A youth side lock was a plaited lock of hair which pre-pubescent ancient Egyptian youths, particularly boys, wore on the side of otherwise shaven heads. References show that boys would stop wearing the side lock once they had been circumcised around the age of fourteen years.
Ancient Egyptian art also shows children as nude with a finger held to the lip.
Famous quotes containing the words youth, side and/or lock:
“I’ve never understood why people consider youth a time of freedom and joy. It’s probably because they have forgotten their own.”
—Margaret Atwood (b. 1939)
“I had an old axe which nobody claimed, with which by spells in winter days, on the sunny side of the house, I played about the stumps which I had got out of my bean-field. As my driver prophesied when I was plowing, they warmed me twice,—once while I was splitting them, and again when they were on the fire, so that no fuel could give out more heat. As for the axe,... if it was dull, it was at least hung true.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Nae living man I’ll love again,
Since that my lovely knight is slain.
Wi ae lock of his yellow hair
I’ll chain my heart for evermair.”
—Unknown. The Lament of the Border Widow (l. 25–28)