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Disembodied wooden phallus could be a Roman sex toy

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Archaeologists excavating at the Roman fort of Vindolanda have found a phallus made of wood, which may have been a Roman sex toy from almost 2,000-years-ago.

Vindolanda (translated as “white field” or “white moor”) was a Roman auxiliary fort, situated on the fringes of the Roman Empire near Hadrian’s Wall to guard a major highway called the Stanegate.

No less than nine Roman forts were built of timber or stone at Vindolanda from around AD 85 to AD 370, creating one of the most complex archaeological sites in Britain and a unique cultural legacy of frontier life.

The phallus was initially thought to be a darning tool, as it was uncovered in a 2nd century fort ditch alongside the remains of leather shoes, dress accessories, small tools and leather waste cut-offs.

However, a new analysis by researchers from Newcastle University and University College Dublin, have now suggested that the wooden artefact is a disembodied phallus used as a sex toy, the first known example discovered anywhere in the Roman world.

The Roman’s believed that the phallus was the embodiment of a masculine generative power, and was one of the tokens of the safety of the state (sacra Romana) giving protection and good fortune.

Across the length of Hadrian’s Wall and at military installations, 59 known etchings of male genitalia, otherwise known as a fascinus or fascinum were carved at various locations to symbolise the male phallus.

They were also often depicted in painted frescoes and mosaics, or formed part of the decoration of other objects such as being embellished onto a knife handle or incised into pottery. Small, portable phalli made of bone or metal were commonly worn as pendants around the neck.

In a study published in the journal Antiquity, the researchers explore three possible explanations for the phallus’ purpose – One being a sexual implement, another as a pestle, and the third being ornamental in function which could be slotted into a statue.

Dr Rob Collins, Senior Lecturer, Archaeology, Newcastle University, explains: “The size of the phallus and the fact that it was carved from wood raises a number of questions to its use in antiquity. We know that the Romans and Greeks used sexual implements – this object from Vindolanda could be an example of one.”

Antiquity

https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2023.11

Header Image Credit : Antiquity Journal

This content was originally published on www.heritagedaily.com – © 2023 – HeritageDaily

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Archaeology

2,000 ram heads uncovered at Temple of Rameses II in Abydos

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An archaeological mission led by the University of York has uncovered 2,000 ram heads at the Temple of Rameses II in Abydos, Egypt.

Abydos is one of the oldest cities of Ancient Egypt following Upper Egypt becoming unified under Abydos rulers during the Naqada III period (3200–3000 BC).

The city was the site of many ancient temples, including Umm el-Qa’ab, a royal necropolis where early pharaohs were entombed, and the temple of Seti I, which contains an inscription known as the Abydos King List (a chronology of dynastic pharaohs of Ancient Egypt from Menes until Seti I’s father, Ramesses I).

During the 19th dynasty, Ramesses II, also known as Ramesses the Great, constructed a temple complex in dedication primarily to Osiris and Seti I. Ramesses II is often regarded as the most celebrated pharaoh of the New Kingdom, which itself was the most powerful period of Ancient Egypt.

The temple is decorated with several achievements from his rule, including scenes of the Battle of Kadesh where the forces of the New Kingdom of Egypt under Ramesses II, and the Hittite Empire under Muwatalli II, fought near the modern Lebanon–Syria border around 1274 BC.

Excavations at the temple complex by archaeologists from the University of York have uncovered 2,000 ram heads dating from the Ptolemaic period. The team also found the remains of ewes, wild goats, dogs, cows, gazelles and mongooses within a room in the temple complex, which are thought to be votive offerings in reverence to Ramses II 1,000 years after his death.

Image Credit : Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities

A large palatial structure was also discovered from the Old Kingdom’s 6th Dynasty, containing several statues, papyri, ancient tree remains, leather garments and shoes, in addition to parts of the northern wall that surrounded the Temple of Rameses II.

According to the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, the palace will greatly contribute to a new interpretation of how the site looked during the Old Kingdom and the activities that took place there.

Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities

Header Image Credit : Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities

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Archaeology

The “Stonehenge calendar” shown to be a modern construct

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Stonehenge is an astonishingly complex monument, which attracts attention mostly for its spectacular megalithic circle and “horseshoe”, built around 2600 BC.

Over the years, several theories have been put forward about Stonehenge’s meaning and function. Today, however, archaeologists have a rather clear picture of this monument as a “place for the ancestors”, located within a complex ancient landscape which included several other elements.

Archaeoastronomy has a key role in this interpretation since Stonehenge exhibits an astronomical alignment to the sun which, due to the flatness of the horizon, refers both to the summer solstice sunrise and to the winter solstice sunset. This accounts for a symbolic interest of the builders in the solar cycle, most probably related to the connections between the afterlife and winter solstice in Neolithic societies

This is, of course, very far from saying that the monument was used as a giant calendrical device, as instead has been proposed in a new theory published in the renewed Archaeology Journal Antiquity.  According to this theory, the monument represents a calendar based on 365 days per year divided into 12 months of 30 days plus five epagomenal days, with the addition of a leap year every four. This calendar is identical to the Alexandrian one, introduced more than two millennia later, at the end of the first century BC as a combination of the Julian calendar and the Egyptian civil calendar.

To justify this “calendar in stone”, the number of the days is obtained by multiplying the 30 sarsen lintels (probably) present in the original project by 12 and adding to 360 the number of the standing trilithons of the Horseshoe, which is five.

The addition of a leap year every four is related to the number of the “station stones”, which is, indeed, four. This machinery was allegedly kept in operation using the solstice alignment of the axis and was supposedly taken from Egypt, much refining, however, the Egyptian calendar, which was of 365 days (the leap year correction was not present until Roman times).

This is the admittedly fascinating theory that has been subjected to a severe stress test by two renewed experts of  Archaeoastronomy, Juan Antonio Belmonte (Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias and Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain) and Giulio Magli (Politecnico of Milan). In their paper, which is going to be published on Antiquity as well, the authors show that the theory is based on a series of forced interpretations of the astronomical connections of the monument, as well as on debatable numerology and unsupported analogies.

First of all, astronomy. Although the solstice alignment is quite accurate, Magli and Belmonte show that the slow movement of the sun at the horizon in the days close to solstices makes it impossible to control the correct working of the alleged calendar, as the device (remember: composed by huge stones) should be able to distinguish positions as accurate as a few arc minutes, that is, less than 1/10 of one degree.  So, while the existence of the axis does show interest in the solar cycle in a broad sense, it provides no proof whatsoever for inferring the number of days of the year conceived by the builders.

Second, is numerology. Attributing meanings to “numbers” in a monument is always a risky procedure. In this case, a “key number” of the alleged calendar, 12, is not recognizable anywhere, as well as any means of taking into account the additional epagomenal day every four years, while other “numbers” are simply ignored (for instance, the Stonehenge portal was made of two stones). Thus, the theory suffers also from the so-called “selection effect”, a procedure in which only the elements favourable to a desired interpretation are extracted from the material records.

Finally, cultural paragons. The first elaboration of the 365 plus 1-day calendar is documented in Egypt only two millennia later than Stonehenge (and entered into use further centuries later). Thus, even if the builders took the calendar from Egypt, they refined it on their own. In addition, they invented on their own also a building to control time, since nothing of this kind ever existed in ancient Egypt – probably the Egyptians reflected the drift of their 365-day

calendar through the seasons in their architecture but this is far different. Besides, a transfer and elaboration of notions with Egypt occurred around 2600 BC and has no archaeological basis.

All in all, the alleged “Neolithic” solar-precise Stonehenge calendar is shown to be a purely modern construct whose archaeoastronomical and calendrical bases are flawed.

As occurred many times in the past – for instance, for the claims (shown untenable by modern research) that Stonehenge was used to predict eclipses – the monument returns to its role of the silent witness of the sacred landscape of its builders, a role which – as Magli and Belmonte stress – does not take anything away from his extraordinary fascination and importance.

Antiquity

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