Earplug c. 15th century

This earplug was made by an anonymous artist out of stone, we don't know when. The material itself is quite interesting. The artist has clearly chosen a fine-grained stone and used it to create a circular, symmetrical form with a hollowed center. To achieve this level of precision would have required careful and skilled labor. We might imagine someone spending hours grinding away at the hard stone, slowly coaxing it into the desired shape. The choice of stone is also significant. It’s a durable material, suggesting that the earplug was meant to last. But it's also a material that connects us to the earth, to the natural world. It's not a mass-produced, industrial material but something much more elemental. The craftsmanship and material choice elevates it beyond mere functionality. Considering the labor involved in its creation and its aesthetic qualities, it challenges our notions of what constitutes art and craft.