This Wooden Phallus Might Be a Rare 2,000-Year-Old Dildo

Archaeologists have uncovered what could be a rare example of an ancient sex toy carved from wood, found in a Roman fort known for a plethora of phallic motifs. The ruins of Vindolanda fort sit near Hadrian’s Wall in England on the borderlands of what was once the great Roman Empire.

On this politically tense frontier, where Roman soldiers faced off with ‘barbarians’ to the north, symbols representing penises were a ubiquitous sign of protection. Imagery of male genitalia can be found on just about anything, it seems; stone walls, the lids of boxes, even horse riding gear.

Yet the wooden phallus mentioned above is unlike any other penis unearthed at the site. Or at any other Roman dig for that matter. The object was initially discovered in 1992 and rather innocently assumed to be a darning tool. But researchers are now pretty sure that it is actually a disembodied penis.

Apart from a carved line at the tip that looks suspiciously like the appendage’s glans, the wooden object is quite smooth, which suggests it made routine, rubbing contact with another surface.

Archaeologists have put forward three possible explanations for what that surface might have been. The 160-millimeter (6.3 inch) long implement could have been used as a grinding pestle, specially designed to ‘infuse’ food, cosmetics, or medicine with spiritual properties.

While the tool does look like it could crush soft materials, an absence of staining or discoloration on the object’s blunt end means there’s no easy way to confirm this particular hypothesis.

It’s also possible the wooden object was in fact a penis, one adorning a statue, or put on display outside of a building; a common feature in ancient Greece and Rome. People walking by might then have rubbed the penis for good luck. With no signs of outdoor weathering or of being removed or reinserted into an abrasive notch, this is also an unlikely purpose.

The third and final explanation put forward by researchers is the most interesting to consider: the ancient penis could be a uniquely preserved dildo from the second century CE.

“We know that the ancient Romans and Greeks used sexual implements – this object from Vindolanda could be an example of one,” says archaeologist Rob Collins from Newcastle University in England.

Today, we might be tempted to call it a sex toy, but archaeologists working on the artifact think that that term may not have applied in Roman times.

“Use may not have been exclusively sexual or for the pleasure of the user,” they explain.

“Such implements may have been used in acts that perpetuated power imbalances, such as between an enslaved person and his or her owner, as attested in the recurrence of sexual violence in Roman literature.”

The ancient dildo may not have even been used for penetration. In fact, the signs of wear on the object’s exterior might support clitoral stimulation better.

Researchers say the artifact shows “perceptibly greater wear at either end compared to its middle”.

This seems to align with signs of wear on a 2,000-year-old bronze dildo found in China, although experts say it’s hard to compare the patterns between such old artifacts.

Although the wooden phallus from ancient Rome is “simple in form”, researchers suspect it was created by the hand of a confident artist, a practiced practitioner of penises, if you will.

In a Roman fort like Vindolanda, that would have been quite the skill.

“The Vindolanda phallus is an extremely rare survival,” says archaeologist Rob Sands from University College Dublin.

“It survived for nearly 2000 years to be recovered by the Vindolanda Trust… “

Interpreting the wooden phallus as a pestle or a good luck charm might be less problematic and uncomfortable explanations, but archaeologists argue we need to “accept the presence of dildos and the manifestation of sexual practices in the material culture of the past.”

The oldest suspected dildo ever found in archaeology dates back 28,000 years.

In all likelihood, these sexual instruments are a part of human history, whether we acknowledge them or not.

An unlucky medieval woman underwent at least two skull surgeries in Longobard Italy

A detailed examination of the skull of a woman who lived at the medieval settlement of Castel Trosino in central Italy more than 1,300 years ago revealed that this middle-aged woman had undergone not once, but at least twice, invasive surgical procedures.

Macroscopic, microscopic, and computed tomography analyses of a skull found near Ascoli Piceno revealed signs of at least two surgical operations.

The study, published in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, was carried out by an international and multidisciplinary team coordinated by Sapienza University in Rome.

A new international study, coordinated by Sapienza in collaboration with Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan, the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research in Cambridge, the Universities of Aix-Marseille and Caen in France and University of Washington, reveals the existence of drillings in the skull of a Longobard woman, found in the cemetery of Castel Trosino, near Ascoli Piceno, central Italy.

Macroscopic, microscopic and computed tomography (CT) analyses revealed signs of at least two operations performed on the skull, including a cross-shaped surgery, shortly before the woman’s death.

Furthermore, thanks to a new high-resolution biochemical investigation method applied to one of the preserved teeth, specific changes in the woman’s diet and mobility from early life to adulthood were reconstructed.

This allowed the researchers to identify changes in her diet and environment throughout her life and to highlight the care and interest provided to her by the community.

“We found,” says Ileana Micarelli of the University of Cambridge, a former postdoctoral fellow at Sapienza and first author of the study, “that the woman had survived several surgeries, having undergone long-term surgical therapy, which consisted of a series of successive drillings.”

“The last surgery”, concludes Giorgio Manzi of the Department of Environmental Biology, “appears to have taken place shortly before the individual’s death.

There are no lesions suggesting the presence of trauma, tumours, congenital diseases or other pathologies. Moreover, although it is intriguing to consider the possibility of a ritual or judicial motive, no osteological or historical evidence supports such hypotheses.”

The specific surgical techniques used involved the scraping of bone from the cranium as part of trepanation, a medical treatment. This type of treatment was discussed in European medieval literature, and some records date back even further.

However, this is the first time that scientists have been able to prove that an Early Medieval skull was subjected to these dangerous procedures.

The discovery of the rare evidence of a drilling operation paves the way for future studies on the reasons and methods of treatment, as well as the caring role of the community towards the sick during the Middle Ages.

The medieval cemetery at Castel Trosino, known as the Longobard Necropolis, was first excavated in the nineteenth century. Only 19 skulls were discovered in good enough condition to be examined.

Archaeologists, anthropologists, and other researchers have continued to examine these Early Medieval Period remain in order to learn as much as they can about the health, physical characteristics, and lifestyles of the people who lived in central Italy between 568 and 774 AD when the necropolis was in use.

Unique Golden Glass Image Unearthed in Rome

A spear, helmet, proud profile – after hundreds of years a refined artifact of ancient Rome representing the personification of the Eternal City has come to light from excavation work for the Metro C subway line.

The iconographic theme is already well-known, but it is the first and only representation found so far on golden glass.

 “Golden glass is already a very rare finding, but this has no comparison” according to preliminary findings, Simona Morretta, archaeologist of the special superintendency of Rome, explained to ANSA.

“No golden glass with the personification of the city of Rome had ever been found before”.

 The expert said its execution is “extraordinarily refined”.

Originally, it was at the bottom of a cup, “a particular object that was often used as a gift”.

The person using the cup could in this way look at the image at the bottom while drinking.

“We don’t know whether it was really used to contain something or as a decorative object, but certainly putting an image at the bottom reflects that idea”.

The artifact experienced different lives before: “It was a precious object – she went on to explain – and it wasn’t thrown away after it broke or got damaged. But given that a glass cup could not be repaired, the bottom was ‘cut off’ and perhaps it was exhibited on furniture or hung on a wall”.

The finding did not belong to the military facility found during the excavation, which was abandoned in the middle of the third century, and subsequently ‘razed’, the walls were cut and debris was thrown inside to be covered by earth.

The piece of glass emerged under layers of earth and has a later date.

“From an initial study, it looks like the artifact is from the start of the fourth century”, added the archaeologist.

It will now have another life and will be showcased in a “display case in the station-museum of the Porta Metronia subway”, she concluded.

Underground Roman Aqueduct Explored Near Naples

Forty years ago, when children in Naples were playing in caves and tunnels under the hill of Posillipo in Italy, they didn’t know their playground was actually a Roman aqueduct. When they shared their memories with archaeological authorities recently, it kicked off an exploration of one of the longest, most mysterious examples of ancient water infrastructure in the Roman world.

Rome’s famous aqueducts supplied water for baths, drinking, public fountains and more. Built during a period of about half a millennium (roughly 300 B.C. to A.D. 200), aqueducts around the former Roman Empire are highly recognizable today thanks to their multitiered arched structure. But this marvel of ancient architecture represents only a small fraction of the actual water system; the vast majority of the infrastructure is still underground.

Outside of Rome, subterranean aqueducts and their paths are much less understood. This knowledge gap included the newly investigated Aqua Augusta, also called the Serino aqueduct, which was built between 30 B.C. and 20 B.C. to connect luxury villas and suburban outposts in the Bay of Naples.

Circling Naples and running down to the ancient vacation destination of Pompeii, the Aqua Augusta is known to have covered at least 87 miles (140 kilometers), bringing water to people all along the coast as well as inland.

But the complex Aqua Augusta has barely been explored by researchers, making it the least-documented aqueduct in the Roman world. New discoveries earlier this month by the Cocceius Association, a nonprofit group that engages in speleo-archaeological work, are bringing this fascinating aqueduct to light.

Thanks to reports from locals who used to explore the tunnels as kids, association members found a branch of the aqueduct that carried drinking water to the hill of Posillipo and to the crescent-shaped island of Nisida. So far, around 2,100 feet (650 meters) of the excellently preserved aqueduct has been found, making it the longest known segment of the Aqua Augusta.

Graziano Ferrari, president of the Cocceius Association, told Live Science in an email that “the Augusta channel runs quite near to the surface, so the inner air is good, and strong breezes often run in the passages.” Exploring the aqueduct requires considerable caving experience, though.

Speleologists’ most difficult challenge in exploring the tunnel was to circumvent the tangle of thorns at one entrance. 

“Luckily, the caving suits are quite thornproof,” he said. “After succeeding in entering the channel, we met normal caving challenges — some sections where you have to crawl on all fours or squeeze through.” 

In a new report, Ferrari and Cocceius Association Vice President Raffaella Lamagna( list several scientific studies that can be done now that this stretch of aqueduct has been found. Specifically, they will be able to calculate the ancient water flow with high precision, to learn more about the eruptive sequences that formed the hill of Posillipo, and to study the mineral deposits on the walls of the aqueduct.

Rabun Taylor, a professor of classics at the University of Texas at Austin who was not involved in the report, told Live Science in an email that the newly discovered aqueduct section is interesting because it is “actually a byway that served elite Roman villas, not a city. Multiple demands on this single water source stretched it very thin, requiring careful maintenance and strict rationing.” 

Taylor, an expert on Roman aqueducts, also said the new find “may be able to tell us a lot about the local climate over hundreds of years when the water was flowing.”

This insight is possible thanks to a thick deposit of lime, a calcium-rich mineral that “accumulates annually like tree rings and can be analyzed isotopically as a proxy for temperature and rainfall,” he explained. 

Ferrari, Lamagna and other members of the Cocceius Association plan to analyze the construction of the aqueduct as well, to determine the methods used and the presence of water control structures.

“We believe that there are ample prospects for defining a research and exploration plan for this important discovery, which adds a significant element to the knowledge of the ancient population” living in the Bay of Naples, they wrote in the report.

Source:https://www.livescience.com/

An ancient statue of Hercules emerges from Rome sewer repairs

An ancient Roman statue of Hercules has been discovered during repairs to the sewerage system underneath a park in Rome.

The statue, which apparently dates back to the Roman imperial period (27BC to AD476), emerged from the ground around the second mile mark along the ancient Appian Way, a famed historic road.

The Appia Antica Park announced on Facebook that the area “has reserved a great surprise for us: a life-size marble statue which, due to the presence of the club and the lion’s coat covering its head, we can certainly identify as a figure representing Hercules”.

The discovery was made during repair work on some sewer pipes that had collapsed, causing chasms and landslides.

The excavations reached a depth of 20 metres and, as often happens in Rome, were carried out with the presence of archaeologists.

In November last year an “exceptional” trove of bronze statues, preserved for thousands of years by mud and boiling water, was discovered in a network of baths built by the Etruscans in Tuscany.

The 24 partly submerged statues, which date back 2,300 years and have been hailed as the most significant find of their kind in 50 years, include a sleeping ephebe lying next to Hygeia, the goddess of health, who has a snake wrapped around her arm.

Ancient Latin texts written on papyrus reveal new information about the Roman world

Researchers funded by the European Union have deciphered ancient Latin texts written on papyrus. This work could reveal a lot about Roman society and education, as well as how Latin’s influence spread.

Although the number of Latin texts found on papyrus dating from the first century BCE to the eighth century CE has grown as a result of new archaeological discoveries, these texts are frequently not given the attention they require.

Therefore, they represent a vast untapped source of information and insight into the development of ancient Roman literature, language, history, and society.

Latin texts on papyrus in particular could provide information about the period’s literary and linguistic emigration. This might also reveal more about the educational environment, and paint a clearer picture of the Roman economy and society.

New approach to Latin texts

The EU-funded PLATINUM project, which was funded by the European Research Council, was launched to achieve just this. It began with a preliminary census of existing Latin texts on papyrus, in order to assemble and update collections.

“A key innovation was the multidisciplinary way we worked on these texts, bringing them under the spotlights of Latinists, linguists, historians – of Classicists, in general,” explains PLATINUM project coordinator Maria Chiara Scappaticcio from the University of Naples Federico II in Italy.

This work was pulled together to produce the Corpus of Latin Texts on Papyrus, six volumes of which will shortly be published by Cambridge University Press. “This is the major output of the project,” adds Scappaticcio.

“This work collects all the texts of interest, and offers scholars a reference source and tool. Its importance is clear when one compares what we knew about Latin papyri before PLATINUM, and what we know today.”

Groundbreaking linguistic findings

Several interesting findings were made in the course of the project. These include the startling discovery of Seneca the Elder’s Histories. “None of us could have imagined that such an important work would be found in one of the charred papyri from Herculaneum,” says Scappaticcio. “A new chapter in Latin literature has been rewritten thanks to PLATINUM.”

In addition, many previously unknown texts are now circulating among scholars as a result of the project’s work.

The team has helped to forge new partnerships and exchanges between academic and cultural institutions.

“We also discovered the only known Latino-Arabic papyrus,” remarks Scappaticcio. “In this text, the Arabic language has been transliterated in Latin script. This text is unique and provides evidence of interactions between Latin language and culture, and Arabic language and culture in the early medieval Mediterranean.”

Cultural interactions uncovered

The PLATINUM project has helped to shine new light on the spread of Latin, especially in the provinces of the Late Antique Roman Empire.

Careful examination of the actual books, tools and materials that were circulating at the time has provided insights into, for example, how Latin was taught as a foreign language.

“We know now that Latin literature was circulating in the Eastern Roman Empire, and how this literature might have shaped knowledge,” notes Scappaticcio. “One of the main reasons for learning Latin, for example, was the necessity of familiarising oneself with Roman law.”

Scappaticcio believes that this research will benefit not only ancient historians and classical philologists, literates and linguists, but also cultural historians. “The work has opened the door to better understanding cultural interactions at the time,” she says.

“The work of PLATINUM touches on Roman Orientalism, as an aspect of multiculturalism in Antiquity and Late Antiquity.”

Head Wounds of Medieval Victim Analyzed

More than 700 years ago, a medieval “case of raw violence” ended a young man’s life with four sword blows to the head, according to a new study of the medieval “cold case.”

The brutality of the wounds suggests the murder may have been “a case of overkill,” study lead author Chiara Tesi, an anthropologist at the University of Insubria’s Center for Osteoarchaeology and Paleopathology in Italy, told Live Science. Tesi and her colleagues analyzed the victim’s skeletal remains with modern forensic techniques, including computed tomography (CT) — three-dimensional X-ray scans — and precision digital microscopy of the skull injuries.

“The individual was probably taken by surprise by the attacker” and was unable to properly protect his head, she said in an email. After initially attacking the victim from the front, the murderer seems to have chased the man as he turned, likely trying to escape, as the deepest wounds were inflicted from behind, according to a study published in the December issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.

Brutal murder

Archaeologists discovered the victim’s skeleton in 2006 at the church of San Biagio in Cittiglio, a small town in Italy’s northern Varese province.

The oldest parts of the church are thought to date from the eighth century A.D., but the battered skeleton was found in a tomb in an atrium built near the entrance in the 11th century; radiocarbon dating indicates the victim was buried there before A.D. 1260.

The new study suggests the victim was a man who was between 19 and 24 years old when he was murdered. A study of the excavation published in 2008(opens in new tab) in the Fasti Online journal noted some of his injuries, but Tesi said the new study has revealed further injuries and the sequence of the murder.

She said the young man likely blocked or dodged the assailant’s initial attack, though the first blow still caused a shallow lesion on the top of the skull. 

As he turned away to escape, however, “the victim was then hit in rapid succession by two other strikes, one affecting the auricle [ear] region and the other the nuchal [back of the neck] region,” she said. “At the end, probably exhausted and face down, he was finally hit by a last blow to the back of the head that caused immediate death.” This “evident overkill” suggested there may have been a complex motive for the murder,  Tesi said; such a frenzied attack appeared to show the attacker was determined to finish his deadly job.

Medieval remains

The new study shows that the injuries were all caused by the same bladed weapon — probably a steel sword — while the position of the wounds suggest the injuries were inflicted by a single assailant, she said.

The researchers scoured historical records in an attempt to determine the victim’s identity, but “we didn’t find anything,” Tesi said. 

His prominent burial, however, suggests he may have been a member of the powerful De Citillio family that had originally established the church. 

A healed wound on the victim’s forehead suggests that he had experience in warfare; while features of his right shoulder blade were probably caused by “the habitual practice of archery and the use of a bow from an early age,” Tesi said — possibly a sign that he had often gone hunting for sport.

To examine how the sword blows impacted by the victim’s now-decomposed soft tissues, the researchers created a reconstruction of the victim’s face. “We tested wound formation by placing a blade on the reconstructed head and replicating the blows received by the subject,” she said.

The reconstruction helped assess the severity of the injuries.

“They’re using the head as a way of showing these multiple wounds to the skull,” Caroline Wilkinson(opens in new tab), the director of the Face Lab(opens in new tab) at Liverpool John Moores University in the United Kingdom, told Live Science. “It’s really interesting — a good use of forensic techniques to look at trauma to the head, and how those wounds have been caused.”

Wilkinson was not involved in the new study but has worked on reconstructing the faces of some of the victims of a medieval massacre of Jews in the English city of Norwich. Facial depictions “can create a personal narrative around human remains, rather than just looking at specimens in a glass box,” she said.

Tesi also believes that the reconstruction can help people relate to the victim. 

“Seeing the face and eyes of a young man is definitely more emotional than simply looking at a skull,” she said.

Archaeologists uncover an ancient mosaic of the living room of brutal Publius Vedius Pollio

In the Pausilypon Archaeological Park, archaeologists from the University of Naples’ “L’Orientale” uncovered an ancient mosaic. The park is located in Posillipo, which was an elite quarter of Naples in modern-day Italy during the Roman period.

The park is accessible via the 770-meter-long “Grotta Seiano” tunnel, which was excavated during the Roman period.

This park consists of ancient structures that face the sea but actually extend far below the sea’s surface. In fact, the Pausilypon Archaeological-Environmental Park shares boundaries with the Gaiola Sunken Park.

Pausilypo (“Pausilypon” in ancient Greek means “relieving from pain”) was a luxurious zone where the most famous people of the ancient Roman world, such as senators and wealthy cavaliers, had their extravagant villas.

The main attraction of the park is the villa of Publius Vedius Pollio, Emperor Augustus’ right hand, which was built in the first century B.C. This wealthy Roman cavalier was born into a freed slave family but was best known for his exploits with his own slaves.

He became infamous for his luxurious tastes and cruelty to his slaves – when they displeased him, he supposedly had them fed to lampreys in an eel pond. In addition to his villa, he built a theater that could seat 2000 people, an Odeon for small shows, a Nymphaeum, and a spa complex.

When Publius Vedius Pollio’s slave broke a crystal cup, he sentenced him to death and insisted that he be thrown into a pool of moray eels. Emperor Augustus, a close friend of Pollio, told the self-made gagillionaire to spare the slave’s life. Augustus then ordered all Pollio’s expensive drinking vessels smashed and his pool filled in.

Pollio left his estate to Augustus after his death in 15 BC, along with instructions to erect a suitable monument on the site. Up until the time of Hadrian, who passed away in AD 138, the villa was owned by the empire and passed from one emperor to the next.

A mosaic floor from the villa’s initial construction phase has been discovered by archaeologists from the University of Naples “L’Orientale.”

The mosaic, which is composed of tiny white tesserae with a double black frame, was discovered purposefully buried beneath renovation projects that Augustus had ordered following Vedius’s passing.

Stratigraphic dating is still missing, but based on the style that hall could date back to the late Republican age or Augustan at the latest”, says Marco Giglio, of the L’Orientale University of Naples, who led the excavation brought to light.

A refined white mosaic carpet with a double black frame delimits the living room overlooking the sea of Naples.