Ancient Marital Aide

Now the BBC is in the act. I guess foaming at the mouth 24/7 about the evils of the west makes the old salivary glands dry out. So, best to give it a rest and move on to other topics. I am referring to "Ancient Phallus unearthed in Cave."

A sculpted and polished phallus found in a German cave is among the earliest representations of male sexuality ever uncovered, researchers say.

Come now (heh). No surprise that it was in a cave.

The 20cm-long, 3cm-wide stone object, which is dated to be about 28,000 years old, was buried in the famous Hohle Fels Cave near Ulm in the Swabian Jura.
The prehistoric "tool" was reassembled from 14 fragments of siltstone. Its life size suggests it may well have been used as a sex aid by its Ice Age makers, scientists report.

14 fragments.. ouch. I wonder if they found it with the pelvis of a 28,000 year old pervert.

"In addition to being a symbolic representation of male genitalia, it was also at times used for knapping flints," explained Professor Nicholas Conard, from the department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology, at Tübingen University.

It's always nice to have an 'all-in-one' tool lying around. When your not knapping flints and sapping loan defaulters, you need to do something with your time right?

"It's highly polished; it's clearly recognisable," said Professor Conard.

Only in ancient Germany could you find a petrified phallus polisher adept enough to lay down that shine. No wonder they lost two world wars.

The Tübingen team working Hohle Fels already had 13 fractured parts of the phallus in storage, but it was only with the discovery of a 14th fragment last year that the team was able finally to put the "jigsaw" together.

I'm sure professor Conard was barely able to contain his excitement.

The different stone sections were all recovered from a well-dated ash layer in the cave complex associated with the activities of modern humans (not their pre-historic "cousins", the Neanderthals).

I guess the Neanderthals just did not have the right tool making skills.

The dig site is one of the most remarkable in central Europe. Hohle Fels stands more than 500m above sea level in the Ach River Valley and has produced thousands of Upper Palaeolithic items.

And a few lower Palaeolithic items as well.

"Female representations with highly accentuated sexual attributes are very well documented at many sites, but male representations are very, very rare," explained Professor Conard.

And the professor has explored every one of those sites. There's no way a stone schlong, exposed to the elements and the natives, is going to last as long as its counterpart. Simple second law of thermodynamics and first law of male ego here. What's the first thing that breaks off, or is broken off, a sculpture?

Oh. Well. Feel free to read the rest.