About fair-haired mummies - 3rd part

Index

1st part: henna, natron and Ramesses II

2nd part: bog bodies and photo-oxidation 

3rd part: Tarim and Paracas mummies



In this third part we will see what we know and (above all) what we don’t know about the Tarim mummies found in China and the Paracas mummies of Peru. The next part will be about Egyptian natural mummies, because I found out that, besides the Gebelein Man I have already mentioned in the second part, more red- and blond-haired mummies and skeletons have been unhearted in Egypt, but (strangely enough) they’re not very famous.

I know some articles, speaking of red-haired mummies, also mention a red-haired mummy from the Guanche culture in the Canary Islands, but the picture featuring these articles is partly false, because it has been “reddened” with some sort of filter. The actual mummy has got dark brown hair, as you can see here. 




TARIM MUMMIES

The term "Tarim mummies" refers to a series of mummies (more than 300) unearthed in cemeteries along the edges of the Taklamakan Desert in the Tarim Basin, present-day Xinjiang, China.

The mummies span roughly from 2000 BC to 200 AD.
I quote a passage from Grokipedia about the extraordinary preservation of the mummies and their artifacts: 

The Tarim mummies were preserved through natural desiccation in the hyper-arid environment of the Tarim Basin, where annual precipitation is less than 50 mm and evaporation rates exceed 3,000 mm, creating conditions that rapidly dehydrate tissues and inhibit microbial activity. Saline soils, rich in salts like sodium chloride, further contribute by drawing out residual moisture and acting as a natural preservative, preventing putrefaction even in shallow burials. This process allowed soft tissues, hair, skin, and internal organs to remain intact for millennia, with the mummies dating primarily from circa 2000 BCE to the early centuries CE.

These mummies proved to be a very controversial find for the Chinese government, as you can read here.

The red-haired mummies (obviously 😁) became the most popular. They are the Cherchen Man (probably dating to 800 BC), described as having reddish brown hair flecked with grey and a ginger beard; the Beauty of Loulan (arond 1800 BC), whose hair is described as auburn; the Princess of Xiaohe (about 1800 BC), with reddish-brown hair (here you can see some HD pictures of several mummies). There are probably more of them (with blond hair as well), but these are the most famous.

The Princess of Xiaohe

In 2021, a first genomic test was performed (The genomic origins of the Bronze Age Tarim Basin mummies, by Fan Zhang and colleagues) although in previous years mtDNA  and Y-DNA of some mummies were analysed. In this 2021 study, 33 samples were taken, but only 18 could be used: 13 were from the Tarim Basin and dated 2100-1700 BC, while the remaining 5 were from the Dzungarian Basin (north of the Tarim Basin) and dated 3000-2800 BC.
The 13 Tarim samples were mainly from Xiaohe (with some from Gumugou e Beifang) and belonged to the Early Bronze Age: that is, they were chosen among the most ancient mummies. The reason of this choice is that researchers wanted to understand the very origin of the Xiaohe population, before following migrations. They also wanted to make a comparison between the population of Dzungaria (related to the Afanasievo culture) and Tarim.
The result was that the mummies had high levels of Ancient North Eurasian ancestry (ANE, about 72%), with smaller admixture from Ancient Northeast Asians (ANA, about 28%). What does that mean? It simply means that those 13 mummies showed a high genetic affinity with the proxy of ANE population, that is, the individual called Afonotova Gora 3 (who lived 18,000 years ago). However, Afontova Gora 3 doesn’t represent the whole of Ancient North Eurasians and the study itself calls AG3 “a distant representative” of ANE ancestry.” This is a small but important detail.
The three red-haired mummies mentioned above were not included in this study. Cherchen Man was too recent, while the Beauty of Loulan was from Loulan and not from Xiaohe. As for the Princess of Xiaohe, we don’t know why it was not included (maybe the DNA couldn’t be used). However, in all internet articles about the Tarim mummies and their ancestry, usually we find the pictures of these red-haired mummies (for example in this article from the National Geographic), so, obviously, readers assume that these mummies were genetically tested and they have ANE ancestry. Maybe they do have ANE ancestry, but we don’t have any evidence of that.


In this 2021 paper there is a link called Supplementary Data 1, from which you can download a file with, among other things, the phenotypic traits of the studied individuals. The sample from Gumugou (GMGM1) seems to have a call for the A allele of the SNP rs11547464 on the MC1R gene (that would be the mutation R142H), which may result in red hair, but I couldn’t find any information on the actual hair colour of this mummy. Another sample (L5209) has a call for the C allele of rs12821256 on the KITLG gene, associated with blond hair (that would be the same mutation found on the Afontova Gora 3 remains I mentioned above), but, again, I couldn’t find any information on the mummy’s hair colour (and this is odd, in my opinion).

Cherchen Man

In 2025, Dr Zhang and colleagues performed a new genomic study, Bronze and Iron Age genomes reveal the integration of diverse ancestries in the Tarim Basin. This time they sequenced 24 genomes from the western Tarim Basin, spanning from Bronze to Iron Age (roughly from 1600 to 1000 BC) and found a strong component derived from pastoral steppe populations (which the authors link to the eastward expansion of Andronovo-related groups) and admixtures from the Bactria-Margiana Archeological Complex. Not even this time the red-haired mummies mentioned above were analysed. Several articles (included Wikipedia) write these mummies have this or that ancestry, but I couldn’t find any paper.


As for their hair, it was not analysed either, so, technically, we don’t know whether the colour is natural or not, but, (unlike what happens with other mummies) in this case no-one posits this or that chemical process to explain the colour. All articles and books about the Tarim mummies simply describe it, and that’s all. Apparently, the Taklamakan Desert is not conducive to hair colour changes. 😅
So, basically, we have these three mummies with reddish hair, but we don’t know if this is their original colour and don’t know if they have mutations for red hair.




PARACAS MUMMIES
The Paracas culture was a pre-Columbian Andean civilisation that developed on the southern coast of Peru, primarily in the Ica, Chincha, and Pisco valleys, from approximately 800 BC to 200 BC. It was named after the Paracas Peninsula, where major archaeological sites were first identified (the Paracas Peninsula is also famous for the geoglyph called Paracas Candelabra).
The Paracas culture is known today above all for cranial modification and elongated skulls.
In the Peninsula, two distinct types of cemeteries have been found. The earliest example is called Paracas Cavernas and is characterized by internments in subterranean caverns, with burials conical in shape and wrapped in a coarse outer cloth sewn closed.
In the late Paracas era, called Necropolis phase, we have above-ground stone chambers containing densely packed flexed bundles, often including multiple individuals. The Necropolis site's Wari Kayan cemetery, excavated by Julio C. Tello in 1929, yielded 429 so-called mummy bundles, arranged in clusters within and around abandoned structures on a hillside.

Drawing illustrating a Paracas Cavernas burial (source)

Thanks to very high aridity, low humidity and, probably, saline soil (conditions similar to those of the Tarim Desert), rapid dehydration and a slowing of decomposition occurred, elements that allowed the preservation not only of the bodies, but also of the funerary objects and textiles. As a matter of fact, the Paracas Necropolis textiles and embroideries are considered to be some of the finest ever produced by Pre-Columbian Andean societies. They are the primary works of art by which Paracas culture is known.

According to the 2015 study Pre-Columbian population dynamics in coastal southern Peru: A diachronic investigation of mtDNA patterns in the Palpa region by ancient DNA analysis,  the mitocodrial DNA (trasmitted from mother to children) of the Paracas Peninsula and Palpa were mostly D and C. For one individual from the necropolis of Wari Kayan we have both mtDNA and Y-DNA (transmitted from father to sons): mtDNA is D1 and Y-DNA is Q1b1a1a1 (see here). As far as I could see, these are the only data from the genetic point of view.

As for the hair, I found two hair analyses, but (guess what?) they’re not about the colour.
In the study Paleodiet in the Paracas Necropolis of Wari Kayan: carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of keratin samples from the south coast of Peru, the hair of 14 mummies from Wai Kayan were analysed to investigate paleomobility and paleodiet.
In the study Raman Spectroscopy and STR Analysis of the Elongated Skulls from the Paracas Mummies of Peru (2022, Thornton and colleagues)  a skull from Palpa was analysed with (among other techniques) Raman spectroscopy and microscope, in order to ascertain that the hair belonged to a human being (as you probably know, several fringe theories claim the Paracas were not human).

Now (as you can read in the study), the hair on this skull was described as red and (as I wrote in the first part of this article) the Raman spectroscopy is one of the techniques which can be used (often with others) to determine the real colour of archaeological hair. However, these researchers did not perform this kind of analysis! They had the chance to find out if this individual was really a redhead, but didn’t take it. On the contrary, they repeated the mantra that eumelanin is less stable than phaeomelanin, while in the second part of this article we saw this statement is not scientifically correct and there’s a single evidence that eumelanin is less stable than phaeomelanin under all circumstances. I quote some passages from the study: 

The hair from the Paracas skull was dark and almost reddish in color, supporting the earlier observation that the Paracas mummies were comprised mostly, if not entirely, of redheads (Dr. Dennis Swift, personal communication). […] Pheomelanin tends to be stable in the hair even under extreme conditions; however, eumelanin is less chemically stable than pheomelanin and breaks down much more rapidly when oxidized. Even in wet oxidizing climates, the eumelanin in the hair is lost over extended periods of time, leaving behind the red pigment, pheomelanin. Thus, the color of hair changes faster under extreme conditions and will often turn a reddish color. Consequently, it is difficult, if not speculative, to assume that the Paracas society was a population of redheads.

In the second part I also explained that, since in all hair colours but red the amount of phaeomelanin is very small, should all eumelanin disappear, the remaining phaeomelanin wouldn’t be enough to colour the hair red (and the authors of this study should have known that).

Although dated, I think it is worth mentioning the paper that forensic anthropologist Mildred Trotter (1899 - 1991) wrote in 1943, Hair from Paracas Indian Mummies.
In this study, Trotter examined the hair of 10 Paracas mummies (two females and eight males) collected by Julio Tello in 1925 and preserved in Lima. She writes “In general, the color was a rusty brown and gave the appearance of having faded.” This sentence is often interpreted as if she said that the original colour was dark and that, because of some chemical process, the colour lightened. However, this is not was she meant, as we read in this excerpt from the book American Indians in the Pacific (1952), written by Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl (we mentioned him here). Heyerdahl writes:  

Dr. Trotter (1951) wrote me as follows with reference her paper quoted above: "I have gone over all the evidence we have and have discussed it with Mr, O. H. Duggins, who is now working with me on the subject of the hair. His background is an interesting one, since he has worked in the hair and fiber section of the F. B. I. I have come to the conclusion that there are two mistakes in my paper on the mummies' hair. The first mistake was to introduce the word 'Indian', and the second was the use of the word 'faded'. Now I shall try to answer your direct questions with a direct answer. The hair of the Paracas mummies which I examined in 1943 may have changed color and texture slightly. However, the amount of change in either colour or texture from any evidence we have would not deny that the original colour was a reddish brown and that the original texture was fine." Although no reason was found to warrant the hypothesis that the reddish-brown scalps had ever 'faded' from blue-black, microscopic examination showed that the light yellow hairs, interspersed to a very slight extent in eight of the samples, contained no pigment, and hence presumably had been even lighter, or white.

 

The huge Trotter collection (more than 6000 hair samples) still exists and is kept at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. In 2024, a team of researchers re-examined some the hair samples collected by Trotter (see here), but we don’t know if the 10 samples she studied in 1943 still exist and were re-examined. In any case, the 2024 team didn’t attempt to find out if the hair colour we see in these samples is the original one. As far as colour was concerned, they only studied density and distribution of melanosomes. So, basically, one more lost opportunity to solve the mystery of red-haired mummies.

For the sake of completeness it is also worth mentioning the 2009 study Multi-analytical techniques for the study of pre-Columbian mummies and related funerary materials, in which mummies and various archaeological finds from the necropolis of Ancòn (Peru) were examined (dated betwen 11th and 13th century AD). As you can read in the abstract, various techniques were used to identiy pigments and organic dyes and it turned out that one mummy had a red pigment on its hair, cinnabar. As you can see, identifying red dyes on archaeological hair is perfectly feasible.

About fair-haired mummies - 2nd part

Index

1st part: henna, natron and Ramesses II 

2nd part: bog bodies and photo-oxidation

3rd part: Tarim and Paracas mummies 

In this second part we will start examining the natural mummies. You probably know that the most famous red-haired mummies are those found in desertic environments, but I’ve decided to begin this article with the bog bodies. Many think the chemistry behind the red hair of the bog bodies is well known, but this is not the case. What we will see in this paragraph will be useful in the next article as well, where we will talk about the desertic mummies.

Bog bodies

The so-called bog bodies are naturally mummified bodies (or skeletons) found in peat bogs, which are usually distributed in cold, temperate climes, mostly in boreal ecosystems in the Northern Hemisphere (we have mentioned them in this article). The anaerobic environment and presence of tannic acids within bogs can result in the remarkable preservation of organic material. Furthermore, the high levels of acidity often darken the skin of these bodies and turn their hair a vibrant red, although not all bog bodies have red hair. There is even a “bog dog” found in Lower Saxony (Germany) and its fur too turned reddish. 

As a matter of fact, we still don’t know the chemical process that causes some of these mummies to have red hair. The explanation usually given (here’s an example) is that the dark pigment eumelanin, being less stable than the yellow-red phaeomelanin, degrades over the millennia, so the remaining phaeomelanin gives hair a reddish colour. However, there is no evidence of that. 

Osterby Man

Eumelanin vs Phaeomelanin

The problem is that speaking of this or that melanin being more stable or resistant than the other doesn’t make any sense, because it all depends on the context where the melanin is, so to speak. Besides, not only melanins are made up of several elements (that’s why they are considered polymers, or biopolymers), but the two are also very different the one from the other (see, for instance, A Comparative Study of the Physical and Chemical Properties of Melanins Isolated from Human Black and Red Hair).

Apparently, the idea of eumelanin being less stable comes from the 1987 study Chemical- and photo-bleaching of brown and red hair (by Wolfram & Albrecht) which, however, is not about peat bogs or mummies. It studies hair bleaching with hydrogen peroxide and sunlight, and the authors conclude that, under those conditions, phaeomelanin is more resistant to bleaching than eumelanin.

Subsequently, archaeologists extended this observation to peat bog mummies and mummies in general. However, since the original experimental evidence does not concern peat bogs, but rather cosmetic bleaching and photodamage, transferring that result to a peat bog environment (acidic, anoxic, rich in humic acids and poor in oxidizing radicals) is a plausible hypothesis, but not a proof.

In following studies eumelanin proved to be more stable tnat phaeomelanin.

For example, as we will see in the next paragraph, under UV radiations phaeomelanin is less photo-stable and degrades more quickly that eumelanin. 

The 2005 study by Yan Liu and colleagues Comparison of Structural and Chemical Properties of Black and Red Human Hair Melanosomes shows that eumelanin is more resistant to chemical and mechanical manipulations. 

The study Sediment-encased pressure–temperature maturation experiments elucidate the impact of diagenesis on melanin-based fossil color and its paleobiological implications  shows that, during the maturation of modern feathers in conditions simulating fossilisation, eumelanin is more stable than phaeomelanin, so much so that dark colours are preserved better than reddish ones. Of course, a peat bog isn't a fossil deposit subjected to high pressure and temperature, so that result can't be automatically transferred. However, it does demonstrate that the relative stability of the two pigments depends greatly on the chemical environment, and that there's no universal rule that phaeomelanin would always be the more resistant.

The 2016 review Fifty Shades of Black and Red or How Carboxyl Groups Fine Tune Eumelanin and Pheomelanin Properties summarises the knowledge accumulated over the past years on the chemistry of melanins and explains that the properties of eumelanin and phaeomelanin are much more variable than previously thought. Authors explain that both melanins are families of polymers and that small structural differences profoundly alter their properties. "Eumelanin" does not exist as a single material: its stability depends on its chemical composition, so comparing "eumelanin" and "phaeomelanin" as if they were two pure substances is an oversimplification.

Bocksten Man

Possible scenarios

I have not studied all the bog bodies (here’s the list), but in a least two cases the original hair colour was found out. Osterby Man was described as dark blond, while Yde Girl was described as blond. 

Now, in blond hair there are very small amounts of eumelanin and phaeomelanin, so, if all eumelanin should degrade, the remaining phaeomelanin wouldn’t be enough to colour the hair a vibrant red. 

Besides, if palaeochemists managed to identify the original hair colour of these two bodies, it means that both melanins were still there, at least in part. 

The logical conclusion is that the red colour we see in bog bodies is not caused by eumelanin degradation, but by other processes, that could be: 

- chemical alteration of eumelanin without complete destruction, with a change in its optical properties;

- alteration of keratin, which changes the way light is scattered by the hair;

- adsorption of humic substances or iron complexes on the hair surface;

- a combination of these phenomena.

An often overlooked factor is that hair is an optical as well as a pigmentary material. Colour depends not only on the amount of melanin, but also on how light passes through the cortex, is absorbed by melanosomes, and scatters by keratin. If the microstructure changes over decades or centuries, the perceived colour can change even without a massive loss of pigment.

Besides, since not all bog bodies show red hair, probably this reddening also depends on several more factors, such as how long the body remains in peat, the chemical composition of the bog, the temperature, the amount of iron in peat, pH levels and, probably, the individual’s natural hair colour. 

A very curious thing is that one of the humic substances of peat bogs is called fulvic acid, because of its reddish brown colour (fulvus in Latin means tawny or reddish yellow).

Fulvic acid isolated from peat

Is there a way to clarify the matter?

Oddly enough, no studies have recreated an "artificial peat bog" in the laboratory specifically to observe the colour changes in human hair. Such an experiment would be relatively simple to design and, I assume, not too expensive. Furthermore, it would not be necessary to take hair samples from the mummies.

As we have seen in the previous article, archaeologists are often more interested in diet, DNA, causes of death and overall preservation, and original hair colour has been considered a secondary issue. Besides, well-preserved bog bodies are few and museums tend to limit destructive hair samplings.

In any case, since bogs are more common in the Northern Emisphere, some of the mummies may well have natural red hair.

(As for the darkening of these mummies’ skin, the process seems to be clearer. Basically, thanks to the tannic acids, the skin undergoes a sort of tanning like in the tanning of leather. Here are a couple of articles on the subject: 1 and 2).

Photo-oxidation

Photo-oxidation is sometimes brought up to explain the red hair of certain mummies. 

Photo-oxidation is the degradation of a polymer surface (and we have seen that melanin is a polymer) due to the combined action of light and oxygen. Today, it is the most significant factor in the weathering of plastics.

On the left, a rope which has been degraded by weathering. On the right, a fresh rope

Through this process, when hair is exposed to sunlight, the ensuing chemical reaction leads to various structural and aesthetic changes in hair fibers.

As far as colour is concerned, photo-oxidation can alter the pigmentation of hair, leading to fading or discoloration. This is particularly noticeable in dyed or bleached hair, which may lose its vibrancy over time. Prolonged exposure to UV radiation can also weaken the hair, resulting in a loss of elasticity. This makes hair more prone to breakage and split ends. 

The whole process involves the interaction of UV light with the hair's chemical components, primarily keratin and melanin. This interaction can degrade melanin, causing lighter or altered shades. Furthermore, as free radicals increase and keratin is also damaged, the hair becomes more porous and appears "discolored". 

Photo-oxidation is a phenomenon you can observe on yourself as well: if you spend a lot of time in the sunlight, especially in the summer, you hair can become lighter. I remember that one summer I would often dry my hair under the sun and at the end of the summer it had lightened so much that even my hairdresser noticed.  

There are several laboratory experiments on photo-oxidation (I will link some of them below) but none of them shows that hair can become red as a result of photo-oxidation. According to the amounts of eumelanin and phaeomelanin, hair can get reddish or copper shades, or it can become browninsh, warm brown, browninsh with reddish shades. but it will never become red as in a person with natural red hair.

The 2009 review Photoaggravation of Hair Aging, citing previous works, argues (as we mentioned in the previous paragraph) that eumelanin has got a higher photostability than phaeomelanin and it is more resistant to UV radiations. This is the reason why blond and especially red hair lighten more quickly than dark hair. 

The 2018 review Photodegradation of Eumelanin and Pheomelanin and Its Pathophysiological Implications shows that, with repeated exposure to UVA and blue light, eumelanin also degrades and progressively loses part of its protective efficacy. That’s why dark hair can get reddish shades. 

A very important point to understand is that no study has ever demonstrated that a colour can change to the point of entering another colour class, that is, becoming another colour. Even when hair colour lightens, it doesn't become another colour. 

For example, in the 2004 study Hair color changes and protein damage caused by ultraviolet radiation (Nogueira and Joekes) the authors proved that UVA radiations lighen hair colours, especially blond and above all red, but they didn’t observe an extreme colour change. The reason is that photo-oxidation gradually degrades melanin, but does not completely eliminate it, as can be achieved by bleaching with high-concentration peroxide. Furthermore, as melanin degrades, keratin damage increases, so the hair tends to reach a sort of plateau: it continues to deteriorate structurally, but the colour does not continue to lighten indefinitely. This trend is consistent with experimental studies on photobleaching (at the bottom of the article I’ve linked more experiments like this one).

In the forensic field, these changes in hair colour are a well-known aspect, but what’s the problem with mummies? The problem is that (as you can easily understand), if a body remains under the sun for such a long time that its hair undergoes a visibile colour change, eventually that body will be destroyed by weather, wild animals and bacteria and will never become a mummy, let alone a well-preserved mummy like the ones we know. 

As a matter of fact, photo-oxidation was mentioned to explain the red colour of the hair of one of the Gebelein predynastic mummies, the one called EA 32751 and kept in the British Museum. This mummy was formely known as Ginger, but then, after the Human Tissue Act 2004, the British Museum has developed policies for ethical treatment of human remains, and no longer uses this nickname. They clearly think that a code name such as EA 32751 is less “offensive” than Ginger. 😁

These mummies are naturally mummified bodies found in Upper Egypt and dating back to about 3000 BC.

Ginger and his red hair

Now, something curious happened with the Wikipedia page about the Gebelein mummies. Here’s the previous Wikipedia page (from June 2026) and, as you can see, at the end of the first section there are two paragraphs about Ginger’s hair colour. Photo-oxidation is mentioned to explain the red colour, but then they add “there is no evidence to suggest that the Gebelein mummies were subjected to years of prolonged sunlight following their burial.” Dr Janet Davey (see previous article) is also mentioned, along with her experiment with natron and her conclusion that “a minority of ancient Egyptians could have had naturally fair or reddish hair.” However, these two paragraphs are no longer present on the current page and no possible explanation is given for Ginger’s red hair. If you check the history of this article on Archive, you’ll see that these paragraphs about Ginger’s hair colour first appeared on the 5th September 2025, so they only stayed online for less than a year. 

Since I am on this subject, I want to add something that has nothing to do with mummies. Photo-oxidation is sometimes brought up to explain the red hair seen on natives by early explorers of Polynesia (we talked about it here). According to this explanation, those explorers did not see natural red hair, but dark or brown hair with reddish shades caused by prolonged photo-oxidation. It may be, although I find it strange that all those explorers couldn’t tell the difference between natural red hair and dark/brown hair with reddish shades. As a matter of fact, if you read their reports, they seem quite good at distinguishing different nuances of colours. Besides, some of the natives they met also had fair skin. 

Some studies on photo-oxidation

Measuring oxidative damage to human hair from solar radiation and pollution: A critical review 

 

Effects of solar radiation on hair and photoprotection 

A study of the photolightening mechanism of red hair with visible and ultraviolet light: comparison with blond hair 

Human hair melanins: what we have learned and have not learned from mouse coat color pigmentation

Photoprotective actions of natural and synthetic melanins 

A study of the photolightening mechanism of blond hair with visible and ultraviolet light 

Photodamage determination of human hair 

About fair-haired mummies - 1st part

Index

1st part: henna, natron and Ramesses II

2nd part: bog bodies and photo-oxidation 

3rd part: Tarim and Paracas mummies 

As you know, all around the world many blond- and red-haired mummies have been found. 

Among the artificial ones, there are several from ancient Egypt (especially from the 18th and 19th dinasty, New Kingdom, such as Ramesses II and his father Seti I, Thutmose IV, Queen Tiye, Hatshepsut and Siptah) and some from the Chinchorro culture (South America). Among the natural ones, there are some of the Tarim mummies, a small part of the Chinchorro mummies, the Paracas mummies in Peru, several from Fag el-Gamous in Egypt (although many of these human remains are skeletons, not actual mummies) and one of the Gebelein mummies, also found in Egypt.  

For the artificial mummies, usually the fair hair colour is explained either with the henna or with the natron used in the mummification process.

As for the natural mummies, the fair hair colour is usually explained with unspecified post-mortem “chemical processes”.

In this two-part post, I will try to clarify the matter a bit, showing that tracing the natural hair colour of a mummy is not at all impossible.

The Princess of Xiaohe, one of the Tarim mummies

Henna

Henna is a dye made from dried, powdered leaves of Lawsonia inermis, used to dye hair and for body paint. 

The use of henna in ancient Egypt is scarcely documented. It was occasionally used in mummification, probably for ritual purposes and for its antiseptic and antimycotic effects, but no ancient source mentions henna in relation to mummification. Its use in this process has only been documented by archaeologists.

As a matter of fact, the only Egyptian source about the use of Lawsonia inermis is the Ebers Papyrus, which includes various medical uses of this plant  However, not all scholars agree on the identification of the plant referred to in this papyrus with the consonant group KPR (translitterated as kupros in Greek and cyprus in Latin), and some speculate it is actually the Cyperus rotundus.

Henna was also used to dye textiles, but that’s all. There is no reference to henna being used to dye hair in ancient Egypt. 

Another important point is that there is no reference to henna being known and used outiside of Africa, the Middle East and South Asia in ancient times. This means that the mummies in South America and Tenerife didn’t receive any treatment with it. 

Henna powder

What most people ignore is that, being henna a natural dye, it can’t make your hair fairer, because it doesn’t replace its natural color (unlike chemical dyes). Henna’s chemical agent, called lawsone, binds to hair keratin and optically adds up to hair’s natural colour. For this reason, this dye is called “tone on tone”: because henna’s orange colour superimposes over hair’s colour, thus creating a different colour (and, as a consequence, the final result will change from person to person).

For this reason, if you have dark hair you will never dye it red with henna. At the very most, you will get a reddish shade visible in the sunlight. You will dye your hair red with henna only if you have blond, light brown or white hair (more information here). Actually, if you have white hair and dye it with henna only (without mixing it with other dyeing plants) you will get an unnatural orange colour, like in the photo below. 

An elderly Bengali man in Dhaka with a beard dyed in henna

So, those who claim that the reddish hair of certain mummies is a result of henna are basically saying that all those individuals, at the time of mummification, either had white or blond/light brown hair. And those who say that “Egyptians used to dye their hair with henna” probably think that all ancient Egyptians were fair-haired.

Now, a scientific analysis of the hair can distinguish between a coloration due to henna and a natural reddish pigmentation, although the degree of certainty depends on the state of conservation of the find. Lawsone binds to hair keratin differently than natural melanin, so analysing hair with techniques such as chromatography, mass spectrometry, Raman spectroscopy, XANES, chemical imaging and the electron microscope often reveal chemical traces consistent with lawsone or its degradation products. If these markers are present, it's a strong indication of henna treatment. 

Conversely, natural red hair exhibits a characteristic distribution of phaeomelanin, the biological pigment responsible for red and copper tones. The chemical composition of phaeomelanin is different from that of henna and can be identified through appropriate analysis.

However, there is a significant difficulty with artificial mummies: after thousands of years, both lawsone and natural pigments may have degraded and therefore it's not always possible to obtain a definitive answer. For this reason, researchers tend to combine multiple lines of evidence: chemical analysis of the hair, colour distribution along the shaft (dye often leaves patterns different from natural pigmentation) and microscopic examination of melanin granules. 

In particular, the analysis of pigment in the hair shaft can be very useful, because melanin can survive for thousands of years and can be studied under the microscope or with chemical techniques.

(In one of the following parts I will add a paragraph about the modern technologies for hair analysis and hair colour analysis.)

Natron

Natron is a salt used to dry out the remains of the body prior the mummification and has often been linked to a supposed hair colour change in artificial mummies. However, in 2016, Dr Janet Davey, from the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine in Australia, conducted an experiment that disproved this hypothesis. You can read about it both in her paper Is ancestry, not natron, an explanation for fair haired children in Greco-Roman Egypt? and here.   

Along with a retired chemist, Alan Elliot, she prepared a quantity of synthetic natron, with which she covered 14 hair samples. 13 of them were non-treated and one was treated with synthetic beeswax (natural beeswax has been discovered on the hair of ancient Egyptian mummies). 

They remained covered for 40 days, because it is believed this was the same amount of time needed in ancient times to dry out the bodies before mummification. Well, after 40 days only one sample became slightly lighter in colour: the red one. The blacks became slightly darker and the others were unchanged, included the one treated with beeswax.

Dr Davey’s paper is interesting for another reason. Citing previous studies (which I will link at the bottom of this article), she writes  that when hair is kept in a place like a sarcophagus or a tomb, melanin doesn’t degrade and hair colour doesn’t change. She also mentions natural hair wigs found in Egyptian tombs, which, after examination, resulted to have kept their original colour.

Should this be true, it would mean that the hair colour of artificial mummies not treated with henna is the original colour at the time of mummification.

The case of Ramesses II

As you know, the mummy of Ramesses II shows red hair. Since at the time of death he was 91, this colour is most likely due to the henna used in the mummification process. However, as you can read on Wikipedia, in 1976, during an examination of the mummy, Pierre-Fernand Ceccaldi, the chief forensic scientist at the Criminal Identification Laboratory of Paris, observed that the roots of Ramesses’ hair were red and concluded that was his original hair colour. Conversely, others claim the colour red at the roots is due to henna or to the remains of resins and salts used in the mummification. 

This French article from 2009 summarises what was known at the time about Ramesses’ hair colour and henna, and doesn’t exclude that the pharaoh had indeed red hair. On the contrary, the authors of this 2023 study about the facial reconstruction of Ramesses hurry to say “However, this does not suggest that Ramesses II had red (ginger) hair when he was younger, as claimed by some authors.” They also write “Many Egyptians dyed their hair with henna” without providing any source, so I don’t think this study is very reliable.  

As we have seen, today there are ways to determine the original hair colour of a mummy treated with henna, especially because melanin is one of the most resistant biomolecules in existence. However, even if traces of eumelanin (the dark pigment) and phaeomelanin (the yellow/red pigment) should be found, this couldn’t be enough to determine the exact hair colour. 

As far as DNA is concerned, in this article we have seen that a DNA test can show if you have MC1R mutations, and which kind of mutations. but as of now, I’m not aware of DNA analyses conducted on the mummy of Ramesses II.

 

A detail of Ramesses II's mummy

In the 1970s, when the mummy was transferred to Paris for restoration and study, numerous anatomical, radiological, and forensic tests were performed (as you can read on Wikipedia). These established, among other things, that Ramesses II died at a very advanced age (around 90), suffered from arthritis, had serious dental problems, and showed signs of atherosclerosis. Hair, skin, and other samples were taken for these tests, but the primary goal was to assess the mummy's state of preservation and halt its deterioration caused by fungi and other microorganisms (did you know that for its travel to France the mummy of Ramesses was issued a passport?)

At the time, DNA analysis techniques were still in their infancy, so those samples could not be used to obtain a genetic profile as they are today. In recent decades, the technology for ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis has improved enormously. Results have been obtained on several Egyptian mummies, such as those of Tutankhamun's family and others from Abusir el-Meleq. Ramesses II, however, is not included in these published genetic studies. 

It is true that ancient DNA is often very degraded, especially in remains coming from very warm places. Besides, most mummies underwent recent contamination, for example because their tombs have been opened several times, or because they have been touched and manipulated by people not wearing gloves or face masks.
However, today there are new techniques which allow to distinguish between modern and ancient DNA, and since we have several members of Ramesses’ family, his DNA could be compared with theirs.
Obviously, it must be kept in mind that, in order to perform certain kinds of analyses on an archaelogical find, you need to take away a piece of it, and in the case of important finds such as the mummy of Ramesses II (and others) not all samplings are approved of. Researchers prefer prioritise other studies, like ancient DNA (when it’s possible), diseases, diet, mummification techniques.
As far as hair colour is concerned, a good solution would be using a hair sample already existing and maybe kept in a laboratory (for example, the ones taken in France during the 70s, if they still exist), without cutting more hair from the mummy. In any case, modern techiniques like Raman spectroscopy are minimally invasive and can be performed even without taking the mummy's hairs. And for the genomic analysis, one tooth could be enough (look at Afontova Gora 3, for example). So, in theory, nothing prevents from trying. I understand this mummy is one of the most important in the world, but I guess the information its DNA could give is important as well.

In the second part, we will see what we (don’t) know about the chemical processes that can alter mummies’ hair colour. 

Some works about post-mortem hair modification cited in Dr Davey’s paper

(If you're interested in learning more about this topic, you could do some research on all those historical figures - sovereigns, rulers, saints, etc. - who have been exhumed after centuries and whose hair colour was still the same as recorded during their lifetime.)

Early Egyptian mummy hairs: Tensile strength tests, optical and scanning electron microscope observation. A paleobiological research 

Taphonomic Alterations to Hair and Nail

Interpreting biological degradative processes acting on mammalian hair in the living and the dead: which ones are taphonomic?

Structural stability of hair over three thousand years

Autopsied, Embalmed, and Preserved Human Remains: Distinguishing Features in Forensic and Historic Contexts 

Red Hair in Art: William McGregor Paxton

William McGregor Paxton (June 22, 1869 – 1941) was an American painter and instructor who embraced the Boston School paradigm and was a co-founder of The Guild of Boston Artists. He taught briefly while a student at Cowles Art School, where he met his wife Elizabeth Okie Paxton, and at the Museum of Fine Arts School in Boston. Paxton is known for his portraits, including those of two presidents—Grover Cleveland and Calvin Coolidge—and interior scenes with women, including his wife. His works are in many museums in the United States.

Lizzie, ca. 1911

Child in Sunlight (The Chinese Parasol), 1908

Glitter, 1930

A Woman with Red Hair, 1922

Reddy and the Macaw, 1918

The Yellow Jacket, 1907

Girl Combing Her Hair, 1909

The elusive redheads of Easter Island

French editionHere’s an excerpt from the Wikipedia page Rapa Nui National Park 

The earliest inhabitants of the island called it "Te Pito o TeHenua" (the navel/end of the world). The first European to discover the island was Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen on Easter day, 1722. As a result, he named it "Easter Island". He observed that the inhabitants were of three groups: "dark skinned, red skinned, and very pale skinned people with red hair".[15]

As you can see, after “red hair” there is the footnote 15, where this article is linked. I quote from it: 

In 1722, a Dutch explorer, Jacob Roggeveen, sighted and visited the island. This happened to be on a Sunday, Easter Sunday to be precise, and the name stuck: Easter Island (Isla de Pascua in Spanish).

What he discovered on Easter Island were three distinct groups of people, Dark skinned, Red skinned, and very Pale skinned People with red hair.

So, I began researching the original source of this statement and I found out something quite surprising. It turned out that this excerpt is not from Roggeveen’s writings, but from a book written by Carl Friederich Behrens,  a corporal during Roggeveen’s expedition. The book is Reise durch die Süd-Länder und um die Welt, published in 1737. 

Carl Friederich Behrens

Here’s the original book (click on the cover). As you can see, it was printed with the old book hand Fraktur, so it is not very easy to decipher. Anyway, it is important that we see the original. If you go to book page 87, you’ll find this passage: 

Der Coleur nach waren sie braunlich, wie ungefehr ein Spanier, doch findet man derselben einige schwarzer, auch theils ganz weiß; wie nicht minder derselben auch einige roth, gleich als wären sie von der Sonne etwas stark verbrannt.

That is:

The complexion was brownish, about the hue of a Spaniard, yet one finds some among them of a darker shade and others quite white, and no less also a few of a reddish tint as if somewhat severely tanned by the sun.

So… no mention of red hair! Here the author is clearly talking about the indigenous’ complexion, not about their hair colour, and I’m really surprised that Wikipedia cited a source with wrong information in it. Anyway, it is interesting that on Easter Island there were so many different shades of complexion.

Map from Behrens' travel report

Now, as far as this book by Behrens is concerned, something very strange happened. As you can read here:

The first edition was published in 1737 followed, among others, by a re-published edition made by German anthropologist Hans Plischke that was published in 1923. The important thing is that this version differs from the original to a great extent and the editor did not account for the changes he had introduced into the text: besides grammar and orthography modernization, he omitted certain portions, misinterpreted other ones and added some comments without marking them as his own. As a result, the narrative gives an impression of having been written by another author; Behrens appears as a person with a different character and attitude, weaker, less convincing and even less trustworthy than he really was. This article presents numerous examples of the distortions as a warning against making a scientific or an anthropological use of unreliable editions of source texts, as this may wield a negative infuence upon our view and interpretation of the culture we are analyzing.

This is very worrying, because one wonders how much we can trust modern editions/translations of old books.

So, I checked the French edition, to see if the sentence about complexion was translated correctly. Here it is (page 133 of the book): 

Ils sont en général bruns, comme les Espagnols; on en trouve cependant qui sont assez noirs, & d’autres qui sont tout-à-fait blancs. ll y en a encore, dont le teint est rougeâtre comme s'ils étoient brulés du soleil.

The sentence is exactly the same of the first German edition, so, probably the introduction of red hair instead of reddish complexion is something recent, maybe done by that website linked on the Wikipedia page of Rapa Nui National Park. 

Pakomio Maori

However, there are other sources about redheads in Easter Island.

Here’s an article written in the 90s by Robert Langdon from the Australian National University (not to be confused with Dan Brown’s character 😁), where the author talks about an alleged bue-eyed, red-haired Easter Islander called Pakomio Maori, born between 1816 and 1826 and dead in the first 1910s. Langdon writes that in 1971 he discovered 18 Easter Islanders with no known non-Easter Island ancestors who were carriers of the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) genes A29 and B12, that are especially common among Basques. All 18 islanders were the children of Pakomio Maori through his two wives. 

Pakomio Maori (source)

In his article, Langdon posits that Pakomio Maori was not a descendant of early Europeans visiting the island, although he doesn’t bring any defintive evidence, since at that time ancestry DNA tests had not yet been developed. As a consequence, we don’t know where the “Basque” genes of his children come from.

In any case, we know that traits such as blue eyes and red hair, in order to show up, need to be inherited from both parents, which would mean that Pakomio Maori would have to be the descendant of Europeans from both sides of his family. And not whatever Europeans, but Europeans carrying the mutations for red hair and blue eyes. 

Langdon also quotes early explorers describing isladers with light-coloured hair and skin and “European” facial features and in the article you’ll find photos of some European-looking Easter Islanders. One is Maria Garcia Pate Pakomio, a grand-daughter of Pakomio Maori’s, while the others are the cultural informants Juan Tepano and his mother Viriamo.

Thor Heyerdahl

Here’s the Wikipedia page about the Hanau epe, a semi-legendary people who are said to have lived in Easter Island, where they came into conflict with another people known as the Hanau momoko. I quote from the page: 

Various theories have been put forward to explain the alleged ethnic difference between the two groups. Thor Heyerdahl popularised the view that they were a South American indigenous people, who were pale skinned with red hair. Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki expedition was designed to show that migrants from Peru could have reached Polynesia. He believed that the Hanau epe were the earliest inhabitants of the island; they created its unique monuments, which resemble similar sculptures found in the Americas, but were eventually killed off by either the Polynesians or a later wave of migrants from the Northwest coast of America.

Thor Heyerdahl was a Norwegian adventurer, ethnographer and author, know for conducting experimental voyages to test hypotheses about ancient human migrations and cultural diffusion using replica primitive watercraft.

Here’s how Wikipedia introduces him: 

Heyerdahl is notable for his Kon-Tiki expedition in 1947, in which he drifted 8,000 km (5,000 mi) across the Pacific Ocean in a primitive hand-built raft from South America to the Tuamotu Islands. The expedition was supposed to demonstrate that the legendary sun-worshiping red-haired, bearded, and white-skinned "Tiki people" from South America drifted and colonized Polynesia first, before actual Polynesian peoples. His hyperdiffusionist ideas on ancient cultures had been widely rejected by the scientific community, even before the expedition.

However, Grokipedia adds: 

Although Heyerdahl's specific diffusionist theories faced significant academic rejection for lacking corroborative genetic, linguistic, and archaeological consensus—often prioritizing independent invention narratives—his hands-on replications provided causal evidence of navigational capabilities that later findings, like transpacific crop transfers, have partially vindicated.

We’ll get back to this later.

But why Heyerdahl posited the existence of South American indigenous people with red hair? 

One reason are the mummies of Peru and Chile we have seen in this article, but we have to keep in mind that, as of now, we don’t know whether these individuals were really red-haired or not.

Another reason are the legends of red-haired and fair-skinned mythological beings in New Zealand and the uru-kehu, that we have seen in this article.

One more reason are accounts of voyagers and explorers describing red-haired people in Polynesia, as you can read in Heyerdahl’s book American Indians in the Pacific (1952), particularly in Part IV (The Complexity of Polynesians Origin). 

Clealry, in order to be sure Heyerdahl correctly translated and copied all these citations, they should be checked in their original versions. 

I copy here some of these citations.

Page 194: “A very beautiful native sat near Doña Isabel, with such red hair that Doña Isabel wished to cut off a few locks; but seeing that the native did not like it she desisted, not wishing to make her angry.” (Santa Cristina Island - Tahuata)

Page 195: “Five natives came in a canoe, the middle one vigorously bailing the water out of the vessel. His red hair came down to the waist. He was white as regards colour, beautifully shaped, the face aquiline and handsome, rather freckled and rosy, the eyes black and gracious, the forehead and eyebrows good, the nose, mouth, and lips well proportioned, with the teeth well ordered and white.” (Peregrina Island)

(both citations from The Voyages of Pedro Fernandez de Quiros)

Page 197: “… Forster (1778, p. 229) speaks of a native Tahitian who had "perfectly red hair, a fairer complexion than the rest, and was sprinkled all over with freckles". (Tahiti)

According to modern genetics, Polynesians come from two groups: Austronesians from South-East Asia and Taiwan, and Melanesians (especially Papuans).  

These “European-looking” indigenous are explained with: normal inner variation of Polynesian people, mixing between Austroneasian and Melanesian groups, independent evolution of traits such as fair skin and hair, and (obviously) subjective interpretation by European explorers.

As we have seen, both Wikipedia and Grokipedia wrote that Heyerdahl’s ideas have been rejected by the scientific community, but… it turned out he was right about contacts between South America and Polynesia, as you can read in the 2020 study Native American gene flow into Polynesia predating Easter Island settlement, by Ioannidis and colleagues, and in the article from the National Geographic DNA reveals Native American presence in Polynesia centuries before Europeans arrived. 

I won’t get into this matter, because it falls outise the topic of this post, but I want to end with this quote from Grokipedia, which, in my opinion, gives you food for thought. 

Particularly in the context of post-colonial shifts, Heyerdahl viewed the intensified rejection of diffusionism as entangled with decolonization agendas that privileged autochthonous origins to bolster indigenous self-determination, even at the expense of causal realism in migration dynamics. Mainstream institutions, exhibiting systemic preferences for narratives aligning with political sensitivities, have critiqued diffusionist claims—including his—as undermining local agency, yet Heyerdahl countered that such politicization obscured the advanced navigational prowess of ancient non-Western societies, as empirically shown through reed boat replicas navigating from Africa to the Americas in 1969 and 1970. In interviews, he underscored pursuing unvarnished truth over diplomatic consensus, warning that deference to orthodoxy stifled inquiry into humanity's interconnected prehistoric seafaring heritage.