Joe Kinsey
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What a hog!
Archaeologists and history buffs are buzzing over what is being called the discovery of the world’s only known life-size sex toy — a 2,000-year-old Roman dildo that has caused shock and awe amongst the nerds who dig up old stuff for a living.
Dr. Rob Collins, an archaeologist at Newcastle University, who wrote a detailed report for Cambridge University on the phallic find, knows what he’s looking at. “I have to confess, part of me thinks it’s kind of self-evident that it is a penis,” Collins says of the huge rod.
“We know ancient Romans and Greeks used sexual implements. This object from Vindolanda could be an example of one.”
Bro, wait a minute, you’re telling me researchers dug up this piece of wood in 1992 and you guys are just now declaring it the world’s oldest sex toy? What’s going on?
Collins and co-author Rob Sands write that the dildo was originally found in northern Great Britain amongst the ruins of the Roman fort of Vindolanda. The toy was found amongst writing tablets, leather boxing gloves and other objects.
The authors note that most antique dildos from the Roman era are made of metal, stone or bone and sometimes they can be ceramic. Those are the easy dildos to find, according to the nerds.
Obviously, a wooden dildo is a special find due to rot and decay.
Collins and Sands say the sex toy that has caught the attention of the scientific world is made of “young ash.”
“The glans is distinguished from the shaft by a 27mm-long incised penannular line (1–3mm wide) extending around just over half (approximately 55 per cent) of the circumference of the upper shaft,” the science bros write.
Ok, so it’s a dildo, what were the Roman bros up to?
Collins and Sands write that there are “three possible interpretations” for the significance of the sex toy.
- It could’ve been a piece belonging to a “herm” which was a “stone monolith with a carved head and phallus (with or without balls). The researchers say herms would be placed at doorways and the Romans “could touch one to receive protection.
- The dildo could’ve been intended to be a piece to a larger project. Collins and Sands argue the large end of the wood member could’ve fit into a “socket.”
- Was it also a pestle used to grind materials? Possible. Is it possible one of the Roman bros thought it would be a joke to carve a dildo pestle to mess with his boys? Hey, it was 2,000 years ago, anything is possible here. It’s not like Collins and Sands have all the answers.
- Now for the sex toy argument. “The greater wear observed on the glans and upper shaft on the Vindolanda phallus compares favourably with the eighteenth-century ivory example noted above, in which differential surface colour and smoothing can be observed, even on photographs,” the researchers added.
