Nose-jewels
|
|
This entry incorporates text from Easton's Bible Dictionary, 1897, with some modernisation.
Nose-jewels were only mentioned in the Bible in Isa. 3:21, although referred to in Gen. 24:47, Prov. 11:22, Hos. 2:13. They were among the most valued of ancient female ornaments. They "were made of ivory or metal, and occasionally jewelled. They were more than an inch in diameter, and hung upon the mouth. Eliezer gave one to Rebekah which was of gold and weighed half a shekel...At the present day the women in the country and in the desert wear these ornaments in one of the sides of the nostrils, which droop like the ears in consequence."