether taken internally as potions, and externally as lotions, and, interestingly, these recipes are not only found in straightforwardly medical treatises, such as Oribasius’ Medical Collections (c. 325-400 CE).

Cato the Elder’s On Agriculture (c. 160 BCE) makes the importance of viticulture in the Italian economy clear, going so far as to state that, in Cato’s opinion, a vineyard was the best sort of agricultural estate to possess (1.7). It contains a number of recipes for different types of wine, and many of these are explicitly medicinal, designed to deal with common medical problems that might arise on an isolated farmstead, such as constipation, retention of urine, indigestion, colic, and internal parasites, by utilising accessible plants as ingredients, such as hellebore, juniper, and myrtle.

Columella’s On Agriculture (first century CE) also recommends myrtle wine for a wide range of complaints, and states that, in Columella’s opinion, it is the type of wine most beneficial to health (12.38.7). Additionally, horehound, squill, and pennyroyal wines are recommended for coughs (12.32, 33, 35) – in fact, an amphora once containing horehound wine has been recovered from the Roman fort at Carpow in Scotland, and it was perhaps used by soldiers for its medicinal properties in order to treat the colds they acquired while serving in the damp province.

Drunken old woman statue, a first century CE Roman copy of a third century BCE Hellenistic original. Credit: Bockschuss, Flickr.

However, while the Romans appreciated that certain types of wine could be beneficial to health, they also recognised that too much of any type of wine could be detrimental to health. Lucretius asked: ‘why, when the sharp power of wine has penetrated into a man … does heaviness come upon the limbs, do his legs impede him as he staggers, does his speech become slurred, his mind become soaked, his eyes swim?’ (On the Nature of Things 3.476-82, early first century BCE). Excessive drinking and drunkenness were frowned upon in both men and women, and just as hellebore could be added to wine to make a purgative, it was also believed to cure the madness brought on by excessive drinking…

Flower power: Cato’s medicinal recipes

By Jane Draycott

Marcus Porcius Cato (234-149 BCE) is often presented as the archetypal example of the ancient Roman head of the household taking charge of his family members’ health, the result of claims made by Pliny the Elder (23-79 CE) in his encyclopaedia Natural History:

For [Cato] adds the medical treatment by which he prolonged his own life and that of his wife to an advanced age, by these very remedies in fact with which I am now dealing, and he claims to have a notebook of recipes, by the aid of which he treated his son, servants, and household. 

[Pliny, Natural History 29.8.15]

A bucolic scene featuring a walled garden, Red Room, Villa of Agrippa Postumus, Boscoreale
A bucolic scene featuring a walled garden, Red Room, Villa of Agrippa Postumus, Boscoreale

The Greek historian Plutarch (c. 40-120 CE) offers more detail in his Parallel Lives, describing Cato’s theories, methods and practices, which show strong parallels with those utilised by the period’s physicians:

[Cato] had written a book of recipes, which he followed in the treatment and regimen of any who were sick in his family. He never required his patients to fast, but fed them on greens, or bits of duck, pigeon, or hare.  Such a diet, he said, was light and good for sick people, except that it often causes dreams. By following such treatment and regimen he said he had good health himself, and kept his family in good health. [Plutarch, Life of Cato the Elder 23.4]

Both Pliny and Plutarch offer Cato’s longevity as proof of his medical capabilities, at least in respect of himself (his wife and one of his sons predeceased him). Unfortunately, Cato’s book of recipes has not survived. What has is his treatise On Agriculture, the very first such work to be written in Latin, which dates to around 160 BCE. The treatise was directed at a very specific audience: young men who, thanks to Rome’s recent triumph in the Second Punic War, were in a position to purchase fertile agricultural land in central Italy, along with sufficient slaves to enable them to cultivate grapes and olives in order to produce wine and oil for sale, but who were not in possession of sufficient knowledge or experience as to how to proceed beyond that. The priority is economic self-sufficiency and investment potential, with as much as possible being produced on the estate, for use on the estate, hence the prominent place the garden takes in Cato’s list of requirements: a garden can be used to grow fruit, vegetables, flowers, and herbs not only for food, but also for medicine.

The prescriptions and recipes found in On Agriculture indicate that, in addition to acting as a healer for the human members of his household, Cato also acted as a veterinarian for his livestock (oxen, cattle, and sheep are all mentioned specifically), and recommended that others do the same. Throughout the text the authority of the master – which, it is made clear, results from a combination of knowledge and experience – is emphasised, as is the importance of drawing upon the resources immediately to hand, those grown on the estate, predominantly in the garden. Of Cato’s numerous prescriptions and recipes for the treatment of both humans and animals, the ingredients required are all those which he either explicitly states were cultivated within his garden, or were likely to have been.

Pomegranates, Garden Room, Villa of Livia, Prima Porta
Pomegranates, Garden Room, Villa of Livia, Prima Porta

In conjunction with Cato’s recommendation that, if an estate is located near a town, the garden should be used to cultivate flowers for garlands, he lists those he considers to be the most suitable: ‘white and black myrtle, Delphian, Cyprian, and wild laurel, smooth nuts, such as Abellan, Praenestine, and Greek filberts’ (On Agriculture 8.2). Elsewhere in the treatise, laurel leaves appear in a recipe for a tonic for oxen, while black myrtle is a main ingredient in a recipe for indigestion and colic (On Agriculture 70 and 125). In a remedy for indigestion and strangury, he includes pomegranates, instructing his reader to ‘gather pomegranate blossoms when they open’, thus implying that these plants were within easy reach (On Agriculture 127). Pomegranates also appear in a recipe for ‘gripes, for loose bowels, for tapeworms and stomach-worms, if troublesome’ (On Agriculture 126). The wine and oil produced on the estate are also frequently enlisted in Cato’s medicaments, both as primary and secondary ingredients. With regard to wine, the addition of black hellebore is recommended to make a laxative, while that of juniper is recommended to treat the retention of urine, and gout, while the amurca that results from the production of olive oil is enlisted (along with wine) as a treatment for scab in sheep (On Agriculture 114, 115, 122, 123, 96).

It would appear that in respect of domestic medical practice, Cato very much practiced what he preached!