50 Fun Facts About Body Piercing

How wide was the ear piercing found on Ötzi the Iceman?

That is a stretched lobe by modern standards, more than five millennia ago.

The oldest known ear jewellery came from the Royal Cemetery of which ancient city?

They date to about 2550 BCE in the Early Dynastic Period III of Sumer.

In Exodus, Aaron makes the golden calf by melting down what?

Elsewhere in the Bible, Jacob buries his household's earrings and Deuteronomy prescribes ear piercing for a slave who chooses to stay.

Nose piercing is documented as far back as which date?

The Vedas of that era refer to a goddess's nose piercings.

Which Hindu goddess's nose piercings are mentioned in the Vedas?

Modern Indian nose-piercing practice is thought to have arrived with the Mughals in the 16th century.

Which nostril do Indian Hindu women customarily pierce, and why?

The piercing is sometimes done the night before a woman marries.

In Genesis 24, whose servant gives Rebecca a nose ring?

Bedouin, Berber and Beja peoples and Australian Aboriginals have all practised nose piercing.

Which Native American tribe's name derives from nose piercing, though few of them practised it?

Many Native American and Alaskan peoples practised septum piercing.

Which Panamanian people are known for wearing gold septum rings?

The Aztecs, Maya and Incas wore them for adornment.

What is a labret?

The Tlingit, the Aztecs and the Maya all wore them; among the Haida they were the oldest high-status symbol for women.

Women of which Nile Valley people wear lip rings that can reach 15 centimetres across?

Lip stretching with plates or plugs was also found across Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and the Pacific Northwest.

The Mayan nobility pierced their tongues with thorns and did what with the blood?

Wall paintings record the ritual, which the Aztecs and Olmec also practised.

Why did medieval European sailors pierce one ear, according to superstition?

They also believed the earring could pay for a Christian burial if their body washed ashore.

Which Elizabethan notables are named as wearing an ear ring, typically in one ear only?

The fashion reached England from Spain via the court of Henry III of France.

Among the Tlingit, why did jewellery in the ears signal nobility and wealth?

The Pacific Northwest people also wore labrets.

What kind of ear jewellery became fashionable after World War I as piercing fell from favour?

Clip-ons dominated the 1920s; pierced lobes came back into fashion from the 1960s.

Who was 'Doug Malloy', whose pamphlet spread invented piercing legends?

Richard Simonton also rescued the steamboat Delta Queen and founded the American Theatre Organ Society.

Which myth did Malloy's pamphlet spread about Roman centurions?

The same pamphlet claimed Prince Albert invented the piercing named after him; both stories were repeated as fact.

Which piercing's history did Malloy falsely tie to ancient Egyptian aristocrats?

Other sources say there are no records at all of navel piercing before the 20th century.

The Gauntlet, the first US body piercing business, opened as a storefront where in 1978?

Jim Ward had run it from home since 1975 with money from Doug Malloy.

What was PFIQ?

Jim Ward published Piercing Fans International Quarterly as word of the practice spread.

Which 1970s youth movement embraced piercing with safety pins?

At the same time Fakir Musafar was promoting piercing as part of Modern Primitivism.

What was the real name of Fakir Musafar, a founder of the modern primitive movement?

He first performed a flesh-hook suspension in 1966 or 1967 after watching anthropological films.

Which 1993 Aerosmith video, showing a navel piercing, set off a craze among young women?

It won MTV's Video of the Year; The Piercing Bible says the resulting demand essentially created the piercing industry.

Which actress had her navel pierced on camera in that Aerosmith video?

Body piercer Paul King did the honours.

Which 2004 event gave the piercing trade a widely reported boost in business?

The halftime show at Super Bowl XXXVIII exposed her pierced nipple.

Which two piercings were considered highly fashionable in 2015?

Navel and eyebrow piercings had been the 1990s favourites.

In a 2005 English survey, which was the second most common non-lobe piercing site, at 19 percent?

The navel came top at 33 percent and the ear cartilage third at 13.

What share of people in a 2005 English survey had a piercing somewhere other than the earlobe?

The figure rose to 46 percent among women aged 16 to 24.

Who holds the Guinness record as the Most Pierced Woman?

The Brazilian first set the record in 2000 with 462 piercings; by 2009 she was reported to have 6,005.

How many piercings did the Most Pierced Woman have when she first set the record in 2000?

192 of them were around her head and face; by June 2006 the certified total was 4,225.

Kam Ma set a 2006 record by having how many temporary rings inserted in under eight hours?

He beat Brent Moffat's 2003 marks of 700 and then 900 piercings in a single session.

Which of the three common jewellery metals is least likely to cause an allergic reaction?

Platinum and palladium are also safe, and gold is fine if it is 14 karat or higher and free of certain alloys.

Why is gold above 18 karat unsuitable for body jewellery?

It scratches and nicks easily; 14 karat or higher is fine for a fresh piercing.

In the American gauge system for body jewellery, what does a lower number mean?

00 gauge is about 9.2 millimetres; 20 gauge is under a millimetre. Most countries just use millimetres.

What is the US Association of Professional Piercers' position on piercing guns?

Western Australia's health department advises against them for anything but earlobes.

What is the standard American piercing tool?

In some countries that needle counts as a medical device and is illegal for piercers, who use a cannula instead.

What does a dermal punch do?

It is popular for larger cartilage piercings but illegal for non-medical use in some places.

What is an 'industrial' piercing?

In the UK and Ireland it is called a scaffold piercing and usually runs through the upper ear cartilage.

Which part of the body is most commonly stretched to take larger jewellery?

Septum, tongue and lip piercings follow; cartilage is harder to stretch and prone to scarring.

What is the tunnel of scar tissue that forms as a piercing heals called?

It forms in the proliferative phase, which can last weeks, months or more than a year.

How long can a navel piercing take to heal fully?

Some other piercings heal in as little as a month.

What share of piercings resulted in complications in the 2005 English survey?

Professional help was needed in 15 percent of cases and under one percent required hospital treatment.

Which metal is singled out as the most common cause of allergic reaction to piercing jewellery?

Metal in contact with damaged skin raises the risk, thought to be why such allergies are more common in women.

What did the English courts decide in the 1987 Operation Spanner case?

The group Countdown on Spanner fought the verdict all the way to the European Commission of Human Rights without success.

Which US state has set a minimum age of 14 for body piercing?

Scotland requires parental consent under 16, and Western Australia bans piercing minors' nipples and genitals outright.

Which American piercer opened the first piercing business in the Emirates in 2018?

It opened in Dubai.

What happened to men seeking visions in the Crow Sun Dance?

Men seeking visions were pierced by others who had already undergone the ceremony.

A 2001 survey found what share of pierced people did it to 'express their individuality'?

Others pierce to mark landmark events, for aesthetics, for sexual pleasure or for religious reasons.

In parts of Malawi, women wore a lip disc called what, enlarged from childhood?

It could reach several inches across and eventually altered the occlusion of the jaw.