14 DAY TRIAL // First off, fair warning: before you go clicking on the photo next to this article to have a better look at it, make sure you have enough money to pay for one or two visits to a trained physician who can help you overcome the health consequences of being too curious for your own good.
Otherwise put, this photo of a woman wearing what is presumed to be the largest lip disk ever might just send your jaw rolling on the floor and your eyes flying out of your head. Hence, it would be best if you were to proceed with caution.
The woman with the largest lip disc ever
The woman, identified as Ataye Aligidagne, is understood to be merely 20 years old. She currently lives in a remote village in southern Ethiopia, and was discovered by a filmmaking crew exploring local valleys.
According to cinematographer Abraham Joffe, the lip disc worn by this woman in Ethiopia measures 59.5 centimeters (23.4 inches) in circumference. Its diameter is one of 19.5 centimeters (approximately 7.6 inches), he further explains.
The lip disc worn by this 20-year-old in Ethiopia is so big that even the guides accompanying Abrahem Joffe and his colleagues were stunned when they first laid eyes on it. As for the filmmakers, it undoubtedly took them a while to get over this encounter.
“We were taking a tour with some of the local guides. When they spotted the woman, they were absolutely bewildered,” Abrahen Joffe told the press in an interview, as cited by Daily Mail.
“I’m a big reader of Guinness World Records and I figured it was out of the ordinary, but you know you've found something special when the locals are amazed,” he further explained.
With the help of local translators, the crew managed to chat with this woman for a while. She told them that the disc did not bother her all that much, and that the odd ornament had never caused her to experience any pain.
A dying tradition
By the looks of it, lip discs are currently quite a common sight in Ethiopia, where Surma women wear them to make themselves more attractive to men. It is said that, the bigger the disc a woman has embedded in her upper lip is, the more beautiful she is considered to be.
Hence, families who have daughters whose lip discs are freakishly oversized can expect to receive impressive gifts from the men looking to wed them.
However, researchers say that it might be only a matter of time until such ornaments become a thing of the past. Thus, it appears that many young women are not as fond of them as their mothers and grandmothers used to be, and are choosing not to have them implanted in their lower lip.
