"While descriptions of the distinctive Mongolian nuqula hairstyle abound across both surviving written and visual sources (shaving the top of the head, leaving a rectangular lock on the forehead and twisting the remaining hair behind the ears in loops), rather less attention is given to how women wore their hair. In part, this is due to some of the clothing styles which obscured the hair from the view of travellers or in the paintings produced in the Mongol courts."
"But a few hairstyles associated with Mongolian women (or at least, women who were within the cultural sphere of the Chinggisid elite) can be observed. Some paintings surviving from the Yuan Dynasty (the continuation of the Mongol Empire ruling over China (until 1368) and Mongolia (until 1635)) depict a style where women's hair falls in loops behind their ears, echoing the loops worn by men ( šibülger)."
Art, travellers' reports, and archaeological finds provide evidence of Mongol elite women's hair and headgear within the Chinggisid cultural sphere. Written and visual sources frequently emphasize hats and headdresses because clothing often obscured hair from view. Surviving Yuan paintings show women with hair looped behind the ears, echoing male šibülger loops. Similar looped styles appear in Ilkhanate artwork in the western empire. Archaeological and textual records are overwhelmingly upper-class in focus, limiting knowledge about commoners' appearance. Men’s nuqula hairstyle remains well-documented and contrasts with the more frequently hidden female hair beneath towering boqta and other hats.
Read at Medievalists.net
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