Why Did Pirates Wear Earrings?

From Blackbeard to Jack Sparrow, pirates and sailors of historical are frequently depicted carrying earrings. But the gold hoops weren't simply swashbuckling trend statements they served numerous beneficial purposes.

Seamen proudly sported jewelry as a mark of their travels and voyages. Earrings had been given to younger sailors to commemorate their first crossing of the equator, or when they rounded the treacherous waters of Cape Horn, the southernmost tip of South America.

Earrings had been additionally worn for superstitious reasons. Some pirates have been satisfied that sporting an earring would enhance or even therapy terrible eyesight, as they believed that the valuable metals in an earring possessed magical recuperation powers. Another story used to be that pierced ears would forestall seasickness. Others believed that a gold earring served as a protecting talisman and that a man sporting an earring would not drown.

This, of course, frequently proved to be false. But rings made of silver or gold have been well worth ample to pay for a sailor's funeral if his physique washed ashore. Some seamen even engraved the title of their domestic port on the interior of the earring so that their our bodies should be despatched to their households for a acceptable burial. If a man died on a ship, the rings helped to cowl the value of transporting his physique domestic so that he would not be buried at sea or on overseas soil.

But carrying hoop rings did serve one in reality advisable motive for residing sailors. "Pirates, in particular these who fired the ships' cannons in the course of shut fight with the enemy, dangled wads of wax from their rings to use as earplugs," Doug Lennox writes in "Now You Know Big Book of Answers."

Wearing rings did not defend pirates from drowning, seasickness or terrible eyesight, however at least it helped guard them towards listening to loss .

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