Plug (jewelry)

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Man with a modern plug in his ear hole (earplug)

A plug is a special form of piercing jewelry . Plugs are round, disk-shaped or cylindrical objects that have a larger diameter on the sides than in the middle and completely fill the piercing opening. The wearing of plugs is usually only possible after the piercing has been widened.

history

African woman with ear plugs

Plugs were already worn in the earlobes of both sexes in ancient Egypt. The Inca wore plugs made of gold or silver, which often served as status symbols. The earlobes were stretched to several centimeters. The Spanish name for the Inca was orejones , which means “big ears”.

Even today, traditional plugs are common among many indigenous peoples. The Miao and Hmong in Southeast Asia wear ivory plugs , while the Akha in Vietnam wear silver plugs among the female population.

In the western culture area, plugs only became established as a form of jewelry for widened piercings in the mid-1990s.

Shapes and sizes

Ear studs from Bali from before 1934

Plugs can be manufactured in two different designs. A distinction is made between cylindrical straight plugs and hyperbolic flared / double flared plugs :

  • straight plug : this is a simple, cylindrical object. The plug is held in position by O-rings or screw caps. Straight plugs without ring or are ribbed plugs (of English. Rib - rib) mentioned and have at both ends a raised rim which holds the plug in position.
  • flared plug : the plug is hyperbolically shaped, ie it is narrower in the middle than on the sides. This means that the plug remains in the desired position simply because of its shape.

The size of the plug can vary between a few millimeters and several centimeters. The standard sizes usually start at four millimeters. Sizes are given in either millimeters, inches or gauge .

millimeter Gauge inch
4.0 mm 6 g 5/32 ″
5.0 mm 4 g 3/16 ″
6.0 mm 2 g 1/4 ″
8.0 mm 0 g 5/16 ″
10.0 mm 00 g 3/8 ″
11.0 mm 000 g 7/16 ″
12.7 mm 0000 g 1/2 ″

material

Any material used for piercing jewelry such as titanium, stainless steel , niobium , PTFE can also be used for plugs. However, organic materials such as horn and ebony are particularly popular for plugs . Often minerals or quartz are also processed.

Similar shapes

A jewelry variant often worn as an alternative to the plug is the flesh tunnel . This forms an open channel that makes it possible to look through the branch channel.
Similar to the plug, lip plates for stretched labret piercings are mainly
worn by indigenous peoples in Africa .

Web links

Commons : Plugs  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Routledge (Ed.): Jewelry . Encyclopedia of the Archeology of Ancient Egypt. 1999, ISBN 0-415-18589-0 .
  2. Greenwood Press (Ed.): Daily Life in the Inca Empire (=  Greenwood Press Daily Life Through History Series ). 1996, ISBN 0-313-29390-2 .
  3. ^ France Borel: Splendor of Ethnic Jewelry: From the Colette and Jean Pierre Ghysels Collection . Harry N. Abrams, 2001, ISBN 0810929937 .
  4. Oppi Untracht: Jewelry Concepts & Technology . Doubleday, 1982, ISBN 0385041853 .