Noegel, Scott B.Nichols, Corinna E2025-08-012025-08-012025Nichols_washington_0250E_28089.pdfhttps://hdl.handle.net/1773/53724Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2025This dissertation examines how the portrayal of hair in Mesopotamia, New Kingdom Egypt, and the Hebrew Bible expresses identity and enacts control. Hair offers a basis for comparison across these three different but interconnected cultures: it is uniquely symbolizable, being visible, malleable, and ubiquitous. This study draws on Bourdieu’s concept of habitus: the cultural, historical, and social norms that influence and produce individual practice, even without the individual’s conscious awareness. It also understands ancient Near Eastern texts and images as performative, that is, as active agents that shaped reality. This work uses a series of thematic case studies, examining depictions of the hair of foreigners, of kings and elites, and of liminal figures for each of the three cultures. It draws on both textual sources, e.g., New Kingdom love poems, and visual sources, e.g., the Neo-Assyrian palace relief sculptures. Each case study examines how these portrayals of hair, seemingly ornamental, are intertwined with and bring about three kinds of control. First, an exemplar may depict real-world control, as with a soldier grabbing an enemy by his beard. Second, these portrayals control their audience, molding their habitus and behavior into the desired form envisioned by the elitecreators of these works. Third, these depictions themselves enact cosmological control, shaping reality, whether by legitimating a king or repelling the chaos of the foreign. By examining hair across cultures, this dissertation reveals both shared strategies, such as the careful differentiation of foreign hair, and unique inflections, such as the uniformity of Neo-Assyrian hair across class and gender. Moreover, by attending to the details of how hair is depicted, this dissertation demonstrates that focus on a common feature can serve as a productive point of comparison across media, time, and cultures. While the scholarly conversations of Egyptology, Assyriology, and Biblical Studies are often distinct, this dissertation uses the motif of hair to illuminate the repetition of key themes across cultural boundaries, highlighting a shared worldview, shaped by elite values and concerns.application/pdfen-USnonebeardBiblecontrolEgypthairNeo-AssryiaNear Eastern studiesNear and Middle Eastern StudiesThesis