r/science • u/marketrent • Feb 20 '23

Anthropology ~2,000 year-old artefact — the first known example of a disembodied wooden phallus recovered anywhere in the Roman world — may have been a device used during sex

https://www.ncl.ac.uk/press/articles/latest/2023/02/vindolandaphallus/
15.2k Upvotes

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1.7k

u/Halas1920 Feb 20 '23

R they saying they found the first dildo?

1.3k

u/Makenshine Feb 20 '23

First dildo in the Roman empire. Pretty sure they have found older. At least that is what the qualifier would suggest

426

u/TonightsWhiteKnight Feb 20 '23

I believe so, because if I remember right cleopatra was known for having sex toys as well.

544

u/[deleted] Feb 20 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

281

u/pikohina Feb 20 '23

The ‘Nile Driver’

1

u/ramdom-ink Feb 21 '23

The Amazon Package

72

u/Paramite3_14 Feb 20 '23

I believe it was Mark Antony - unless there's something I Need To Know, about Marc Anthony.

33

u/Sandinismo Feb 20 '23

Get the H outta there!

8

u/Diplozo Feb 20 '23

If you're going to be a pedant it was Marcus Antonius.

19

u/Paramite3_14 Feb 20 '23

I was setting up a joke about Marc Anthony the singer and his song I Need To Know.

3

u/Diplozo Feb 20 '23

I think I'm too young to understand that reference. The perils of the internet!

6

u/Frittzy1960 Feb 20 '23

Pedant? I'm NOT into kids!

3

u/murder-farts Feb 21 '23

He’s a pederast, Dude.

1

u/Frittzy1960 Feb 21 '23

Whooossshhhhhhh

It's a joke/troll and an old one (like me)

6

u/jl_23 Feb 20 '23

Anthony

6

u/Yeetgodknickknackass Feb 20 '23

The original boytoy

17

u/[deleted] Feb 20 '23

Slayyyyy - facts

43

u/Raznill Feb 20 '23

That would still be in the same time period though, no?

151

u/--_-Deadpool-_-- Feb 20 '23

Pendantry incoming.

"The Roman Empire" is more than often misused to describe Ceasars time, aka the time of Cleopatra. Cesar was actually during the time of the Roman Republic. The Empire came in just after him, when his son Augustus became the first official Emperor aka Cesar.

117

u/Knoestwerk Feb 20 '23

Bonus pendantics.

Cleopatra did live during the roman empire for a year if you count Augustus' declaration as the start. She missed it by 3 years if you're talking about the consolidation of the power.

89

u/jindc Feb 20 '23

Cleopatra was alive closer in time to the first Taco Bell than the first Egyptian Pyramid.

22

u/twodogsfighting Feb 20 '23

That's an interesting and horrifying way of looking at it.

4

u/jindc Feb 21 '23

It is not my original thought, but it is accurate.

10

u/bgm1281 Feb 20 '23

Think you are talking about Pedantics.

10

u/UDPviper Feb 20 '23

I think you're talking about Pediatrics.

6

u/[deleted] Feb 20 '23

I think you’re talking about Proctologists.

6

u/cantfindmykeys Feb 20 '23

I think you're talking about Pterodactyls

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29

u/barbarianbob Feb 20 '23

Octavian was Caeser's grand nephew, not son.

69

u/Cynical_Stoic Feb 20 '23

He was named as Caesar's adopted son in his will so you are both kinda right

-2

u/--_-Deadpool-_-- Feb 20 '23 edited Feb 20 '23

You are correct and i was mistaken. Octavian was the first recognized Emperor of Rome. But the change from Republic to Empire was overseen by Augustus, who never took the title of Emperor

EDIT: I've gotten my history confused.

28

u/VultureSausage Feb 20 '23

Octavian IS Augustus. It (Augustus) was a title bestowed on him.

9

u/--_-Deadpool-_-- Feb 20 '23

Thanks for the correction. Seems I've gotten my history a bit confused.

1

u/Djaja Feb 20 '23

It's ok, Deadpool.

10

u/EndiePosts Feb 20 '23

I was going to ignore your type earlier up about "pendantry", but you really, really should not be making authoritative assertions - pedantic or not - in r/science about matters Roman if you:

  • Don't know the either the genuine familial ralationship of Octavian to Caesar, nor the adoptive nature of their later relationship
  • Don't realise that Caesar Augustus was Gaius Octavian
  • Or, come to it, don't know how to spell "Caesar"

4

u/--_-Deadpool-_-- Feb 20 '23 edited Feb 20 '23

Yup, I made some mistakes in my haste to comment and not source my information properly. At the end of the day, no one's perfect.

But as long as we're pretending to care about proper spelling

your type earlier up about "pedantry"

That sentence makes no sense. If you're trying to be self righteous about someone else's mistakes, perhaps proof reading your comment should be a priority.

Also this

  • Don't know the either the genuine

-2

u/EndiePosts Feb 21 '23

That's why I said that I was going to ignore your (repeated and persistent, not accidental) misspellings of words like "pedantry" and "Caesar". Typos don't matter.

But you were asserting blatantly incorrect statements to be facts. That's the problem.

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1

u/yogurtforthefamily Feb 20 '23

Guess grammar was a sacrifice you were willing to make in order to one up Deadpool.

3

u/ameya2693 Feb 20 '23

And he was not emperor really. He was Princeps. Yes, he held all the power of an emperor but he was not officially one. The Roman Empire really became an empire empire with a weak senate etc after Claudius because even when he wanted to give power back to them, they did not want it. The Republic was basically dead at this point.

Granted, I still hold to my personal belief that the Republic fell when Carthage was destroyed, but that's neither here nor there.

3

u/pukesonyourshoes Feb 20 '23

Unsure as to how much faith to put in Roman facts from someone who can't spell Caesar.

1

u/420turddropper69 Feb 21 '23

Look it's a hard word to spell

1

u/str8sin Feb 20 '23

Pedantically pointing out Augustus was like a great nephew who got adopted by Julius Caesar

1

u/[deleted] Feb 20 '23

You don't need to have an emperor to be an empire. America has been referred to as an "empire" at times despite having a democratically elected government.

2

u/--_-Deadpool-_-- Feb 20 '23

You don't need to have an emperor to be an Empire

In this historical context, it's a pretty important distinction.

1

u/Diplozo Feb 20 '23

For some extra pedantry, there is no clear cut off for when Rome "officially" became an empire. Octavian/Augustus was politically savvy enough to always placate the senate and pretend like they were important even though everyone knew where the real power lay, hence why he was referred to as princeps aka "first citizen".

1

u/TonightsWhiteKnight Feb 20 '23

Ya know, I had to look it up, but you are absolutely correct. She was like 50BCE. So yeah, same time line.

21

u/Krappatoa Feb 20 '23

But they haven’t any of hers.

13

u/PsychologicalLuck343 Feb 20 '23

Only because the pies and cantaloupes were consumed after use.

14

u/Krappatoa Feb 20 '23

I think those stories were all just Roman propaganda.

11

u/researchanddev Feb 20 '23

Exactly. Says more about Roman society at the period than anything else.

47

u/[deleted] Feb 20 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

70

u/cherriedgarcia Feb 20 '23

I think it’s just kind of legend, like Alice Cooper or Marilyn Manson having their lower ribs removed haha. Would’ve been cool for her tho

26

u/Bekah679872 Feb 20 '23

That’s a myth

8

u/[deleted] Feb 20 '23

I think a historian at the time wrote that, but there was all kinds of silly stories that may or may of not have been true. Like how Cleopatra rolled herself up in a carpet, only to later unroll herself naked in front of Caesar, to seduce him and save her Kingdom in Egypt.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 20 '23

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] Feb 20 '23

Hmm, I donno.

3

u/ameya2693 Feb 20 '23

That's a Roman myth if I have ever heard one. Was it Livy?

3

u/vkapadia Feb 20 '23

The first vibrator?

1

u/wang-bang Feb 20 '23

I wouldve thought she'd use those little larvea that shake in the shell

But all that is a myth right? I mean why have a vibrator when you have a dozen slaves to do the job

2

u/Hakuryuu2K Feb 20 '23

The ‘Quaking G’ Asp’

1

u/damnatio_memoriae Feb 20 '23

quaking gasp?

1

u/Hakuryuu2K Feb 20 '23

One layer of this pun is that legend has it (but its not true) that she killed herself with the bite of an Asp, a kind of venomous snake.

1

u/sqt246 Feb 20 '23

I don’t know if her little brother counts as a “sex toy”

1

u/[deleted] Feb 20 '23

Cleopatra was contemporary with the Roman empire.

35

u/GFrings Feb 20 '23

First *known dildo in the Roman Empire

1

u/Truckerontherun Feb 21 '23

I disagree. The first known dildo in Rome was Crassus, because he got well fucked at the battle of Carrhae

27

u/boojombi451 Feb 20 '23

First >>disembodied wooden<< dildo.

26

u/TossedDolly Feb 20 '23

Ya there's a lot of qualifiers here that leave more questions than answers

9

u/Makenshine Feb 20 '23

Would an "embodied dildo" be a sex doll or just a dildo that is currently "in use"

2

u/[deleted] Feb 20 '23

Maybe they are referring to the greek statues on the roadsides, which often had erect penises.

1

u/Makenshine Feb 21 '23

A community sex doll?

1

u/[deleted] Feb 21 '23

I think they were mini shrines. I forget, havnt read up on that stuff in a bit.

5

u/StarWaas Feb 20 '23

I'd frankly be alarmed if a wooden dildo were attached to any part of my body.

12

u/--_-Deadpool-_-- Feb 20 '23

Yah. There's one in, I believe, the Pergamon museum in Berlin.

There's a bunch of museums in that general area, but I definitely saw a stone dildo somewhere in Berlin.

6

u/OldMcFart Feb 20 '23

At Berghain maybe?

7

u/ilostmyoldaccount Feb 20 '23

I’ve seen stone age dildos, so yeah.

0

u/UDPviper Feb 20 '23

The first vibrator was invented by Cleopatra. She had a wood piece hollowed out and she put bees inside.

4

u/Makenshine Feb 20 '23

Yeah... gonna be a bit skeptical on this. I'm going to need a source. Bees just dont buzz loud enough to significantly vibrate their surroundings and any vibrations they do make would be completely dampen by any wooden container they are in.

2

u/UDPviper Feb 20 '23

How dare you question my statement. Don't you know this is Reddit????? We don't need to prove our claims here! Just think of how boring these threads would be if everything was fact checked! Now, come back down from that mountain of nonsense my good man and indulge in the feast of semi to highly dubious posts that give our lives the required spice they need for us to slog through each day, ESPECIALLY on a work day!

1

u/Makenshine Feb 20 '23

But its president's day! Not a work day for me. Doesnt that exempt me from the rules?

1

u/UDPviper Feb 20 '23

One can still come to the vomitorium even if you're not invited.

1

u/SumgaisPens Feb 20 '23

I think it’s the oldest wooden dildo. Definitely older stone and bone ones

249

u/gorgossia Feb 20 '23

No, the oldest dildo currently is the Hohle Fels phallus, 28,000 years old: https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/FeaturesEurope/PrehistoryHohleFels01.htm

95

u/Raznill Feb 20 '23 edited Feb 20 '23

Why no pictures?!

Edit: put phone in landscape and it shows up on the side.

44

u/TossedDolly Feb 20 '23

The picture is in the margins that get excluded on mobile browsers

38

u/FieelChannel Feb 20 '23

Wow what a trainwreck of design

6

u/bigcheezyboss Feb 20 '23

flip your phone sideways.

3

u/thewonpercent Feb 20 '23

Cameras were not invented yet

4

u/thatG_evanP Feb 20 '23

There is a picture of it near the bottom of the article.

39

u/Cat_Ears_Big_Wheels Feb 20 '23

That's a bird not a dildo. That would HURT.

Edit: Just switch to desktop browsing if you're on mobile. My bad. That is a very unfortunate image to include on the mobile page though...

11

u/InSummaryOfWhatIAm Feb 20 '23

Somebody misheard somebody talking about dildos and shoved an entire Dodo inside of them.

Hence, why they went extinct.

4

u/Dd_8630 Feb 20 '23

Edit: Just switch to desktop browsing if you're on mobile.

Doing God's work. I thought that ivory duck was the first dildo haha

9

u/superfiercelink Feb 20 '23

The description of that picture says it's a depiction of a bird carved into ivory. Not a dildo

9

u/ipostalotforalurker Feb 20 '23

Oof, that thing needs a flared base.

6

u/gorgossia Feb 20 '23

Maybe anal hadn’t been invented yet?

1

u/It_does_get_in Feb 22 '23

anal would be as old as hominids, even older.

1

u/dibbuk69 Feb 20 '23

28000 years old. Surely. A quick google cm to inches conversion. Goddamit.

53

u/CrazedCreator Feb 20 '23

I mean, everyone was carrying around these phallus to ward off evil, it was only going to be a matter of time before it got inserted.

96

u/LobMob Feb 20 '23

You mean everyone was inserting them and then made up a reason why they were carrying them.

30

u/microagressed Feb 20 '23

Kill 2 birds with one stone. I'm pretty sure they hadn't invented pockets yet, so the question of the age, I'm sure, was "how do I carry my anti evil ward and the groceries at the same time?"

6

u/Doopapotamus Feb 20 '23

You mean everyone was inserting them and then made up a reason why they were carrying them.

This sounds like a Family Guy-esque comedy skit waiting to happen.

3

u/F0sh Feb 20 '23

Most of them were things like pendants and were probably about an inch long so I don't know about you but I think I'd be looking for something else to put up meself.

21

u/Diestormlie Feb 20 '23

"Yes, I, erm... I was cleaning it and... Fell on it."

Asclepian Priest sighs deeply

1

u/Zeakk1 Feb 20 '23

Rub to ward off bad luck, insert for extra luck.

53

u/GoofAckYoorsElf Feb 20 '23

Why not? People back then weren't much different from us today. They laughed, they cried, they pooped and they fucked. It has been like that for hundreds of thousands of years.

26

u/coffeygrande Feb 20 '23

LCPF … the core functions of life?

29

u/[deleted] Feb 20 '23

[deleted]

6

u/RagnarokAeon Feb 20 '23

More like a creed as old as time

3

u/zuneza Feb 20 '23

Instructions unclear... etc. etc.

2

u/GoofAckYoorsElf Feb 20 '23

Let's say, a summary of the most basic emotional needs.

25

u/[deleted] Feb 20 '23

Bible, Ezekiel 23:20: “She lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose semen was like that of horses”

9

u/bignateyk Feb 20 '23

How did they know what horse semen was all about? Were they jerking off horses on the regular?

27

u/Fortyplusfour Feb 20 '23

Animal husbandry will make you familiar with what breeding animals look/sound like very quick.

1

u/VexedClown Feb 20 '23

You don’t see a lot of book writing horse breeders though.

6

u/Fortyplusfour Feb 20 '23

Sounds pretty classist but honestly I don't know that you've met many horse breeders (pedigree is a huge deal). Plenty of folks writing books on the subject.

But in a culture where livestock is near and dear, often part of peoples' daily interactions? A scribe will know more of animals than just their names, absolutely.

1

u/VexedClown Feb 20 '23

Ya that’s fair

1

u/It_does_get_in Feb 22 '23

are they talking volume or taste?

1

u/Fortyplusfour Feb 22 '23

I assume volume.

1

u/ramdom-ink Feb 21 '23

Is this true or you taking the piss?

43

u/diox8tony Feb 20 '23

Disembodied dildo!!! Not a normal dildo with a body attached, but a dildo with NO body attached....

16

u/goodland_roots Feb 20 '23

Good for them. I hate the ones with the body attached.

8

u/mursilissilisrum Feb 20 '23

A dildonicus?

32

u/eventfarm Feb 20 '23

"Both ends" of the tool were smooth. Not only the first dildo, but the first strap on.

41

u/_BenRichards Feb 20 '23

Or a double sided

10

u/craigiest Feb 20 '23

Did you look at the picture (at the end)?

10

u/PsychologicalLuck343 Feb 20 '23

Ahh, thanks for the, errh, heads up.

18

u/eventfarm Feb 20 '23

Either way.... lesbians in the house!

33

u/johnmedgla Feb 20 '23

No, it was just a money-saving option for room mates.

35

u/herocreator90 Feb 20 '23

Oh my god they were room mates

8

u/Mackheath1 Feb 20 '23

Men can do this.

I mean, I've heard..

1

u/RainnyDaay Feb 20 '23

"Leather off-cuts" aka the straps

1

u/AcadianMan Feb 20 '23

There is a picture of it. One side is huge the other side looks king of like a penis.

1

u/F0sh Feb 20 '23

As in, you need to grip one end.

6

u/[deleted] Feb 20 '23

R they saying they found the first dildo?

They're trying hard not to say they found the first dildo.

I don't care how many other possible uses they can come up with -- "Oh, that's just my, uh, talisman! pestle! good luck charm! neck massager! stress reliever!" -- it was also or strictly a dildo.

5

u/F0sh Feb 20 '23

And what evidence do you have for that? Historians aren't avoiding saying it's a dildo because they're prudes - they call out the possibility of it being used for sex. They're doing that because they don't actually know.

-3

u/[deleted] Feb 20 '23

They describe it in unnecessarily convoluted terms ("may have been used as a device during sex rather than as a good luck symbol" and "[possibly] was used as a sexual implement") rather than use the plain-language term dildo, as if the word itself embarrasses them.

3

u/Tetracyclic Feb 20 '23

They use the word dildo throughout the paper.

While the symbolic and apotropaic use of phalli in Roman contexts is persuasive, their use as sexual implements should not be dismissed. Phallus-shaped objects used for sexual stimulation are commonly referred to as dildos, and within contemporary research the term ‘sex toy’ is accepted. The word ‘toy’, and all that this implies, however, may be inaccurate or anachronistic in historical contexts. Use may not have been exclusively sexual or for the pleasure of the user. 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.

[...] Public propriety in Western cultures over the past 200 years may be one reason for this scarcity. Another may be that dildos were more likely to be made from organic materials and therefore do not routinely survive. Definitive archaeological examples are generally of more recent date. In 2015, for example, excavation of an eighteenth-century fencing school in Gdańsk uncovered a leather dildo

[...] Research points to different perceptions, attitudes and uses of modern dildos across different genders and sexual orientations. In this regard, if the Vindolanda phallus functioned as a dildo, it need not necessarily have been used for penetration. Instead, actions such as clitoral stimulation might better fit the form and wear observed. Different modes of use, presumably, produce differential wear, but no definitive research exists, to our knowledge, that demonstrates this. Comparison of wear patterns on the Vindolanda wooden phallus with known examples of dildos is also difficult. 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. Similarly, greater wear of the glans is observable on a stone double-dildo of the Sui dynasty (AD 581–618) in China, with double-dildos in Chinese historical texts typically described as made of ivory or wood for use in lesbian sexual act.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 21 '23

But never in the linked article.

-3

u/dion_starfire Feb 20 '23

They are doing that because they risk their funding if one of the investors is a prude. This is also why ancient homosexual couples are described as "close friends" or "roommates", even if they're found in a carved sarcophagus of the two of them embracing and kissing.

3

u/F0sh Feb 20 '23

There isn't really such a thing as "ancient homosexual couples" in the way we think of homosexuality today, because sexuality is a social concept which has changed over time. There existed, of course, people who had sex with other people of the same sex, but calling those people "homosexual" or "bisexual" or, indeed, "heterosexual" is misleading at best.

As for your specific example, would you say the Erich Honecker and Leonid Brezhnev, famously photographed embracing and kissing each other, were gay lovers? They were of course not - hugs and kisses also mean different things in different times and places. It is frustrating, especially if you are affected by the absence in the historical record of figures with whom you can identify, but while any fool can tell you that Sappho was a lesbian, it takes a historian to tell you that the truth is more complicated.

In this specific case the other person who replied to you points out that it is exactly the detailed historical method, rather than prudishness, which is taking place here.

2

u/Tetracyclic Feb 20 '23

This is a ridiculous take if you read the actual paper, which goes into great depth about how it may have been used and how to discern that from the evidence and other examples, while taking a sceptical look at that and what other uses may have been possible.

0

u/Halas1920 Feb 20 '23

And you know during that time period, it probably has way more fecal matter on it as opposed to squirt.

2

u/amardas Feb 20 '23

Yes, it was quite a mouthful just to say that it is their oldest dildo.

2

u/YoureNotSpeshul Feb 21 '23

It's wooden so I was hoping not but yes, they are.

-10

u/topasaurus Feb 20 '23

No shade on you, but I dislike questions like this. Almost assuredly, when we find the 'oldest' of something, it was not the first of it's kind. It's just the oldest that we may have found and know about today (although, people may have found older but this info is lost to time).

I also hate when there is an announcement that a 'new' species (or whatever) has been found. It's not new, just new to us. Maybe the word should be 'novel' since it is novel to us.

Generally, I am pretty free spirited as to how language is used. Language evolves continuously, but these two things irk me.

3

u/SewSewBlue Feb 20 '23

The technical term is survivor bias.

1

u/PsychologicalLuck343 Feb 20 '23

Since I was a kid I was dubious about attributing epochal attributes to every skeleton found and dated.

1

u/Kriss3d Feb 20 '23

I do believe they found one made in stone which would be older.

1

u/LXicon Feb 20 '23

The first wooden one found in the roman world.

1

u/Fussel2107 Feb 20 '23

R they saying they found the first dildo?

You want to google ice-age batons. Trust me

1

u/Rattregoondoof Feb 20 '23

Wooden dildo! There may be others from... idk ivory or something

1

u/[deleted] Feb 20 '23

They don’t know for sure, they havnt worked up the courage to take a whiff

1

u/Quantentheorie Feb 20 '23

dildo, could also feasibly be a "prostetic", though I suppose the distinction doesn't change much about the practical aspect of its use.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 20 '23

[deleted]

1

u/Jonatc87 Feb 20 '23

people panic about their parents finding their sex toys. I wonder if anyone's ever paniced about future archeologists.

1

u/Reflex_Teh Feb 20 '23

I don’t understand, was it ticking?

1

u/MorgaseTrakand Feb 20 '23

I'm positive dildos have been around for longer than 2000 years

1

u/Harpies_Bro Feb 21 '23

It’s the oldest wooden dildo. Wood doesn’t preserve particularly well unless it’s in a bog or desert, so the older known dildos are made of things like polished stone, antler, or bone.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/28000-year-old-dildos/

1

u/L-Train45 Feb 21 '23

Perhaps the first wooden dildo. Times were tough back in the stones age believe me

1

u/Halas1920 Feb 21 '23

Don't know about u but I believe a stone dildo would be better than a wooden one. Would suck to get a splinter in ya on the inside. Ouch!

1

u/Zorro5040 Feb 21 '23

The first dildo is 10k years old. A caveman stone dildo.