Phallus

Archaeologists working at Gela in southern Sicily have recovered a remarkably delicate, 5th-century BC bone stylus that blends the everyday with the provocative: a carved head - likely Dionysus - and, beneath it, an erect phallus. The tool is around five inches long and was found intact, an unusually lucky outcome given bone’s fragility and the fine detail of the carving, reports Archaeology Magazine . Priapus Fresco Tips the Scales in Pompeii The Erotic Art of Ancient Greece and Rome A Potter’s Tool, or a Symbolic Object? A stylus is typically a practical instrument, used to write on wax tablets or to mark soft materials, but this example may have carried weight beyond utility. The excavation area included paved surfaces