{"id":851,"date":"2016-03-12T22:22:23","date_gmt":"2016-03-12T21:22:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kreps.org\/blog\/?p=851"},"modified":"2023-01-27T18:02:20","modified_gmt":"2023-01-27T17:02:20","slug":"the-phallus-in-ancient-greece-a-long-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/kreps.org\/blog\/the-phallus-in-ancient-greece-a-long-read\/","title":{"rendered":"The Phallus in Ancient Greece – A Long Read"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction<\/h2>\n
\"Phallic<\/a>
Phallic Hermes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Todger. Willy. Knob. Yep – this is a blogpost about the penis. Not my penis. Not yours or anyone else’s – not any particular penis, in fact, but The<\/em> Penis. Not even just The Penis, either, but The Erect<\/em> Penis: aka The Phallus.<\/p>\n

Let me put this into some context.\u00a0\u00a0 What follows is a fairly lengthy introductory \u2018context\u2019 preamble, and then a discussion about the Phallus. But before we start I need just to say that this is NOT, of course, a post about femininity, or from a particularly feminist perspective, albeit written by a feminist. But I want to mention right away how pleased I am that, at last<\/em>, there has been, over the past hundred years or so, some movement on gender equality, although there is still a long way to go. So, that said, back to The Phallus.<\/p>\n

1 \u2013 What do I mean by \u2018Ancient\u2019<\/h3>\n

\u2018Ancient\u2019 – when we\u2019re talking about Classical Times, this means Ancient Greece and Rome. \u00a0\u2018Ancient\u2019 also, however, also often means pre-Historic. History – literally \u2018his story\u2019 – is by definition written, and therefore since the advent of writing, and by definition patriarchal, i.e. stories about men running things and \u2018his\u2019 being in charge.<\/p>\n

This post about the Phallus in Ancient Greece needs to start with an acknowledgement that there remains some debate about how old patriarchy is, when and how it arose, whether it was preceded (in Europe, or anywhere else) by matriarchy or matri- or gynocentric cultures that have not been recorded as a part of our \u2018history\u2019. Margaret Murray<\/a> and\u00a0Marija Gimbutas<\/a>\u00a0are perhaps most responsible for some of these ideas, and despite many academic misgivings concerning their methods, there seems also to have been widespread acceptance that there is truth in what they asserted. As Ronald Hutton<\/a> explained, of course, such acceptance did not mean they were right, and the mythology of a pre-Patriarchy matricentric ancient culture centred around a single Mother Goddess may indeed be just that: a mythology.<\/p>\n

It must also be recognised that \u2018History\u2019 arrived in various parts of the world at different times. \u00a0In some Amazonian corners it is still making its first appearances<\/a>, thousands of years since developed writing first arose in the Middle East in the 4th<\/sup> millennium BCE. (Such developed writing systems grew slowly from a wide range of different Neolithic symbol and number systems, evident as early as the 7th<\/sup> millennium BCE both in China, and, according to Gimbutas, in Serbia, in the mysterious and untranslated Vinca<\/a> symbols.)<\/p>\n

So \u2018Ancient Greece\u2019 is something that could be understood to be both pre-historic, and historic, under conditions both of gynocentric and patriarchal social structures.<\/p>\n

2 \u2013 Is this just a \u2018gay\u2019 thing?<\/h3>\n
\"An<\/a>
An ithyphallic man fondles a boy’s genitals<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sexuality, per se<\/em>, inevitably, figures hugely in any discussion of The Phallus. \u00a0As a gay man myself there will inevitably be a lot about same-sex activity in this post. But The Phallus is obviously a Male thing, and it goes beyond sexuality, into spirituality. I need to say a thing or two about the roots of our modern notions of sexuality.<\/p>\n

Anyone who has even heard of Foucault\u2019s three volume\u00a0History\u00a0of Sexuality<\/em> will know where I\u2019m going with this. \u00a0For the last two thousand years we have – as a species – been subject to, at first the Christian, and then the Islamic, suppression of\u00a0non-procreative sex. \u00a0Whether this is an innate part of how patriarchy works, or a later addition for the purposes of greater control of the self, there remains much debate. \u00a0Without doubt, however, since the early 4th century CE\u00a0edicts at the Byzantine Council of Nicaea against male same-sex activity, (perhaps simply aimed at arresting some Greek Philosophers who dissented from the new Church doctrine), Christianity has sought to repress our sexual natures, and confine our activities to strictly procreative acts. It was Peter Damian<\/a>, in the 11th<\/sup> century, striving to stamp out the male same-sex activity that was rife amongst the clergy and in the monasteries, who first limited the notion of \u2018sodomy\u2019 to acts undertaken with a penis.<\/a> Until then the story of Sodom, where Lot offered his daughters to be ravished by a mob, seemed focused less on male same-sex activity than on anything that was not strictly procreative.<\/p>\n

Islam, from the 7th-8th centuries onwards, followed suit, in much the same vein. \u00a0Despite edicts from the pulpit and minaret, however, there remained much \u2018leeway\u2019 and tolerance for centuries, and it was only in relatively recent times that attitudes really hardened. With the industrial and scientific revolutions in full swing, the British Empire, in Victorian times, helped to spread European ideas that medicalised sexual activity and \u2018invented\u2019 whole categories of \u2018sexuality\u2019 – ascribing a name to a series of specific sexual acts and ascribing that set of acts to particular types of personality:\u00a0The term \u2018homosexual\u2019 was first coined by Hungarian sexologist Kertbeny (1869).\u00a0 This notion was taken up by Westphal in a famous article in 1870 as, \u201ccontrary sexual sensations\u201d – regarded by Foucault as the \u201cdate of birth\u201d of the categorisation, \u2018homosexual\u2019 (Foucault 1990).\u00a0 An 1895 translation of Richard von Kraft-Ebing\u2019s sexologists\u2019 bible Psychopathia Sexualis<\/em> (1886) saw the word\u2019s first appearance in English (Halperin 1990). \u00a0Such\u00a0Victorian values of prudery gradually changed the British Christian laws against sodomy (first introduced by Henry VIII in 1533, and a capital offence until 1861) into laws against a type of person \u2013 the homosexual.\u00a0As early as 1860 in India, laws against sodomy were simultaneously exported to the colonies. \u00a0\u2028So in the 21st century we see \u201csodomy laws throughout Asia and sub-Saharan Africa have consistently been colonial impositions,\u201d (Gupta 2008:10) and do not reflect pre-colonial cultural mores.\u00a0 Such laws are, as Gupta titles his treatise, an \u2018Alien Legacy\u2019.\u00a0 \u201cNo \u2018native\u2019 ever participated in their making. Colonizers saw indigenous cultures as sexually corrupt. A bent toward homosexuality supposedly formed part of their corruption. Where pre-colonial peoples had been permissive, sodomy laws would cure them\u2014and defend their new, white masters against moral contagion.\u201d (Gupta 2008:10).<\/p>\n

In \u2018ancient\u2019 times, then, the notion of \u2018sexuality\u2019, as we understand it today, simply did not pertain. People had sexual relations with each other, plain and simple, and such relations did not define who one was, in any sense. It is therefore likely that many, if not most people, were what we might today consider \u2018bisexual\u2019. Indeed, Ryan and Jetha assert in their book, Sex at Dawn<\/em>, that their interpretation of the anthropological data suggests that even monogamy is a latter-day social creation.<\/p>\n

So no, it is not a \u2018gay\u2019 thing, because \u2018gay\u2019 (a 1950s redefinition of an older word) and \u2018homosexual\u2019 (a late 19th<\/sup> century Victorian invention) simply did not exist in ancient times: the Phallus was a part of all male sexual activity.<\/p>\n

3 \u2013 OK so what about today?<\/h3>\n
\"Pan\"<\/a>
Pan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Modern attitudes to sexuality have – as we all know \u2013 very swiftly changed, in the last decade or two, and this is greatly to be welcomed. \u00a0Legalisation of homosexuality in the West, during the 1960s and 1970s, has been followed by equality in age of consent, legal protections, employment laws, and most recently marriage law. Young people today are increasingly \u2018heteroflexible<\/a>\u2019, sexually fluid, (or even\u00a0pansexual)\u00a0<\/a>in their attitudes: yes, these young people are still mostly straight, but increasing numbers would happily go with the right person for a same-sex experience, and not consider it a problem. Perhaps this is closer to what Ryan and Jetha were on about, or a transition towards it at any rate. Sad to say, there has been a great polarisation, however, and whilst attitudes in the \u2018West\u2019 and \u2018North\u2019 have changed such that things have never been so good, in the \u2018East\u2019 and \u00a0\u2018South\u2019 things have got much worse. \u00a0At the United Nations, in March 2011, 85 of the United Nations\u2019 192 member countries sponsored a new version of the declaration first proposed in 2008, recognizing LGBTQI rights (Jordans 2011), and followed it up with a report published in December 2011 documenting violations of the rights of LGBTQI people around the world, including hate crime, criminalization of homosexuality, and discrimination.\u00a0 With the notable exceptions of Israel, Turkey, Jordan, Iraq and the West Bank (in the Palestinian Occupied Territories,) same-sex activity is illegal throughout the Middle East and North Africa.\u00a0 In most countries in this region there is no recognition of same-sex relationships or same-sex marriage; there is no legal route to same-sex adoption; gays are not allowed to serve openly in military; there are no anti-discrimination laws covering sexual orientation, or laws concerning gender identity\/expression.\u00a0 In the Sudan, Somalia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen, homosexuality is punishable by the death penalty (Bruce-Jones & Itaborahy 2011).\u00a0 LGBTQI people are to all intents and purposes invisible in public spaces in these countries.\u2028 It can only be hoped that this turn for the worse is soon reversed, and that attitudes soften once more.<\/p>\n

In the West, though, now, we are welcoming in the extraordinarily liberating times of gender fluidity: transgender rights are in the newspapers, being championed (with varying success) by celebrities – think Eddie Izzard, Eddie Redmayne – the list is long\u2026. More profound, still, in the spaces where gays and lesbians carved out their rights in the late 1990s and early 2000s, that have, in recent years, become somewhat colonised by Hen nights, a new thrust of drag and transgenderism is retaking the \u2018scene\u2019 with a spirited gusto that can only be praised and supported.<\/p>\n

The Phallus<\/h1>\n

SO,<\/strong> as the (very lengthy) preamble finally moves towards its conclusion, my question is: is it time to recall, also, the sacred phallus of ancient times – the erection that represents virility, life-force, \u2018generative power\u2019, spirit : not in a patriarchal way – nor in a \u2018gay\u2019 way – but unashamedly ‘cocky’ nonetheless. It would, I believe, be in keeping with the new flexibility in sexuality and gender, to begin again to be more open about The Phallus.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Warren Cup<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Collections of material related to this topic \u2013 often known, in 19th<\/sup> century terms, as \u2018erotica\u2019 – used to be private, the whole thing frowned upon; now in more enlightened times this study is coming to light, less the focus of reproach or giggles, more of serious anthropological interest. Let us – for example – recall the story of The Warren Cup<\/a> (see the excellent British Museum booklet on it). \u00a0In solid silver, it has exquisite depictions of man-on-man anal sex on it. \u00a0It was refused when first offered to, but later expressly bought by the British Museum, in (these) more enlightened times. \u00a0The Museum have since also celebrated Hadrian and Antinous<\/a> – the Roman Emperor famous for his northern British wall, and his younger male lover. More importantly, those sculptures with Phalloi which survived the destruction wrought by Victorian explorers who broke them off statues as a matter of public decency, are now being brought out of private collections and displayed in our museums.<\/p>\n

I think the time is indeed ripe for people to consider and appreciate the beauty, spiritual history, cultural significance, and potency of The Phallus, and to understand it anew – and in a modern context.<\/p>\n

Background<\/h2>\n
\"satyrs\"<\/a>
Satyrs, Greece<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Having \u2018contextualised\u2019 the broader debate, we need also to spell out a bit of the \u2018background\u2019 of discussion around The Phallus. \u00a0It must be recalled – though it is perhaps impossible for any modern eye to see through the eyes of the pre-moderns, that, as far as we can understand it, pre-modern sexuality – the ancient form of gender flexibility – had none of the Victorian embarrassment or prudery around sex, sexuality and nudity of modern times. Sex was much more openly a part of our lives, much more vibrant and present, absent the shame and discounting that is habitual in this day and age: it was front and centre: I would say, as it should<\/em><\/strong> be. This was true not just for family life, but for those engaging in same-sex relations too.<\/p>\n

Although in Europe the purging of the \u2018pagan\u2019 religions by the Inquisition was so complete that there remain scant – if any – remnants of how things were before the imposition of the notion of \u2018Sin’, elsewhere in the world it is clear that such prudery is far from typical of the human condition.<\/p>\n

As Stephen Murray asserts, Islam replaced pagan religions across the Middle Eastern region that included \u201csacred sexually receptive \u2013 often gender-variant \u2013 functionaries\u201d (Murray & Roscoe 1997:24) \u2013 and Roscoe argues that the \u2018eunuchs\u2019 who ran the vast bureaucracies and harems of the Empires of the ancient Middle East may not even have been castrated: the translation of their title as \u2018eunuch\u2019 is laden with the historical overlay of 19th<\/sup> century English commentary.\u00a0 It is closer to the truth that these functionaries were simply not a dynastic threat to their rulers \u2013 uninterested in procreation – and in any case where castration was in evidence it is clear that it was also reserved in many cases only for the very highest ranks of such functionaries.\u00a0 Societies in the Middle East, then, included families and single men and women. The latter were more normally gathered in segregated groupings, either in temples<\/a> or colleges. But not always. Nor were the male heads of the families always exclusive to their wives, or to what we would today call \u2018heterosexual\u2019 behavior outside of their marriages. According to Herodotus<\/a>, even wives would spend time in the Temple of Aphrodite at least once in their lives, to be visited by a Temple devotee, to whom they would grant their favours.<\/p>\n

\"Pan<\/a>
Pan and Daphnis, Roman reproduction of Greek original<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Roscoe tells us more, too, about same-sex behavior in ancient times. \u201cThe category of status-differentiated homosexuality, includes not only paederastia<\/em>, relations between adult men and youths such as flourished at Athens, but all relations between individuals socially defined as male in which one partner is of higher status than the other.\u201d\u00a0 Status-differentiated homosexuality, then \u2013 familiar in English public schools like Eton between sixth formers and their younger \u2018fags\u2019 (Bullough and Bullough 1979) \u2013 is universally based on \u201ca distinction between the inserting (high status) role and the penetrated (low status) role in sexual intercourse.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0The more institutionalised, status-differentiated homosexualities appear \u201cto have been more limited to the Mediterranean basin and areas of southwest Asia influenced by Greek and Roman culture\u201d (Murray & Roscoe 1997:56).\u00a0 Third-gender roles, meanwhile, it seems, were common throughout the region, including, \u201cstate third-gender roles, in which gender difference was linked to specific positions in state and civic institutions, and folk third-gender roles, exemplified by the devotees of popular goddess cults,\u201d such as Cybele,<\/a> common to all the ancient cultures in all the regions that Muslims eventually contacted (Murray & Roscoe 1997:56), and indeed throughout the Roman Empire, including many altars to Cybele in Britain.\u00a0That these third-gender roles so prevalent in the pre-Islamic Middle East and North Africa, and absorbed into pre-Modern Islamic culture, continued not only into the 19th<\/sup> century but \u2013 in some places \u2013 to the present day, is evidenced by the discovery, during the war in Afghanistan, by American troops, of institutionalised pederasty in the Pashtun areas of the Af-Pak border region (Wijngaarden & Rani 2011).<\/p>\n

\"Priapus.<\/a>
Priapus. [Vindolanda, England]<\/figcaption><\/figure>Sexuality and gender, then, as we\u00a0have understood it in the West, in recent decades, is in fact far more complex, contextual, and dependent on local\/regional mores than we are often\u00a0led to believe. \u00a0Historically it has had many and various setups, according to time, place,\u00a0and context. \u00a0Until very recently – with the\u00a0medicalisation of sex in the 19th\u00a0century\u00a0– it has always been subject to spiritual understanding, but only very recently subject to both\u00a0medical and spiritual censure.<\/p>\n

The spirituality of sex, then, with \u2018hierodules\u2019 – religious functionaries (and devotees performing once-in-a-lifetime service) whose function was to have sexual relations with temple visitors – both male and female, and for<\/em> both male and female, according to mood, the deity, or need, is something quite widespread, and ancient. \u00a0So, we can move (at last!) to direct consideration of the pillar at the centre of this post.<\/p>\n

The Sacred Phallus<\/h2>\n
\"Ithyphallic<\/a>
Ithyphallic Shiva<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

First-off, it is a global phenomenon. \u00a0By this I mean that it is likely something as old as humanity itself, to see in the image of the erect penis a symbol of much that is important to us. Until the advent of modern science – spermatozoa were not discovered until the late 17th<\/sup> century – it is likely, even, that little was understood concerning ovulation, and indeed Greek writers such as Aeschylus and Galen suggested that human beings emerged from the \u2018seed\u2019 within semen, and that the womb was merely the place where it grew before emerging as a baby. That such anatomical ignorance helped to impart some of the significance that semen, and the Phallus, had for people, should not, now, in more enlightened times, lead us to dismiss that significance altogether. The seed remains the bearer of half the genetic material, and the spark that sets things\u00a0going in the egg that it finds.\u00a0\u00a0 There are some assertions \u00a0that the drinking of semen in religious rites<\/a> is very ancient, and was even still being practiced in early Christian mystery sects. The importance of the Phallus, therefore, for ancient peoples \u2013 even during gynocentric times – cannot be overstated.<\/p>\n

\"Triple<\/a>
Triple Phallus, Tarxien, Malta c3000BCE<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Neolithic peoples, aside from the many goddess figurines many of us will be more familiar with, also left behind many phalli in the archaeological record – the world over.<\/p>\n

\"Minoan<\/a>
Minoan Master of the Animals<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As the (less than academic) books of Alain Danielou<\/a> And the highly academic work of Asko Parpola<\/a> both assert, the ancient Indian deity Shiva, whose story Danielou traces back to the Indus Valley civilisation (3300BCE)\u00a0\u2013 whose Phallus forms the central pillar of the world and whose semen spawned the universe \u2013 can be considered a cultural \u2018original\u2019 for a host of later, regional variations, gradually moving westward through the Middle East, as the\u00a0Lord of the Animals<\/a>, into Europe, where his story and role in local pantheons is found under the name of Dionysus (and of course his son, Priapus), Bacchus, and Cernunnos.<\/p>\n

\"Priapus\"<\/a>
Priapus<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

These \u2018horned\u2019 or \u2018horny\u2019 deities, whose Phalli represent Creativity, Life, Power and Inspiration, have so much in common, according to Danielou, that their local and regional variations are almost merely accents, rather than dialects, of an original Shivaic tongue. Certainly the main image we know of Cernunnos \u2013 from the Gundestrup cauldron \u2013 set beside the Indus Valley civilization depiction of (proto-) Shiva, seem to suggest that they contain many identifiably common themes.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1262\"<\/a>
Cernunnos, on the Gundestrup Cauldron, Copenhagen<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Shiva_Pashupati\"<\/a>
(Proto)Shiva, from the Indus Valley Civilisation<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Min\"<\/a>
Egyptian God Min, at Luxor<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Danielou asserts that (Greek) Dionysus and (Roman) Bacchus are closely linked to the (Indian) Shiva story. Such linkages are a common theme going back many centuries. Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus both believed the Greek Gods derived ultimately from the Egyptian pantheon. There are interesting arguments that it was in fact the phallic rituals that they all have in common<\/a> that form the principal link.
\nIndeed the focus in this post is not to suggest such correlations, many of which may have simply been the result of syncretism in ancient times, but upon this common theme of the Sacred Phallus, and its prevalence across the ancient world. Beyond the more obvious Greek and Roman fascination with the Phallus, there is of course Egypt\u2019s Pamyles, the Priapic God whose (Spring Equinox? see comments below)<\/em>\u00a0festival, the Pamylia – the ancient Egyptian phallophoria – were a celebration of his fostering of the child Osiris, one of the five all-important intercalated days between each 360day year (see Plutarch’s <\/a>account, and the mention in Theodor Kock’s Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta<\/a> (vol2) p289). Small Horus child statuettes with hugely exaggerated phalluses are found in their thousands along the sacred waterways where this festival (among others) took place, deposited in the waters as votive offerings to the fertility of the Nile inundation. Better known still, perhaps, is Egypt\u2019s God Min,<\/a> whose ithyphallic likeness appears frequently on the walls and pillars of the temples at Luxor, and who presided over the coronation ceremonies of New Kingdom Pharoahs who may have been expected to ejaculate as part of the ceremony – thus ensuring the annual flooding of the Nile.<\/p>\n

\"New<\/a>
New Guinea Highland warriors in full gear.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Aside, too, from the Gundestrup cauldron, there is also the assertions\u00a0of J.G. Frazer concerning the use the Druids of Old Europe had for Mistletoe: for them the white berries represented the semen of the Gods – according to Frazer, anyway \u2013 suggesting a common thread with sacred phallic practice elsewhere. There is the extraordinary work in Papua New Guinea of Gilbert Herdt on the Sambia male initiations<\/a> \u2013 where boys drink the semen of the older boys and men of the tribe as part of their education: the semen is what makes them into men. In North America, there were the Native American berdache or Two-Spirit<\/a> people, and, according to James Neill, cave-paintings of palaeolithic shamans with erect penises,<\/a> dancing among the game animals. \u00a0In South America, the Moche in particular represented the Phallus in their ceramics.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A Moche Ceramic at the Lorca Museum in Lima<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A<\/a>
A Moche Ceramic at the Lorca Museum in Lima, Peru<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And at Chucuito in Peru there is this enigmatic Aymara\/Inca temple:<\/p>\n

\"Visit<\/a>
Inka Uyu, Chucuito, Peru – an\u00a0Aymara\/Inca fertility temple?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So to find the Sacred Phallus in Ancient Greece is indeed not at all surprising. There are both antecedents that can be cited as origins for its presence, and plenty of evidence that the Sacred Phallus has been the focus of cultural and spiritual attention in all parts of the world.<\/p>\n

The Phallus in Ancient Greece<\/h2>\n
\"A<\/a>
A Neolithic Phallus at the Larissa Museum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Phallus in Greece is evident from the 7th<\/sup> millennium BC at least.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In the Classical period, once the Bronze Age was well under way, still the stone statuary honoured the Phallus \u2013 as testified by one of the most famous statues on Delos, for example:<\/p>\n

\"One<\/a>
One of many stone Phalloi on Delos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Attic<\/a>
Attic Bronze Age vase with ithyphallic satyrs<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Satyrs of the period are renowned, of course, for their ithyphallic representation, along with the Sileni and Priapus, and of course Pan:<\/p>\n

\"Pan,<\/a>
Ithyphallic Silen, Athens Museum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A<\/a>
A Herm, Athens<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hermes<\/a> was one of the Greek Pantheon \u2013 a son of Zeus – who was thought of as the one who leads souls to the other world and can restore them to Earth, feeding them with the power they need. He was the God of boundaries and their transgression, the protector of tombs, the \u201cpatron of magicians\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 At road junctions and at street corners one would often find a \u2018Herm\u2019 \u2013 an ithyphallic statue of the God, Phallus proudly erect \u2013 to mark the transition from place to place.<\/p>\n

In Thessaly<\/a>, his cult had particular importance, uniquely so in Greece: on grave markers a Herm is represented accompanied with an invocation to Hermes Chthonios. In this manner, the deceased is identified with the God and coexists with him in the actual monument. The grave marker was sometimes simply a large stone Phallus.<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/a>
Two funerary Herms in Larissa Museum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

According to Danielou, it was in honor of Dionysus that Greek villages organized Phallophoria festivals in spring: phalloi were carried in ritual procession. \u00a0Kerenyi tells us that the revealing of a phallus in a basket figured as a central element of mystery cult initiation.<\/p>\n

Nor was the sacred phallus in spiritual contexts the only manifestation of 6th and 5th century B.C. penis art. \u00a0On one Greek island at least – Astypalaia – archaeologists have found “some of the world’s earliest erotic graffiti.<\/a>”<\/p>\n

\"erotic<\/a><\/p>\n

Today<\/h1>\n

Is it all gone? Suppressed by modern patriarchal religions? No. Here and there, there are strange relics, hangovers, echoes. The Sambia people are probably still around, though Herdt disguised their name and location, and there is debate around their practices, and whether they constitute abuse.<\/p>\n

Less controversially, there’s a\u00a0Penis Cafe<\/a> in Sicily<\/a>, a Phallus Museum<\/a> in Iceland, a Penis Park<\/a> in South Korea, and two annual Phallus Festival<\/a>s\u00a0in Japan.<\/a> Also, though frowned upon by the Orthodox Church, even in Greece, there are echoes of this ancient past… \u00a0 \u00a0In Tyrnavos, a small village near the capital of Thessaly, Larissa, an echo of this ancient practice lives on – perhaps even related to the more Roman Liberalia, <\/a>\u00a0at this time of year. \u00a0There is no evidence that the Tyrnavos festival is older than the late 19th<\/sup> century. But its heritage is clear, and the Phallophoria takes place on the Christian festival of \u2018Clean Monday\u2019 every Spring.<\/p>\n

In the next blog post, I will describe my experience, as I arrive and wander around the Phallophoria of Tyrnavos, 14th<\/sup> March 2016.<\/p>\n

NOTE: This post developed into the later chapter by myself and co-author Caroline Ruddell:<\/p>\n

\n
Kreps, D. and Ruddell, C., (2022) The Phallus: Power and Vulnerability. In: Meredith Jones and Evelyn Callahan, Performing the Penis:\u00a0Phalluses in 21st Century Cultures\u00a0<\/em> London: Routledge doi:10.4324\/9781003108481-2<\/a><\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

Bibliography<\/h2>\n

Bruce-Jones, E & Itaborahy, L (2011) State sponsored homophobia 2011<\/em> http:\/\/old.ilga.org\/Statehomophobia\/ILGA_State_Sponsored_Homophobia_2011.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

Bullough, V. and Bullough, B. (1979) Homosexuality In Nineteenth Century English Public Schools International Review of Modern Sociology <\/em>9(2) pp. 261-269 http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/41420705<\/a><\/p>\n

Conner, R. P., Sparks, H. D., and Sparks, M. (1997) Cassells Encyclopedia of Queer Myth, Symbol and Spirit<\/em>. London: Cassell.<\/p>\n

Danielou, Alain. (1995)\u00a0The Phallus: Sacred Symbol of Male Creative Power<\/em>. Trans. by Jon Graham. Inner Traditions International, Rochester, Vermont.<\/p>\n

Danielou, A. (1992) Gods of Love and Ecstasy: The Traditions of Shiva and Dionysus<\/em> Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions.<\/p>\n

Foucault, M. (1990a). History of Sexuality Vol 1: The Will To Knowledge<\/em>, Penguin, London<\/p>\n

Foucault, M. (1992). History of Sexuality Vol 2: The Use of Pleasure<\/em>, Penguin, London<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Introduction Todger. Willy. Knob. Yep – this is a blogpost about the penis. Not my penis. Not yours or anyone else’s – not any particular penis, in fact, but The Penis. Not even just The Penis, either, but The Erect Penis: aka The Phallus. Let me put this into some context.\u00a0\u00a0 What follows is a … Continue reading “The Phallus in Ancient Greece – A Long Read”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,6,8,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archaeology","category-tubthumper","category-journeyman","category-tyrnavos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kreps.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kreps.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kreps.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kreps.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kreps.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=851"}],"version-history":[{"count":58,"href":"http:\/\/kreps.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1752,"href":"http:\/\/kreps.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851\/revisions\/1752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kreps.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kreps.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kreps.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}