Well, that’s certainly a good find. Does it also kind of look like a whistle?
A 69-year-old has discovered a small bronze artifact in the village of Haconby in Lincolnshire county, England. The man was using a metal detector when he found the figurine 10 inches deep in the soil of a stubble field last September. When he dug it up, he initially thought it was just some split pin.
Upon closer expectation, however, things were way more than a split pin. The bronze figurine actually showed a nude man with an enormous phallus on a hinge component for up and down movement. According to coins and artifacts consultant Nigel Mills, this small item is a figure modeled after Mercury, the Roman god of commerce and communication.
“This male figure with its hinged oversized phallus would have had symbolic powers of good luck and warding off evil spirits and may have served as a locking mechanism as a buckle to hold a belt and scabbard for a sword,” Mills explained. Members of the Roman militia would wear phallus-shaped pendants for virility, masculinity, and good luck.
The small artifact, now called the “Haconby Celtic Fertility Figure,” was part of a two-day sale, with an estimated value between £800 and £1,200 (~$956–$1,434).
Image credit: Noonans