Behold the ears

Evidence that wearing earrings is an ancient and honorable pursuit can be found as far back as the Bible, which, for those of you unfamiliar with it, is a stellar piece of fantasy in the same league as Harry Potter or Hobbits, and as a guide to morality to be taken as seriously as either of them.

Despite its shortcomings, it has some interesting historical anecdotes. Most noticeably this – if things had been just a little different, we could all be worshiping a giant earring!

¹And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.²And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me.

³And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron.

⁴And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

Exodus 32:1-4 (KJV)

So there you have it ladies and gentleman; earrings maketh the good god. If only Moses had stayed up the mountain…

I wonder what it tastes like in a bun?

Images: Nicola Poussin’s The Adoration of the Golden Calf

What I love most about this story, and one of the reasons I am so unprepared to tolerate any of this religious nonsense, is the fact that these people had all personally witnessed the presence and the intervention of their god (this is after the plagues, the escape from Eygpt, the wandering in the desert remember) and yet despite this they STILL don’t believe!

As soon as Moses buggers off they decide to cast off their god and find a new one (and what better than a god made out of earrings!). If they have so little faith, well, thanks very much I’m going to stick to the scientific method.

And god created ears

Earrings have a long history; we’ve already seen how Tutankhamen was a fan, and looked at some of the oldest earrings in the world. Here’s an ad-hoc investigation of some other ancient ear artifacts.

First up, the head of a female figurine, with holes for multiple piercings, Iran, 3500-2900 B.C. That’s around 5,000 years ago! Interestingly as long as some religious nut-jobs think the earth has been in existence, which would mean god didn’t so much rest on the seventh day as pop down a piercing parlour and get some holes stuck in his ears. Must say, exciting as it is to see such early evidence for the world’s greatest fashion accessory, this woman has a face like a pot – her ears look like handles and her eyes like piss-holes in the snow;  still, fashions do change – once this was considered beautiful.

You look like a jug

(Image from the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology)

In fact, she bears a startling resemblance to a science-fiction monster.

Steel sexy after all these years

You gotta wonder what they used to pierce ears with in those days. I wonder how thin the thinnest needle was, and how much they knew about keeping the wound clean. Maybe not much, if this report is anything to go by:

‘According to ethnographer Z. Shirokova, “in some kishlaks, or rural settlements, of Zeravshan, the traditions dictated using dog’s hair instead of a cotton or silk thread, to facilitate the healing process” (Traditional and Modern Women’s Clothes of mountain regions of Tajikistan, Dushanbe, 1976, p. 119).’ From Treasures from the Tajik Museum of Ethnography.

Now, I’m no doctor, but I’m pretty sure there is no medicinal benefit to sticking dog hair in your ear – unless it is some truly potent anti-hangover cure.