Bottoms Up	March 29, 2001
by Elizabeth J. Himelfarb

Earthenware phallus may have been used as a drinking cup. (Courtesy Museum of London) [LARGER IMAGE]

A blue-flowered earthenware phallus was the last thing archaeologists from the Museum of London expected to find in their otherwise innocent excavation of a tavern or coffee house.

The unusual hollow object, measuring a healthy six-and-a-half inches, leaves little to the imagination. Because it features a cup nestled above the testicles, archaeologists surmise that it once held liquid, most likely alcohol. The late seventeenth- or early eighteenth-century vessel was probably imported from the Netherlands.

© 2001 by the Archaeological Institute of America www.archaeology.org/online/news/phalcup.html

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