The Women of Ancient Times Had Cosmetics to "Save" Face

Collection of Gold Jewelry Pieces Which Date Back 3,500 Years Ago Was Obtained by Dr. Paul Ilton, Archeologist Who Used the Bible as His Guide.

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Transcribed from the clipping

MANY things have happened in the last 3,500 years, but take it from Dr. Paul I. Ilton, journalist and archeologist, women have not changed as much as they may think they have. Painted fingernails, tinted cheeks and lips, eye shadow and exotic perfumes were all the fad then as they are now.

Cosmetic sets could be found on dressing tables and nearly every woman carried a make-up kit. Results of Long Study. Ilton has been a 1-man archeological expedition in the Biblical area the last twenty years.

Last night in his room at the Hotel Phillips he selected from a collection of ancient gold jewelry and vases a slender, tapering alabaster perfume urn and two round cosmetic trays. "This set," he said, "belonged to an Egyptian noblewoman in the time of Joseph and Potiphar, 3,500 years ago.

I dug it up about ten years ago from a tomb in the Negeb area of Palestine." A 7-inch object of greenish glass divided into two tubular containers was described as a double perfume container. "This," he said, "was carried by a Jewish woman in Jerusalem at the time of Christ. Found with it this slender, carved ivory applicator, with which she renewed her perfume periodically."

How this transcription was made

Date and publication rest on the collector's slide label; no masthead, folio or printed dateline appears on this clipping.

Context added by this archive

Clipped two-column feature, no masthead, no folio, no printed date; date is label-only. Attribution to the Kansas City Star rests on the house advertisement in the lower right of the clipping, 'Place Your Sunday Star WANT ADS TODAY!' with 'TELEPHONE HA. 1200' — that advertisement is not part of the article. Mention of the Hotel Phillips places the interview in Kansas City.

No byline; the crossheads are 'Results of Long Study.', 'A Meaning to Earrings.' and 'Keen Interest in Bible.' PRINTER'S ERRORS PRESERVED: 'Aramic' for 'Aramaic' and 'Bibical' for 'Biblical', both kept as set.

WORDS FOR THE PLACE AND PEOPLE: 'the Negeb area of Palestine', 'the Palestine area' twice, 'Beisan, an ancient town in the Palestine area', 'the Biblical area', 'Jerusalem', 'modern Arabic geographical names', 'the Hebrew, Aramic and Arabic languages in Jerusalem', 'a Jewish woman in Jerusalem at the time of Christ', 'ancient Jewish women', 'an Egyptian noblewoman'.

THE PALESTINIAN TOWNS NAMED, WITH THE PAPER'S SPELLING FIRST: - 'Beisan' — Baysan, the Palestinian town in the Jordan Valley depopulated in May 1948, eleven months before this was printed.

The paper calls it 'an ancient town in the Palestine area' and is interested in it only as the place where golden locusts were worshipped in Leviticus. - 'the Negeb area of Palestine' — the Naqab, from which the Bedouin population was largely expelled in 1948-53. - 'Jerusalem' — given as the place where Ilton learned Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic while 'representing German newspapers in the Palestine area'.

WHAT IS ABSENT: every living person in this story is European or American. The Arabic language appears only as an etymological tool for reaching the Bible; the people who speak it appear nowhere.

Not one Palestinian is named, quoted, counted or alluded to, in a feature whose subject is objects dug out of Palestinian ground, carried to a Kansas City hotel room, and valued at $450,000. Columns beyond the quoted sentences were read at page magnification.

Cite this clipping

"The Women of Ancient Times Had Cosmetics to "Save" Face," The Kansas City Star, 29 April 1949. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1949-035. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1949-035