# Who was the earliest "hottie"? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 13, 2007, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988 "2007-04-13T17:30:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2007, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/41 "2007-04-13T20:40:49Z")
I don’t see anything wrong with the sixth-century BCE tyrannicides [Harmodius and Aristogeiton](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ac.harmodius.jpg), do you? (Okay, the statue group was made after their deaths, but Harmodius at least was described as very beautiful by classical historians.) Most people in almost all societies throughout history have been pretty homely, and still are. But there has always been a small minority of beautiful youths and maidens, and I doubt that today’s top candidates really look much different from those of the past few millennia, once you look past cultural differences of clothing and hair styles. What the OP seems to be after is the name of the first **famous** beautiful youth/maiden of whom a contemporary portrait survives, in a style that’s reasonably similar to that of modern photography, and shows the subject without culturally alien accessories like huge headdresses that would interfere with our perception of them as “hot” by modern standards. I think this quest is so culturally biased as to be essentially meaningless, but knock yourself out. What do you think of the 2nd millennium BCE Egyptian queens [Nefertiti](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Nefertiti_bust_%28front%29.jpg) and [Tiye](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:QueenTiy01-AltesMuseum-Berlin.png)? ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2007, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/42 "2007-04-13T20:41:43Z")
When it comes to people in old photographs looking homely - my boyfriend has started doing historical wet plate photography. I always thought people in the past had that “Civil War look” because they had bad teeth or something. Let me tell you - everybody looks like that when you take a wet-plate photograph of them. Something about having to stare at the camera for ten or fifteen seconds just makes you look like that. [This](http://jauntyfellah.livejournal.com/2007/02/03/) was his first ever picture - not our best, but the only one he has online as far as I know. Since I’ve seen a few pictures of myself one would mistake for a young serious male coal miner, I’ve decided that more than teeth and such people look historical in photographs because of the actual process. Also, there’s plenty of portraits of attractive young women in the past. I think [young princess Elizabeth](http://www.marileecody.com/gloriana/princesselizabethscrots.jpg) wasn’t bad looking, for example. ---
**Author:** ![Darryl\_Lict](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7cd45c/32.png) [@Darryl\_Lict](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darryl_Lict)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2007, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/43 "2007-04-13T20:41:49Z")
How about [Nefertiti](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nefertiti) (the beauty that has come). Supposedly, Egyptian liknesses were fairly realistic at the time and she doesn’t come off looking too bad. I sort of imagine her looking like [Kelly Hu](http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1805535170/photo/242273) in The Scorpion King. I’ve hung out at Nefertiti’s lounge at the Luxor in Vegas and the waitresses are usually pretty hot. I imagine they’re pretty representative of Egyptian women of that era. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2007, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/44 "2007-04-13T20:44:31Z")
Oh, uh, the guy with the beard is obviously not me. (I hope obviously.) That’s one of his roomates. Who doesn’t IRL look as much like some sort of dissipated straw boss on the coffee plantation. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2007, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/45 "2007-04-13T20:45:57Z")
Well, of course the answer is pretty difficult because before the invention of the photograph the only depictions we have are paintings and sculpture, or written attestations. And of course, there are millions of women who were never painted, sculpted, written about, or photographed. How do we know how hot any of them were? Even if cultural ideas about beauty were different, is it really so hard to imagine that there were attractive women before 1800? Sure, disease, starvation, and hard work can take a toll on the looks. But just go to places today that are poverty-stricken and tell me you can’t find a single woman in rural China or India or Latin America or Africa who isn’t beautiful and built. Poverty and disease shift the bell curve over, but there are plenty of beautiful women in poor countries. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2007, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/46 "2007-04-13T20:48:45Z")
[QUOTE=Darryl Lict] How about [Nefertiti](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nefertiti) (the beauty that has come). Supposedly, Egyptian liknesses were fairly realistic at the time and she doesn’t come off looking too bad. I sort of imagine her looking like [Kelly Hu](http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1805535170/photo/242273) in The Scorpion King. I’ve hung out at Nefertiti’s lounge at the Luxor in Vegas and the waitresses are usually pretty hot. I imagine they’re pretty representative of Egyptian women of that era. [/QUOTE] That’s who I was going to meantion (Nefertiti, not Kelly Hu, hu is a hottie, but far too contemporary to qualify for the OP). ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2007, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/47 "2007-04-13T21:18:13Z")
Helen of Troy was an excuse. I don’t know how pretty she was, but the Greeks had been itching for a fight with the Trojans for a long time…she was just the match that lit the fire. ---
**Author:** ![Fiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e274bd/32.png) [@Fiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiver)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2007, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/48 "2007-04-13T21:22:24Z")
[QUOTE=Amp] I wouldn’t be so sure of that. > **[BBC NEWS | UK | England | Tyne | Coin shows Cleopatra's ugly truth](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/tyne/6357311.stm)** > > A coin bearing the image of Cleopatra suggests the Egyptian queen's beauty may have been overstated. [/QUOTE] I’m going to need more evidence than a worn 2,000-year-old coin before I’ll make a judgment one way or another on Cleopatra’s beauty. ---
**Author:** ![lokij](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/5e9695/32.png) [@lokij](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lokij)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2007, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/49 "2007-04-13T21:28:56Z")
My vote is Shamhat from the Epic of Gilgamesh, the temple prostitute that tamed the wild man Enkidu. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2007, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/50 "2007-04-13T21:30:49Z")
[QUOTE=Fiver] I’m going to need more evidence than a worn 2,000-year-old coin before I’ll make a judgment one way or another on Cleopatra’s beauty. [/QUOTE] That nose/chin combination is never going to be good, I think. Wasn’t Anthony attracted to her because of the “grip” named after her or have I just imagined that? ---
**Author:** ![threemae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@threemae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/threemae)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2007, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/51 "2007-04-13T21:41:20Z")
I’d disagree strongly with the idea that people prior to this era were universally unattractive. I’ll confess not to knowing too much about “Bushman” culture or history, but this cursory review of Google Images yields at least some solid 7’s or even 8’s, particularly among the men and I am certain that given enough people, there were certainly more than a few that qualified for “hottie” status as far back as people were overwhelmingly human as opposed to _Homo who knows what_. [http://www.exclusive.com.na/Bushmen\_dance\_2.jpg](http://www.exclusive.com.na/Bushmen_dance_2.jpg) [http://www.nigeriamasterweb.com/10mbebe/Bushmen.jpg](http://www.nigeriamasterweb.com/10mbebe/Bushmen.jpg) [http://www.bushmanrockart.com/imbush/Woman-75compr1.jpg](http://www.bushmanrockart.com/imbush/Woman-75compr1.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Controvert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@The\_Controvert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Controvert)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2007, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/52 "2007-04-13T21:45:18Z")
Yeah, I would agree that Neanderthals / Cro Magnons would not qualify as a “hottie” by today’s standards. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2007, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/53 "2007-04-13T22:02:41Z")
Neandertals probably not, without some beer goggles. But Cro Magnons were fully modern Homo sapiens, there’s no reason a given Cro Magnon couldn’t be as hot as any given female hunter-gatherer. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2007, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/54 "2007-04-13T22:52:34Z")
[QUOTE=VCO3] No, this reading of the OP is faulty. He says “BY TODAY’S STANDARDS.” Therefore, he’s asking about how far back you can go and still find a woman that would be considered “hot” by 2007’s sociocultural standards. [/QUOTE] Again, please read my post carefully. “by today’s standards” can be read to mean: a) Very sexy after one has applied modern cosmetics and hairdressing, and taken pictures which are then digitally retouched to remove all hint of blemish, or b) Very sexy without any such application of cosmetics, et al. By the latter standard, of course, you’d find out that most of those who are “hot” presently would fail; if you don’t believe me, just look at the pics of them that get snapped and printed in the gossip rags. 😉 Since the original post’s statement “by today’s standards” has more than one plausible interpretation, and given that at least one of those interpretations would make the whole inherent underlying premise of the OP (that in the old days, everyone was pretty much ugly) untrue, the OP’s question is inherently flawed. Which only a couple posters here seem to fail to comprehend, given the vastly larger number treating the question with the disdain it deserves. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2007, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/55 "2007-04-14T01:49:55Z")
[QUOTE=DSYoungEsq] Since the original post’s statement “by today’s standards” has more than one plausible interpretation, and given that at least one of those interpretations would make the whole inherent underlying premise of the OP (that in the old days, everyone was pretty much ugly) untrue, the OP’s question is inherently flawed. Which only a couple posters here seem to fail to comprehend, given the vastly larger number treating the question with the disdain it deserves. 😉 [/QUOTE] It also means that it’s asking for a subjective judgement or even a poll, neither of which fit into GQ. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2007, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/56 "2007-04-14T02:01:17Z")
Since the OP really has no single “factual” answer, this one should have been in IMHO from the beginning. You can still get factual answers in IMHO. But opinions are more welcome there. **samclem** GQ moderator ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2007, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/57 "2007-04-14T02:21:59Z")
Who says there’s even consensus when it comes to ‘today’s standards’ of beauty (really think, say, Jenna Jameson would do well in papua New Guinea? Or in a Vancouver vegan collective?) ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2007, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/58 "2007-04-14T02:22:34Z")
I think more than a few of the past czarinas of Russia were hotties: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:0\_Elisabeth\_Alexeievna.jpg](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:0_Elisabeth_Alexeievna.jpg) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:06\_Alexnadra\_Feodorovna%2C\_1836\_MALIOUKOVA.jpg](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:06_Alexnadra_Feodorovna%2C_1836_MALIOUKOVA.jpg) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Empress\_Alexandra\_Fyodorovna\_-1907.JPG](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Empress_Alexandra_Fyodorovna_-1907.JPG) ---
**Author:** ![threnodyangelfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@threnodyangelfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/threnodyangelfire)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2007, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/59 "2007-04-14T04:00:27Z")
[QUOTE=Autolycus] Oh, and to WAG a guess at the OP, I’ll say Cleopatra. She was real and also really purty, right? [/QUOTE] Actually I read an article about Colleen McCullough, who is apparently one of the foremost has done a lot of research on Cleopatra and she said that not only was she not hot, she was really quite unappealing with a hook nose (and I think, a single eyebrow), but that she had an incredible charisma that made it easier for her to manipulate people. (I did look for a cite for this that I know of, but I can’t find it on the intarwebs.) Uh upon reading the entire thread, what **Clockwork And Candy** said :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2007, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/60 "2007-04-14T04:08:11Z")
[Madame Pompadour](http://images.google.com/images?source=ig&hl=en&q=Madame%20Pompadour&btnG=Google+Search&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi) (circa 1750) was pretty hot. Unfortunately, the best picture I’ve seen of her is not in this collection, but rather in a book I have. I agree with **Elendil’s H** eir that Emma Hamilton was actually quite breath-taking, if the portraits are to be trusted, and with **Zsophia** that Good Queen Bess was very attractive in her younger years. There are also some portraits of Renaissance women whose names and titles I can’t remember, but appear to have been highly attractive by today’s standards. But there’s no question that standards of beauty change radically over the years. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988.md?page=4)