"This is the only example I could find of an actual penis having potentially been used as a ritual object," said University of Reading bioarchaeologist Ellen Green.
No, that isn't a human penis. (I know, the word "boner" may confuse you but human penises don't have bones.) This particular piece of anatomy is a dog's penis bone, also known as a baculum. Green found it among thousands of other animal bones tossed into a quarry shaft outside London some 2,000 years ago. The penis bone was painted with red ochre.
"The penis had many associations in the Roman world, and was used as a good luck charm and to ward away the evil eye," Green said.
From Live Science:
Other aspects of the objects from the Nescot shaft suggest the ritual was connected to fertility. The most obvious link is the large number of very young animals, which is unusual in these sorts of shaft deposits, Green explained. Additionally, dogs and horses are historically known to have been connected to "mother goddesses" and to fertility rituals in Iron Age and Roman Europe. And in analyzing the seasonality of the animals' births, Green found that most were born in the spring and summer, the planting period for important crops like barley and other cereals, linking them to agricultural fertility[…]
The painted penis bone "was almost certainly defleshed when the ochre was applied, based on the logistical difficulty of removing the specific portion of the penis from a fleshed dog," Green said.
(Thanks, Robert Pescovitz!)
Previously:
• You can visit Einstein's brain, Rasputin's penis, Galileo's middle finger, and other historic human curiosities
• Archaeological site discovered where new archaeology lab is under construction
