Piercings: An Historical Justification

Thousands of years ago, someone thought to themselves: "You know, I love jewelry A LOT. I have jewelry I can wear in my hair, around my neck, pinned to my clothes, on my fingers, arms, wrists, ankles, and toes. But that's not enough."

11th C, Syrian, Fatimid culture, lessing-photo.com

This innovator then decided he would poke holes in his body and thereby create more places from which to hang bits of precious metals, stones, and bone.

Jerusalem, 100-300. Found under a parking lot in 2008. Gold, emerald, and pearl. Of Roman style. antiquities.blogs.com

Mummies over five thousand years old have been found wearing earrings. We've discovered bodies with nose piercings dating back to 1500 BC. Actually, until human beings evolve some new body part, there is absolutely nothing you can get pierced that your ancestors didn't get pierced.

Otzi, frozen before Punk was cool

The oldest mummy known to exist is 5300-year-old Otzi the Iceman, discovered in the Austrian Similaun glacier. He has gauges in his ears. In a 2500 BC Sumerian grave in the city of Ur, earrings have been found, revealing that the practice of piercing ears was not merely a local one.

Body piercings are mentioned several times in the Old Testament. When Abraham's servant went out to find a wife for Isaac, one of the gifts he gave to the beautiful Rebecca was a gold nose ring. And remember that golden calf Moses got so mad about? It was made out of melted earrings. In accordance with Mosaic law, if a servant has reached the end of their term of indenture and does not wish to leave their position, their ears are to be pierced.

50 AD, Sarmatian (Black Sea), gold, agate, Met Museum

Lakshmi, a Hindu goddess, is described as wearing earrings in the Vedas (composed between 1500-1000 BC). Earrings have also been found among grave goods dating from the 4th and 5th centuries in Russia and China.

Mycenaean, 1600 BC

In the pre-Columbian Pacific Northwest, the rights to have your child's ears pierced were essentially auctioned off. The more piercings one had and the more desirable their locations, the higher your social status in the community.

Roman, 100-300. Yours for only $3500, John Terry Gallery

The ancient Egyptians, dating from at least the 18th dynasty (1550-1292 BC), wore gold hoop earrings. If you were really loaded, you would wear earrings studded with gems and shaped like asps. Greeks wore glass paste earrings, often shaped like birds or mythical creatures. Roman ladies liked gemstones.

Greece, 5th C BC, depicting Sirens

However, after the fall of the Roman Empire, piercings fell out of fashion in Europe and did not regain popularity until the Renaissance, especially in Western Europe and, eventually, colonial America. Interestingly, in the 16th century, pierced ears were more common in men than women. Men generally only pierced one ear, and the trend spanned all classes and occupations. Poets and theatre guys have always been one for trendy piercings: Shakespeare rocked an earring. So did King Charles I and Sir Walter Raleigh. Sailors wore earrings for two reasons: a popular superstition suggested that it would improve vision, and should their body wash ashore, a nice pair of earrings would pay for a burial.

Inexplicably, Western women stopped piercing their ears around the turn of the 20th century in favor of clip-on or screw-back earrings. I collect vintage screw-back earrings from the 1920s, '30s, and '40s, and I don't understand why screw-backs were ever popular. I have never been able to wear a pair for more than a few hours, and they hurt far worse than getting your ears pierced. Pierced ears returned to fashion by the mid '60s, and remain a fashion staple to this day. 

Pictured: sadomasochism, Ruby Lane

As I said earlier, nose rings are also surprisingly ancient. Trendy goddess Lakshmi rocks one as early as 1500 BC in the Vedas. Mughal women in 16th and 17th century India wore nose studs in the left nostril once they reached puberty. (If you're not familiar with the Mughal emperors, Shah Jahan Mughal was the guy who built the Taj Mahal for his beloved late wife, Mumtaz Mahal, in the 1630s.)

Mumtaz Mahal, can't find photo credit, but it's not mine!

I've already talked about the appearance nose rings make in the book of Genesis. Bedouin tribes in the Middle East, the African Berbers, and the Aborigines of Australia all practiced nose piercing according to archaeological, oral, and artistic records.

Septum piercing never took off in Europe, North Africa, or Asia, but in the Americas and Oceania, it was all the rage. Natives of New Guinea wore bone or feather septum piercings to indicate status and manliness (if you were a dude). The Aztecs, Mayans, and Incas wore gold septum rings. The Nez Perce tribe of the Pacific Northwest is actually a misnomer. The French explorers mistook them for another tribe who did practice septum piercing. You'd think the French would have noticed none of their new Indian friends had nose rings, but whatever.

Labrets, the fancy name for lip piercings, were popular throughout the pre-Columbian Americas. In Central Africa, lip rings were the norm. The famous lip plates now associated with the Mursi tribe of Ethiopia were actually once common throughout the Americas. I think that raises some interesting questions about the origins of ancient American culture, but maybe it's because the concept of stretching your lips permanently seems totally counterintuitive to me.
The Mayans practiced tongue piercing as part of a religious ritual. They adorned the tongues with thorns, and any blood spilled during the procedure was offered as a burnt offering to the gods.

The Egyptians may have practiced bellybutton piercing, and there is some artistic evidence that seems to depict such a practice. However, the record is anything but clear, and the claims are controversial. I've never heard the esteemed Dr. Zahi Hawass give his opinion on the matter, but if someone were to make a documentary upon the subject, I'm sure he'd be only too happy to provide one.

The Indian Gupta Empire (4th-7th centuries) was the first to record the practice of genital piercing. Men pierced their foreskins with pins in the pursuit of enhanced sexual experiences. However, this practice seems to have been adopted as a shot in the dark: at around the same time in Borneo, men began to get Prince Albert piercings with bone shards in order to decrease sexual appetite.

Don't feel too left out, ladies: the Talmud (the complete guide to Rabbinic law, written between the 3rd and 6th centuries) refers to something called a "kumaz," which scholars traditionally interpret as a female chastity piercing. I have no idea how that works, nor do I want to. Fortunately, it may just refer to a pendant shaped like lady parts worn as sort of a "purity amulet." There's a big difference between those two things, but the Talmud is written in Aramaic. I know from experience that ancient Semitic languages (especially Aramaic/Syriac) are nigh on impossible to translate into totally accurate English.

Ancient Roman soldiers frequently got nipple piercings to prove they were tough. I feel like that might have been the ancient equivalent to getting trashed and waking up with a regrettable tattoo. British and American sailors also got nipple piercings once they had survived a certain number of sea voyages. Sort of a "Frequent Flier" program, I suppose. 

Once again, the ladies were not excluded from this fun trend. Women in 14th century Europe pranced around with dresses cut low enough to reveal rouged breasts and pierced nipples. I imagine they were thrown lots of beads everywhere they went. This trend was said to have briefly (and more discreetly) been revived in the 1890s, which only furthers my conviction that the Victorians were much kinkier and more depraved than we could ever dream of being.

"Shut your eyes and think of England" my ass.