Discovering bones in ancient Roman quarry shafts is not unusualfinding a hand-painted dog penis bone, however, is.
Scientists found the painted bone within a first-century BCE Roman shaft in Surrey, England.
Green describes the red-stained artifact in astudypublished on December 25 in theOxford Journal of Archaeology.
Ellen Green© The dog penis bone painted in red.
Most were without evidence of butchering, disease, or burning.
Of those animals, almost 200 of them were dogsbut only one of their penises was painted.
Ochre is a natural pigment mainly composed of iron oxide.
While Green describeshowthe bone was likely painted, many questions still remain as towhy.
This claim, however, missesplenty of examples of penis bonesbeing used in rituals across cultures.
Maybe its time for us to replace the rabbit foot keychain.
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