10 strange social status symbols throughout history, from pineapple to mummy shroud dismantling ceremonies

A visitor from 100 years ago may be puzzled by our selfies and weird toys, but they will understand the need to show off. Throughout history, people have had social status symbols. Sometimes, these things were gold and jewelry. But sometimes, it's a little weirder. Here are 10 strange social status symbols from the past.

1. Moldy pineapple

In the seventeenth-eighteenth centuries, pineapple was a very important symbol of social status. Homegrown pineapple used to equate to an investment of £5,000 today – so it featured any fruit prominently, rather than eating it. The pineapple will remain on the mantle for months, rotting merrily. If you're not wealthy enough to have your own pineapple, you can rent one for an evening.

2. Lily mania (tulip)

Heresy that almost bankrupted a state. Holland in the XVII century became completely crazy about flowers. As a centre of East Indies' trade, the country's merchants demonstrated their new wealth by surrounding their properties with gardens. The tulip, brighter than anything anyone has ever seen, took center stage. Since the bulb takes seven years to bloom, tulips have become a speculative market. At its height, a bulb can cost up to ten times the annual income of a skilled craftsman. Follicles were exchanged between the hands several times a day. Flowers cost thousands of Dutch guilders. After that, panic reigned when buyers in Harlem did not attend the bulb auction. The demand disappeared and tulips suddenly became worthless.

3. Mummy shroud dismantling parties

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when fascination with Egypt dominated Victorian England, mummy shroud dismantling ceremonies appeared on the scene.

These events were held in the private homes of the societal elite, and coupled the fascination of many with science and disease. These concerts usually include mummies brought from Egypt, slowly unshrouded in front of curious spectators. The ceremony of unwinding an art was not as popular as that of Thomas Pettigrew, surgeon and archaeologist.

4. Board games

Now is how we spend time, but when they first started, board games were given the status of showing social status. Mark Hall, a historian at the Perth Museum and Art Gallery who co-authored a paper on the proliferation of board games, told Discovery News in 2012:

Many of the first board games seem to have served as diplomatic gifts to signify status. We have early examples of very impressive pieces of toys belonging to the elite and privileged.

5. Huge offers of sugar

The giant sugar offerings, which spread to Europe from Africa and the Middle East, were a kind of apparent consumption that boosted wealth and power. Because sugar was rare and expensive, these offerings—called pediments—were initially only available to the king, nobles, knights, and the church. Naturally, sugar began to take on a political dimension. "Heretics" and politicians were ridiculed for the use of sugar. At Henry VI's coronation, each episode was followed by "subtlety" affirming the king's rights and powers, and sometimes his goals as king. One of the Oxford University advisers began a banquet with the university's sugar master, where the sugar adviser, surrounded by sugar professors, gave Latin verses of the sugar king.

6. Tapered boots

Crackowe (or Pauline, the name of the pointed tip) was a popular pointed boot in the late Middle Ages. The limb was six to twenty-four inches long. As with many social status figures, these ridiculous shoes showed that the wearer was wealthy because their practical uselessness proved that their owner did not have to do any work. Edward III of England even set the length of the shoe at six inches for the commoners, fifteen inches for the masters, and taller limbs for the nobility.

7. Collars and sleeves

People in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were convinced that water spreads disease, and that they had discovered a much better way to maintain hygiene: shirts and underwear. One commentator wrote in 1626 that the shirt "serves to keep the body clean" more "effectively than the saunas used by the ancients who forbade the use and comfort of linen." Of course, you can't prove how clean you are by showing off your linen underwear, but clean white collars and cuffs were a symbol of a clean body and a clean mind. That is why the wealthy Tudor never allowed his image to lack collars or sleeves.

8. Teeth

As a sign of your affordability, the Victorian-era practice of blackening your teeth has been associated with diabetic obsession. Tooth modification as a symbol of social status was widespread in many cultures: Mayans sharpened their teeth into pointed shapes to appear fierce, Vikings put lines on their teeth, and Japanese women colored their teeth (until it was banned in 1870) as a sign of maturity.

9. Hermits adornment and follies

We've covered the history of hermits before – but it's always helpful to repeat that the English and German nobles believed that no monarchy was perfect without the hermitage. It's not original, of course, but it's a hermitage that they build and then hire a "nasca" to live in. The hired hermit was essentially an actor whose role required poor care of dressing, carrying heavy books, and preaching to guests.

In addition to hermits, eighteenth-century wealthy people also tended to build fully ornate buildings. And the climax of foolishness will certainly be the follies of ruin. Imaginary ruins built on real estate symbolize virtues desirable in other times and places.

10. X-ray

Besides radium fashion, early twentieth-century Americans were fascinated by the magical ability of X-rays to take pictures of their skeletons. Crowds gathered in front of the machines to "see their bones," and having an X-ray selfie became a status symbol.