![]() The iconography, however, is very explicit. We tend to be more interested in the “the organ itself rather than any associated fluids.” Parker notes that before his essay there were no archaeological studies devoted to this question. The ejaculating phallus is a subset of ancient ritual object and art but scholars can be a bit squeamish about discussing them. As Adam Parker has written in the recently published volume Bodily Fluid in Antiquity, phalli fight with fluids. ![]() What makes defense against the evil eye remarkable is that the phallus isn’t simply hanging out menacingly it is actively engaged in attack by, er, ejaculating in the eye’s direction. The clearest example of the phallus as protective guardian, though, is in mosaics where the phallus is-along with a rag-tag team of ancient fighters of evil that includes a dwarf and a centipede-attacks the evil eye, an emblem of supernatural attack. This is one reason that an infant in Yorkshire was buried with no fewer than five fist-and-phallus pendants: they protect the vulnerable child. It played an apotropaic role in protecting the wearer or residents from magical attack. If all of this seems a bit, well, adolescent, bear in mind the phallus served a valuable protective purpose. The preponderance of phallic imagery and artwork in Pompeii prompted the 18th-century historian Richard Payne Knight to hypothesize that perhaps there was a kind of ‘Cult of the Penis’ there. One, the lintel of a bakery included not just a phallus but the inscription, “You will find happiness here.” Evidence like this has led some to suggest that bakeries might have served as brothels. ![]() Doorways all over Pompeii were decorated with tintinabula, erotic wind chimes made of bronze phalluses hung with bells. As Kristina Killgrove has written, Pompeii is famously covered in erotic artwork: excavations have revealed a fresco of the minor deity Priapus (with his characteristic comically oversized penis) at the House of the Vetti a flying penis amulet and statue of Pan engaged in sexual congress with a goat (to be fair to Pan, he is half-goat himself). The interest in the phallus is hardly unique to Britain. Ruth Shaffrey of Oxford Archaeology called it “a highly significant find.” The scientists working on the highway’s archaeological project said that it was one of only four examples (out of a possible 20,000) of millstone phalli from Roman-era Britain. Though phalli were everywhere in antiquity-57 examples adorn Hadrian’s wall, for example-this particular piece of X-rated décor is unusual. Among the debris was part of a broken millstone complete with something one doesn’t usually associate with bakeries: a phallus with testicles attached. It took some time to reassemble some of the fragments, but the results were published early this year. Back in 2017, as they were working expanding a highway that cuts across England from the east coast to the town of Leicester, construction workers stumbled across artifacts from Roman-era Britain.
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