Authentic clay lip plate and metal lip hooks as worn by the Mursi women, brought with me from my visit of their tribe in the Omo valley, Southern Ethiopia ° this lip plate has a diameter of 115mm and 12mm thick, weight around 50-75gr and differently decorated at both sides ° unfortunately the plate arrived broken from my travel but is restored as good as possible by putting the pieces together again ° the hooks have the same function as the wooden plugs, they prevent the lower lip from closing and give it an extra stretch (see the photos I made during my visit) ° will be packed and shipped carefully! Heavy plates, made of clay, decorated and often as big as 12cm in diameter, are used to mark traditional rites of passage and are seen as a sign of beauty. A girl’s lower lip is cut, by her mother or by another woman of her settlement, when she reaches the age of 15 or 16. The cut is held open by a wooden plug until the wound heals. It appears to be up to the individual girl to decide how far to stretch the lip, by inserting progressively larger plugs over a period of several months. Some, but by no means all, girls persevere until their lips can take plates of 12 centimetres or more in diameter. Like other forms of body decoration and alteration found the world over (like ear piercing, tattooing, and circumcision), the lip plate worn by Mursi women is best seen as an expression of social adulthood and reproductive potential. It is a kind of ‘bridge’ between the individual and society – between the biological ‘self’ and the social ‘self’. The Mursi tribe are an African tribe from the isolated Omo valley in Southern Ethiopia near the border with Sudan. There are an estimated 10,000 members of this beautiful, sedentary tribe, whose lip plated face plate decorations are a source of endless fascination.