_Absalom's Hair_ (Vol. iv., pp. 131. 243.).--In answer to P. P., who
says that "Absalom's long hair had nothing to do with his death, his
head itself, and not the hair upon it, having been caught in the boughs
of the tree," RT. refers to the "respectable antiquity" of the popular
tradition. In the Vulgate edition of the Bible (Venetiis, 1760, ex
Typographia Balleoniana) there is a rude woodcut, evidently of much
older date than 1760, in which Absalom is represented as hanging by his
hair. Perhaps some of your correspondents can mention similar woodcuts
of a far earlier date.
In a family Bible (black letter, 1634), I find the following MS. note on
2 Sam. xiv. 26.: "And when he polled his head ... he weighed the hair of
his head at two hundred shekels after the king's weight;" which suggests
a solution of the difficulty which has puzzled many commentators, who,
to make Absalom's hair of the full weight, have to suppose that it was
plastered with pomatum and sprinkled with gold dust:
"Ye lesser shekel weighed a quarter of an ounce, ye greater half
an ounce. We cannot therefore suppose yt ye loppings of Absalom's
hair weighed either 50 or 100 oz. But yt wn it was cut off his
serv'ts might have sold it for 12lb 10s or 25lb to ye Ladys of
Jerusalem, who were ambitious of adorning yr heads wth ye Hair of
ye beautifull Absalom: wth ye locks of ye Ks son...."
It is recorded that when Absalom was buried "they laid a very great heap
of stones on him." Was this in detestation and abhorrence (cf. Joshua
vii. 26., viii. 29.), or in honourable memory of a prince and chief? If
the former, did it give rise to the custom of flinging stones in the
graves of malefactors?