Wooden phalluses found at lost burial site in Xinjiang desert

 
Team finds evidence at Xiaohe Tomb complex that ‘blood worship’ may also have been a signature of this ancient socio-religious culture in Northwest China

Wooden carvings of male genitals found in the hands of female mummies discovered in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region were part of an ancient ritual, not sex toys, according to a new study by Chinese scientists.

The phallic carvings measured as small as 4 centimetres in length and were discovered in graves at the Xiaohe Tomb complex in Lop Nur, Xinjiang in the grip of 4,000-year old female mummies.

They were smaller than expected and mostly painted red to highlight their sacred status - hinting at their use in certain religious rituals.

They were found by a research team led by Yang Yimin, a professor of archaeological science at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.

The findings have been published in a paper in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE, run by the San Francisco-based Public Library of Science.

Phallicism, also known as male organ worship, was a common ritual in many ancient cultures, with archaeologists often encountering relics representing sexual organs in tombs and other excavation sites.

In this case, the sexualised relics and sculptures could be separated into two categories: phalluses that played a role in tribal or social rituals, and olisboi - a classical word for dildos - that served an erotic function. In the majority of cases, their category is decided primarily by their size. South China Morning Post