Egyptian Headdresses and crowns were one of the distinguishing characteristics of the ancient Egyptians. Not only Egyptian deities but Pharaohs, the queens, the aristocrats also had a variety of headdresses.

Egyptian Headdresses

Before the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, The red crown, or Deshret, was associated with Upper Egypt and The white crown, or Hedjet with Lower Egypt. After unification, a combined crown called the Pschent was used by the Pharaoh.

These wigs had ceremonial purposes. But they were sometimes used for protection from the hot climate. The Egyptian Headdresses were used to distinguish the ancient deities. When different deities took over the powers of other deities, headdresses were often mixed up.

Egyptian Headdresses Facts

Amen:

It is usually depicted as a man wearing a headdress with two tall plumes rising from a short crown. Amentet was depicted as wearing the standard of the west. The standard is usually a half circle sitting on top of two poles of uneven length, the length of which is tied to her head by a headband.

Egyptian Headdresses

Ma’at:

It was shown as a woman with a tall ostrich feather attached by a headband symbolizing truth.Hathor was pictured as a woman with cow’s horns with the sun between them, or as a cow wearing the sun disk between her horns. The horns are her horns, as she was thought to be a bovine goddess, but the solar disk that sits between the horns is her aspect of a solar goddess.

Osiris:

Usually, wears the white crown with two feathers on either side. It produced much heat, as expected from an object belonging to the sun god.

Nekhbet:

It was depicted as a woman wearing the crown of Upper Egypt or the vulture headdress, a woman with the head of a vulture. The vulture and Nekhbet were associated with motherhood.

Khonsu:

was generally depicted as a youth or a hawk headed man wearing a lunar disk and crescent on his head.

A crown or headdress associated with the pharaoh is the Nemes headdress. It is most famously represented by the funerary mask of Tutankhamen and is also seen on the Sphinx. This head cloth was often full of bright colors. The forehead portion of this headdress sports the uraeus, an upright flared cobra goddess known as Wadjet, and the vulture goddess, Nekhbet.

Khepresh, the blue crown was the next associated with the Pharaoh. This tall crown was likely made of stiff linen or leather and spread up and back from the forehead six to eight inches. It has a round, bulbous front. Sometimes, crowns associated with gods and goddesses were often combined with these headdresses to associate the pharaoh with a particular deity.

The headdress most commonly worn by queens was the vulture cap associated with the goddess Nekhbet as it represented motherhood. The queens’ Egyptian Headdresses often had elements pertaining to Hathor, such as the cow horns with the solar disk.