Histories

I saw a strange thing on the site of the battle, of which the people of the country had told me. The bones of those killed on either side in this fight lying scattered separately (for the Persian bones lay in one place and the Egyptian in another, where the armies had first separately stood), the skulls of the Persians are so brittle that if you throw no more than a pebble it will pierce them, but the Egyptian skulls are so strong that a blow of a stone will hardly crack them.

And this, the people said (which for my own part I readily believed), is the explanation of it: the Egyptians shave their heads from childhood, and the bone thickens by exposure to the sun.

This also is the reason why they do not grow bald; for nowhere can one see so few bald heads as in Egypt [30,27] (nation), Africa Egypt.

Their skulls then are strong for this reason; while the Persian skulls are weak because they cover their heads throughout their lives with the felt hats (called tiaras) which they wear. Such is the truth of the matter. I saw too the skulls of those Persians at Papremis who were killed with Darius' son Achaemenes by Inaros the Libyan, and they were like the others.