The History of Earrings

Earrings
don't date back as far as some jewellery – the earliest surviving evidence of
jewellery is some shells with a hole made in them so they could be threaded
onto a string and worn presumably around the neck. To wear earrings you need the ability to make
a hole in the lobe which must be done with something pointed and sturdy, such
as sharpened bone or antler (before metals were widely available). The oldest proof of earrings being worn is
the mummy of Otzi the Iceman, a 5,000-year-old body found preserved in the ice
in the Italian Alps. His earlobes showed
large holes, around 1cm in diameter.
Further
afield artefacts from Tutankhamen’s tomb show holes in his earlobes, and images
of Buddha show him with distended earlobes.
Before founding Buddhism, Siddhartha Gautama was a wealthy nobleman who
wore ornate, heavy earrings as a show of status. When he found the path to enlightenment and
gave up his worldly possessions and his drooping earlobes became a symbol of
this sacrifice; this can be seen on images of Buddha right up to the present
day.
As with most
types of jewellery there was an ornamental aspect to the wearing of earrings –
they were a way to show how much money you had and this is true across all
cultures. There were, however, some
spiritual and quasi-medical reasons for earrings as well – some ancient
cultures believed that sickness entered the body through holes such as ears,
nostrils and the mouth and that by placing an amulet near the opening, one
could hope to ward off the bad spirits that caused the illness. An earring, therefore, might have been worn
to fend off headaches or ear infections.
There was a more sinister side to the practice of piercing ears as well
– passages from The Bible discuss the ownership of slaves and how, if a slave
did not want to leave servitude, his master would pierce his ear as a sign of
possession.
Other
mentions of earrings in The Bible are unflattering as well, and this is an
attitude shared by Pliny the Elder, who saw his countrymen's taste for earrings
as vulgar and cheap, even going so far as to discuss how the lower classes, who
adopted the practice of wearing pearl earrings, were going above their station.
In the Far
and Middle East earrings have remained popular through the ages, and some
Indian customs dictate the piercing of baby's ears as a type of homage to the
Persian warriors who also wore earrings.
Jewellery is very important in a lot of Asian culture, but less
culturally significant in Western cultures.
In the Middle Ages hairstyles changed a lot and many women wore their
hair over their ears, rendering earrings useless as an adornment. In the 16th century things changed
again and it was once more fashionable to wear earrings. Both men and women wore them, and some
sailors even used them as a status symbol – a piercing in the left ear denoted
that the person had survived a shipwreck, while ear piercing in general meant
that the wearer had completed a journey across the equator. This tradition developed into a litany of
different tattoos a sailor might have to show their experience and status.
By the end of
the Victorian era it was considered distasteful to pierce the ears, but this
did not stop people wearing them.
Instead they developed screw back and clip-on earrings; these were a lot
more uncomfortable to wear than modern clip-on earrings are now. By the 1960s piercing had come back into
fashion and both men and women were getting their ears pierced. Twenty years on and punk fashions helped make
ear piercing more creative, with several locations possible instead of just the
lobes. Stretching ear piercings to sizes
seen on Otzi and the Buddha also became popular again; now it's quite
commonplace to see all manner of intricate piercings and jewellery in the ears
of anyone you pass on the street.
If you don't
have pierced ears then our clip on earrings are a very convincing alternative
and very comfortable to wear – things have come a long way since the Victorian
era! We also have a wide range of studs
and drop earrings to complement any look and style, and many with gemstones; so
if you want to draw on the traditions of ancient spiritual medicine why not
wear a stone which holds significance to you or your health?
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