The Suebian knot (german: Suebenknoten) is a historical male

hairstyle A hairstyle, hairdo, haircut or coiffure refers to the styling of hair, usually on the human scalp. Sometimes, this could also mean an editing of facial or body hair. The fashioning of hair can be considered an aspect of personal groomin ...

ascribed to the tribe of the Germanic

Suebi The Suebi (or Suebians, also spelled Suevi, Suavi) were a large group of Germanic peoples originally from the Elbe river region in what is now Germany and the Czech Republic. In the early Roman era they included many peoples with their own names ...

. The knot is attested by

Tacitus Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historiography, Roman historians by modern scholars. The surviving portions of his t ...

in his 1st century AD work ''Germania'', found on contemporary depictions of

Germanic peoples The Germanic peoples were historical groups of people that once occupied Central Europe and Scandinavia during antiquity and into the early Middle Ages. Since the 19th century, they have traditionally been defined by the use of ancient and ear ...

, their art, and

bog bodies A bog body is a human cadaver that has been naturally mummified in a peat bog. Such bodies, sometimes known as bog people, are both geographically and chronologically widespread, having been dated to between and the Second World War. Fischer 19 ...

''Germania''

Roman historian

reports in ''

Germania Germania ( ; ), also called Magna Germania (English: ''Great Germania''), Germania Libera (English: ''Free Germania''), or Germanic Barbaricum to distinguish it from the Roman province of the same name, was a large historical region in north- ...

'' (98 CE) that the Suebian warriors combed their hair back or sideways and tied it into a knot, allegedly with the purpose of appearing taller and more awe-inspiring on the battlefield. Tacitus also reports that the fashion had spread to neighboring Germanic tribes among the younger warriors, while among the Suebians, the knot was sported even by old men as a status symbol, which "distinguishes the freeman from the slave", with the most artful knots worn by the most wealthy nobles:

Archaeological record

A number of

have been found with hair dressed in Suebian knots: *

Osterby Man Osterby Man or the Osterby Head ( da, Østerbymanden) is a bog body of which only the skull and hair survived. It was discovered in 1948 by peat cutters to the southeast of Osterby, Rendsburg-Eckernförde, Osterby, Germany. The hair is tied in a S ...

, 70–220 AD of Osterby near Rendsburg-Eckernförde, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany *

Dätgen Man This is a list of bog bodies in order of country in which they were first discovered. Bog bodies, or bog people, are the naturally preserved corpses of humans and some animals recovered from peat bogs. The bodies have been most commonly found in ...

, 135–385 AD, of Dätgen, near Rendsburg-Eckernförde, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany In 2000 at the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from ...

coast at Czarnowko near

Lębork Lębork (; csb, Lãbòrg; formerly german: Lauenburg in Pommern) is a town of 37,000 people on the Łeba and Okalica rivers in the Gdańsk Pomerania region in northern Poland. It is the capital of Lębork County in Pomeranian Voivodeship. Histo ...

, Poland, a bronze kettle was found depicting males wearing the Suebian knot hairstyle.

Depictions

Historical depictions are found on the

Trajan column Trajan's Column ( it, Colonna Traiana, la, Columna Traiani) is a Roman triumphal column in Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = M ...

, the cauldron of Musov, the

Tropaeum Traiani The Tropaeum Traiani or Trajanic Trophy is a monument in Roman Civitas Tropaensium (site of modern Adamclisi Adamclisi () is a commune in Constanța County, in the Dobrogea region of Romania. History In ancient times, a Roman castrum named Ci ...

relief, and a bronze sculpture of a kneeling German in the

Bibliothèque nationale de France The Bibliothèque nationale de France (, 'National Library of France'; BnF) is the national library of France, located in Paris on two main sites known respectively as ''Richelieu'' and ''François-Mitterrand''. It is the national repository ...

Method

The hair is divided at the back in two uniform strands, slicked and laid in opposite directions around the head. On one side of the head, usually in the temporal region, the two strands are individually tightened in the same direction. The two strands are then twisted, whereby the rotation of the two individual strands loosens somewhat. A loop is formed from the resulting braid and the excess braid end is put in a loop through the loop. By natural untwisting the resulting knot tightens and stops without further aids. The

had male-pattern hair loss and very long and thin hair. Experimental archaeological tests with this hairstyle showed that the Suebian knot holds just as well even with very long and thin hair, as in the bog body.Haak: ''Einige Bemerkungen zum so genannten „Suebenknoten“''. S. 179. Some hair grease improves the durability of the hairstyle.

Gallery

Image:Wappen von Osterby bei Eckernfoerde in Deutschland.png, A Suebian knot depicted on the coat of arms of Osterby,

Schleswig-Holstein Schleswig-Holstein (; da, Slesvig-Holsten; nds, Sleswig-Holsteen; frr, Slaswik-Holstiinj) is the northernmost of the 16 states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Sch ...

Northern Germany Northern Germany (german: link=no, Norddeutschland) is a linguistic, geographic, socio-cultural and historic region in the northern part of Germany which includes the coastal states of Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Lower Saxony an ...

. File:Germanic Head Somzée.jpg, Marble head form Somzée, Belgium File:Dätgen Mans Hairs.jpg, Hair of bog body

(Germany) File:Bronze figure of a German Bibliothèque Nationale.jpg, A Roman bronze figurine depicting a kneeling Germanic man adorned with a Suebian knot

File:Vindobona Hoher Markt-79.JPG, German at

Wien Museum The Vienna Museum (german: Wien Museum or ''Museen der Stadt Wien'') is a group of museums in Vienna consisting of the museums of the history of the city. In addition to the main building in Karlsplatz and the Hermesvilla, the group includes nume ...

File:Sarcofago dio portonaccio, 03.JPG,

Portonaccio sarcophagus The Portonaccio sarcophagus is a 2nd-century ancient Roman sarcophagus found in the Portonaccio section of Rome and now held at the Museo Nazionale Romano ( Palazzo Massimo). Dating to around 180 AD, the sarcophagus was likely used to bury a Roman ...

(Man on the lower right side) File:Terracotta German at British Museum.jpg, Terra cotta mask at

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

File:Mušov Cauldron.jpg,

Mušov Mušov (german: Muschau) is a cadastral area and a defunct village in the municipality of Pasohlávky, South Moravian Region, Czech Republic. It covers an area of . Geography and history Mušov was the lowest-lying village in the Břeclav Dist ...

cauldron File:IArta romana prizonier MG 1761 02.JPG, Captive with Suebian knot

National Museum of Romanian History The National History Museum of Romania ( ro, Muzeul Național de Istorie a României) is a museum located on the Calea Victoriei in Bucharest, Romania, which contains Romanian historical artifacts from prehistoric times up to modern times. The mus ...

File:Bracteate from Funen, Denmark (DR BR42).jpg, A

Migration Period The Migration Period was a period in European history marked by large-scale migrations that saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire and subsequent settlement of its former territories by various tribes, and the establishment of the post-Roman ...

Germanic gold

bracteate A bracteate (from the Latin ''bractea'', a thin piece of metal) is a flat, thin, single-sided gold medal worn as jewelry that was produced in Northern Europe predominantly during the Migration Period of the Germanic Iron Age (including the Vende ...

featuring a depiction of a bird, horse, and stylized head wearing a Suebian knot. File:AdamclisiMetope37.jpg, War scene of the

: a Roman legionary fighting with a Dacian warrior, while a Buri warrior, who has a Suebian knot, is wounded on the ground.

References