Janet Stephens

Portrait bust with Roman hairstyle (late 1st century BC)

Roman statue of a woman with elaborate hairstyle (Aphrodisias, 2nd century AD)

Janet Stephens (née Scott) is a hairstyle archaeologist^[1] who studies historical hairstyles, aiming to prove that they were not done with wigs, as commonly believed, but with the person's own hair.^[2][3]

Early life[]

Her maiden name is Janet Scott, and she grew up in Kennewick, Washington.^[4]

Reconstruction[]

She first became interested in this work in 2001, when she visited the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore and saw some statue busts from the Greek and Roman collections.^[5][6] Stephens said,

I had never seen the back of a Roman statue before—they are usually placed high on shelves/pedestal[s] with the backs tight up against a wall. As I circled the portraits I saw the logic of the hairstyles and determined to try some at home.^[5]

But she found that scholars mainly believed that the hairstyles were wigs.^[2] Believing otherwise, Stephens set out to do her own research.^[2] In 2005, while studying translations of Roman literature, she realized the Latin term acus, which has several meanings including a "single-prong hairpin" or "needle and thread," was being mistranslated as "single-prong hairpin" in the context of ancient Roman hairdressing.^[2] While single-prong hairpins could not have held up the elaborate hairstyles of ancient Rome, a needle and thread could.^[2]

In 2008 she published this theory as "Ancient Roman Hairdressing: On (hair) pins and needles" in the Journal of Roman Archaeology, Vol. 21.^[7][2] In 2012 her video Julia Domna: Forensic Hairdressing was presented at the Archaeological Institute of America’s annual meeting in Philadelphia.^[8] In 2013 she became the first to recreate the hairstyle of the Roman vestal virgins on a modern person.^[9][2][10]

Hairdressing[]

Stephens continues to work as a hairdresser at Baltimore's Studio 921 Salon and Day Spa.^[11]

References[]

External links[]

• Janet Stephens's YouTube channel