Sex, Death and Eternal Love by Elisabeth Storrs

I was inspired to write my A Tale of Ancient Rome series when I found a photo of a C6th BCE sarcophagus of a man and women lying on their bed in a tender embrace. The casket (known as the Sarcophagus of the Married Couple) was unusual because, in this period of history, women were rarely commemorated in funerary art let alone depicted in such a pose of affection. The image of the lovers remained with me. What kind of culture exalted marital fidelity while showing such an openly sensuous connection? What ancient society revered women as much as men? Discovering the answer led me to the Etruscans, a society that existed from before archaic times in Italy and was mainly situated in the areas we now know as Tuscany and Lazio.

Sarcophagus of the Married Couple - Late C6th BCE

Etruscan women were afforded education, high status and independence. As a result they were often described as ‘wicked’ by Greek and Roman historians and travellers whose cultures repressed women. Etruscan women dined with their husbands at banquets and drank wine. In such commentators’ eyes, this liberal behaviour may well have equated with depravity. One famous account claims that wives indulged in orgies. And so modern historians continue to debate the contradictory depictions of Etruscan women –were they promiscuous adulterers or faithful wives? 

Etruscan society clearly celebrated both marriage and sex. The image of men and women embracing is a constant theme in their tomb art and ranges from being demure, as in the case of the Married Couple, to the strongly erotic (Tomb of the Bulls) and even pornographic (Tomb of the Whippings.) The latter illustrations seem to confirm the more prurient view of Etruscan women but the symplegma or ‘sexual embrace’ was not a gratuitous portrayal of abandon but instead was an atropaic symbol invoking the forces of fertility against evil and death.

Larth Tetnies and Tanchvil Tarnai

Late C4th early 3rd BCE

No better example of this is a particularly striking double sarcophagus found in Vulci in Italy and which is now located in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Wrought in fine white limestone, the man and woman lie entwined in each other’s arms. However, unlike the anonymous Married Couple, this husband and wife can be identified. They are Larth Tetnies and Tanchvil Tarnai. The very fact that Tanchvil has two names is evidence of the status of Etruscan women. In early Rome, females only had one name – that of their father’s in feminine form. In Etruria, the bloodlines of both sides of a woman’s family were often recorded on their casket.


The image of the couple is both intimate and yet openly erotic. The spouses are not young but are nevertheless beautiful. Tanchvil gently clasps the nape of Larth’s neck as the lovers gaze into each other’s eyes. They are naked, the outline of their limbs evident beneath the sculpted folds of the mantle that covers them. However nudity cannot hide their status. Their luxurious hairstyles and elegant jewellery declare their wealth, as does the wide, decorated double bed upon which they lie.

There was a second sarcophagus found in the sepulchre at Vulci. It is narrow and only held the remains of a woman, Ramtha Visnai, but its lid depicts her embracing her husband, Arnth Tetnies. They are the parents of Larth. This coffin is made of rough nenfro stone. Wrapped in their shroud, the figures embrace each other on their bed. Unlike the sexually charged younger couple, the older pair is more contemplative as they face each other although the sight of their feet peeping from beneath the covers hints at the relaxed familiarity of their marriage.

Ramtha Visnai and Arnth Tetnies

C450-400 BCE

The Married Couple inspired me to write my trilogy, but the two caskets in the Tetnies tomb were the inspiration for the title of The Wedding Shroud. For both couples lie beneath mantles that I came to understand could symbolise the large veil under which an Etruscan bride and groom stood when they took their vows. In effect the spouses were swathed in their wedding shroud for eternity, their union protecting them from the dark forces that lay beyond the grave.  

As for the conflicting views of Etruscan women, it is clear from studying this society’s art that they celebrated life. Many worshipped the religion of Fufluns (the Greek Dionysus and Roman Bacchus) whose later cult adherents were famous for indulging in debauchery but in its purest form was a belief in the power of regeneration. So which version is correct? Sinners indulging in group sex or steadfast wives? Perhaps both, because the concept of a culture that condones female promiscuity while also honouring wives and mothers is not necessarily contradictory. For while it can be erroneous to compare modern societies with ancient ones, it could be argued that this attitude to females occurs in many present-day Western cultures today.

Either way, the erotic and sensual image of an embrace transcends any moralising in which historians might indulge.  Ultimately I believe that the symplegma is not just an atropaic symbol but something more powerful. Whether sculpted in stone, moulded in terracotta or painted in a mural, the embrace of two lovers remains, above all, an eternal celebration of abiding love.

Elisabeth Storrs is the author of the A Tale of Ancient Rome saga, and the co-founder of the Historical Novel Society Australasia. Learn more at www.elisabethstorrs.com
This post first appeared on Feather of the Firebird blog.
 

Tarnai_Tetnies Sarcophagus courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Visna_Tetnies Sarcophagus courtesy  AncientRome.rus

The Married Couple courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Cabinet of Curiosities by Charlotte Wightwick – the Sargon Vase: an enduring story, a fragile vessel

Whenever I go to a museum or exhibition I play a game. What, if I could take one thing home with me that day, would I have? 

What I’ve realised over the years is that it is rarely the most obviously beautiful or valuable item (with some notable exceptions - hello, the Crown Jewels!) that I would choose. Instead I tend to be drawn to the ‘everyday life’ items – the things which produce that moment of sudden, blinding recognition: the people who made this, used this, really lived. Despite the differences of centuries and cultures, they were, in many ways, just like me.

That’s how I felt last week, attending the British Museum’s current blockbuster exhibition I am Ashurbanipal: king of the world, king of Assyria. Following the political history of the Assyrian Empire – which at its largest covered the area from the shores of the eastern Mediterranean to the mountains of western Iran - it covers a huge geographical area and, by providing the background to Ashurbanipal’s rule, several centuries of history. 

Much of the exhibition focuses on the large narrative panels setting out important episodes from the king’s reign. These are beautiful, intricate carvings which do much to illuminate the sophistication of Assyrian courtly life. They show a deep appreciation for nature and beauty, as well as telling exciting stories – primarily Ashurbanipal demonstrating his prowess against the forces of chaos through lion-hunting or by defeating human foes. I was especially taken by poor King Teumman of Elam, who in a battle scene first loses his kingly hat, then manages to get it back, only for the victorious Assyrians to take his head instead. (The curators of the exhibition mixed modern technology and the original objects in a sympathetic and intelligent way to bring out this story.) 

Battle of Til-Tuba. detail. 660-650BC.

©The Trustees of the British Museum

The king’s library, preserved on clay tablets, is also impressive, if largely incomprehensible at first glance to a modern lay audience. There is the occasional more relatable item, such as the tablet which includes both text and a 3-D model of a lung, to act as a teaching aid to three-thousand-year-ago medical students, or the tiny tablet containing royal orders, contained with an equally tiny clay envelope. You can find out more about the Library here: https://blog.britishmuseum.org/a-library-fit-for-a-king/

But it is the smaller, humbler objects which really caught my eye. The nearly three-thousand year old gaming board, with which courtiers may have whiled away their time. Were they simply bored of hanging around at court - waiting for the next lion hunt to start, say - or were they avid gamblers, whose fortunes were won and lost on the progress of the game? They may have played their game seated at tables with feet depicting beautifully realistic deer hooves or lion paws which still survive, long after the main article of furniture has vanished. What of the people who made and used the clam shells, intricately carved and turned into decorative cosmetic containers, the pride of a fashion-conscious beauty’s dressing table?

Decorated shell, probably 630/580 BC

©The Trustees of the British Museum

The final element of the exhibition was, however, the most moving: a section setting out how much of the archaeology of the region, both that in museums and in situ on sites has been destroyed in recent years by Isis/ Daesh. It’s a frightening reminder of how much that we see is but a tiny fraction of the stories that are there to be told, when so much destruction can take place in only a few short years. 

So, what would I take home with me, to take pride of place in my Cabinet of Curiosities? Obviously the answer is - "actually I wouldn’t" - but if I could have one thing, the exquisite Sargon Vase – a tiny glass vessel, made with care and skill in the eighth-century BC and still intact despite nearly three thousand years of warfare, abandonment and yet more destruction, seems a fitting symbol to me.

The Sargon Vase, 721-705BC

©The Trustees of the British Museum

Black on Red, Red on Black: Figure it Out by Elisabeth Storrs

Have you ever thrown a vase? Not in anger but on a potter’s wheel? One of my protagonists in the Tales of Ancient Rome saga does both. In imagining her story, I realised I had a problem - I could always experience smashing a plate, but I had no idea how to fashion ceramics.

Adokides Painter- Bilingual Amphora

Once I started researching, I found myself delving deeper into the methods used in Greece and Etruria to produce both mundane and exquisite pottery. 

The earliest means of producing ceramics was by working clay by hand through either coiling strips or pinching a hollow to form a vessel. The poorer classes would have made their own pots in this way until cheap earthenware was mass produced by using moulds.

The potter’s wheel was believed to have been introduced in Mesopotamia in 6000 BCE and was quickly adopted throughout the ancient world. By the Classical age (C5th BCE), the invention consisted of a turning platform about a metre above the floor connected by a long axle with a heavy flywheel at ground level. This was kept rotating by kicking the fly wheel with the foot which left both hands free to shape the clay.

Bucchero ware

The mechanics of throwing a pot was not all I learned. There was chemistry, too.  Etruscans were famous for their thin-walled, glossy black pottery known as ‘bucchero’ which could be decorated with elaborate designs applied to the semi-hard clay using stamps. The black colour of bucchero was achieved by ‘reduction’ i.e. establishing a very high temperature within the kiln then closing the vents to reduce the oxygen rather than the heat. When the atmosphere was charged with carbon monoxide, the red of the clay converted to black due the presence of iron oxide. Indeed, the clay of the Etruscan regions of Italy was rich in iron which helped this process.

The Etruscans were famous for high quality bucchero ware and terracotta sculptures which were exported throughout the Mediterranean. They were also enormously fond of Attic vases. Some Etruscan grave sites were riddled with thousands of vessels depicting mythological tales in beautiful tracery upon either a black or red background. Many were imported from Greece or created by Etruscan craftsmen who were heavily influenced by Greek immigrant artisans.

There were two Attic vase techniques: the black figure Corinthian method originating in the C7th BCE followed by the more sophisticated red figure Athenian style.

Black figure kylix - Amasias Painter

Potters who created black figure vases painted characters in black silhouette on the surface using a liquid known as ‘slip’. Fine lines were incised into the surface to provide contour and detail. White paint was applied to represent women’s skin. Both white and red were used to highlight details such clothing, hair or weapons. The pots were then subjected to a complicated three-phase firing process which involved varying the temperatures within the kiln at different stages to effectively apply the oxidisation process. This generated the red colour of the underlying surface, and the glossy black of the figures who were always shown in profile.

Over time the Etruscans moved away from the Corinthian style to use the ‘pseudo red figure’ technique that involved painting the clay black before adding red silhouettes and scratching lines to achieve definition. They also produced their own distinctive pottery style with figures painted red on white.

Red figure stamnos - Menelaos Painter

In contrast, ‘true’ red figure vases were produced by applying a technique first used in Athens around 530 BCE. Here, the figures were created in the original red-orange of the clay using a fine brush. This allowed for greater detail because lines could be drawn rather than incised. As a result, the painted scenes were more detailed and realistic. It also allowed artists the opportunity to work with greater perspective by depicting front, back and three-quarter views, therefore producing a three dimensional effect.

Black and red figure painting gave rise to a number of identifiable potters and artists. Some are known by their actual names due to the fact they engraved their signatures on the bottom of the pots e.g. Exekias. Others remain anonymous but their styles are clearly identifiable resulting in historians attributing them with soubriquets e.g. the 'Andokides Painter'.

Exekias was a potter and painter who lived in Athens between approximately 545-530 BCE. He is considered one of the greatest Attic vase painters, specialising in black figure ceramics. He was innovative, experimenting with new shapes and painting techniques. Fourteen signed works by Exekias survive with many others identified due to his stylistic method. The signatures vary from ‘Exekias made me’ to ‘Exekias made and painted me’ which has given rise to a theory he only acknowledged decorating those pieces of which he was particularly proud.

'Exekias made me'

One of Exekias’ most famous works is the so-called ‘Dionysus Cup’, which I saw in the Munich Antikensammlung in 2016. It depicts the tale of the pirates who attacked the wine-god on a sea journey to Athens. Dionysus caused vines to entwine the mast, causing his frightened assailants to dive overboard, whereupon they were transformed into dolphins. Instead of portraying the deity at the height of the conflict with his kidnappers, Exekias shows Dionysus reclining at a feast with the dolphins cavorting around him. The scene exudes a sense of peacefulness and poetry. Exekias has given the ‘wine coloured’ sea a vivid coral red shade by using a special clay slip that turned bright red when fired. This was the first time the technique was introduced. In Attic times, his composition was revolutionary. Today the cup is one of the most famous Greek vases.

The Dionysus Cup- Exekias

The Andokides Painter is believed to be a pupil of Exekias. He is also considered to be the ‘inventor’ of the red figure method. His style has been attributed to various pieces even though most remained unsigned. Academics have dubbed him the ‘Andokides Painter’ based on the signature ‘Andokides’ that appeared on 16 pieces within the collection. One of the most famous vases signed by Andokides is the Herakles bilingual amphora found in the Etruscan city of Vulci. Bilingual vases are important evidence of the transition between red and black figure techniques. They depict the same subject in the two different styles on opposite sides of one vessel. There is debate as to whether both sides of the Herakles Amphora were painted by the one painter or whether the black figured side was rendered by the Lysippides Painter, another student of Exekias.

No matter what Attic technique is used, I never fail to be delighted by the scenes and characters depicted upon the surfaces of plates, cups, jugs and vases: a mythological narrative about gods, mortals and monsters locked forever within kiln hardened clay.

Elisabeth Storrs is the author of the Tales of Ancient Rome saga. Learn more at www.elisabethstorrs.com More examples of Attic vases can be found on her Pinterest board.

Images are courtesy of The Met Project,Wikimedia Commons and my holiday snaps!

 

The Rich American, the Travelling Captain and a Phallic Quest By L.J. Trafford

It hangs in a glass case in dimmed lighting: a small phallus carved in white with wings

made from bronze.
The label informs me it comes from Pompeii and that such items were symbols of fertility and strength. I could easily churn out 2,000 words on the subject of phallic imagery and objects in ancient Rome. There’s a lot of them. But that’s not what I’m writing about this month. For my second thought after, “Wow that’s beautiful." Was “I wonder how it got here?”


I found I couldn’t shake that thought. Just how did a tiny phallic amulet from the lost city of Pompeii end up in a gallery on London’s Euston Road? I suspected there might be a story there.
I was right. It is quite a story. One involving an eccentric American millionaire, a dashing ex naval captain with a love of fast cars & hobnobbing with grandees, and a quite extraordinary collection.



The American

Henry Wellcome courtesy of  Wellcome Collection.

If there is a better example of the self made man than Henry Wellcome I've yet to find it. He began life in a wood cabin in the slowly forming United States of America, the son of a travelling preacher.
This was proper frontier country. Aged eight Henry's home town was attacked by the Sioux. The young boy assisted his uncle in caring for the wounded.

Aged 15 he created and marketed his own version of Invisible Ink. Aged 19 we find him at the Chicago School of Pharmacy. A promising and developing career as a salesman for a drug company was interrupted when his friend Silas Burroughs suggested Wellcome follow him to London. Burroughs had in mind a British pharmaceutical company, but run with American panache, drive and most importantly American style marketing.
Henry took the leap to London and in 1880 Burroughs, Wellcome and Co was founded.

To say Burroughs, Wellcome and Co was successful is a gross understatement.
Burrough’s sudden and untimely death in 1895 left Wellcome as sole proprietor and enormously wealthy. What to do with all this money piling up?

Well there was partying for a start.

Henry Wellcome in fancy dress.
Courtesy of  Wellcome Collection

 


There was travel. 

Wellcome in Sudan.
Courtesy of  Wellcome Collection

And then there was collecting.

Wellcome had a dream, a grand ambition with his collecting. It was to;

“Trace the history of the human body in sickness and in health throughout the whole broad sweep of history.”

He intended to create a museum called the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum (and succeeded, the WHMM opened in 1913) and set about acquiring the objects that would articulate this aim.

Gentleman collectors in the Victorian era were ten a half penny but the way Wellcome went about collecting was something entirely different: it was industrial.
Partly this was born of his innate curiosity. Partly his American drive that had taken him from a wood cabin in frontier country to a multi-millionaire living within the fashionable London set. But mostly it was driven by the huge resources he had at his disposal.

Reading about Wellcome’s collection is jaw dropping and ultimately a little dispiriting. How was I to find a record of my little phallus in this lot? To give you some idea of just how much Wellcome collected you need only know that they measured it by the ton.

There was 3 and a half tons of swords, five tons of photograph albums, 2 and half tons of guns and cannons and shields.
There were 110 cases of Graeco-Roman objects.
In all a million plus objects made up Wellcome’s collection. Somewhere in this million was my little phallus.

Though Henry Wellcome travelled extensively seeking objects for his museum (Much to the disgust of his wife Syrie “Ever since our marriage, the greater part of our time has been spent in places I detested collecting curios” - they later divorced) he did not take sole responsibility for acquiring objects for his museum. He did have a company to run after all, but also because he recognised that his presence at auctions was likely to push the price up of his desired object. To overcome this he was known to effect disguises, as he told a friend:

 “I usually put on very plain clothes. A top hat usually excites the cupidity of the dealer and the higher the hat the higher the price."

Alongside his own undercover missions he also employed a team of agents to travel the globe to find suitable objects for his museum. A bit of internet research brought me to one Captain Johnston Saint, one of Wellcome’s agents who undertook a tour of Europe on behalf of Wellcome. I wondered if he might be the man who purchased my little white phallus. I wondered how I might find out whether he was.


The Captain

Peter Johnston Saint.
Courtesy of Wellcome Collection

Peter Johnston Saint was born in 1886. He had served in both the Royal Flying Corp and the Indian Army. Well connected, (one of Queen Victoria’s granddaughters was a childhood friend), he adored socialising, travel and fast cars.
He joined the, now named, Wellcome Institute in 1921 and had soon impressed Henry Wellcome. Within a very short time he was given the title of Foreign Secretary. The sole purpose of this role was to travel and buy up objects suitable for the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum. It was a job Johnston Saint was well suited to involving, as it did, much hobnobbing with Ambassadors, Cardinals, Directors of key museums and other such notables.
A friendly member of staff at the Wellcome Collection (thank you Ross!) pointed me towards the papers they hold on Peter Johnston Saint. There were letters to Henry Wellcome, reports on his activities as Foreign Secretary and (joy!) his travels diaries.
Somewhere in these diaries I might find my little white phallus. Hoping he had decent handwriting I began to read about his trip to Italy.


Johnston Saint began his Italian quest on Saturday 19th January 1929:

“Arrived in Rome 8pm. Found thick snow here also, which I am told, is almost unheard of"

His diary is an interesting insight into how objects were sourced and brought for the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum. Some of the work involves making contact with the right people. Such as on Monday 21st January when Johnston Saint meets with Cardinale Gasquet, the Prefect of the Vatican archives. The Cardinal is presented with a gift:

“The Cardinal was very interested in the research studies and medical history which we sent them through the foreign office and he says he has placed these at the Vatican library on behalf of the Duce (Mussolini).”

Johnston Saint also meets with the Ambassador and secures a letter of introduction to the Heads of Italian Museums. But alongside hobnobbing with Directors, Ambassadors and Cardinals, Johnston Saint spends a great deal of time browsing through the small shops of Rome:

“In a shop near Forum Romano I found some very interesting objects. Several very interesting Roman large surgical instruments…. A Greek pornographic vase in terra cotta in perfect condition…. A small bronze amphora and a Roman votive foot in bronze. Also a very curious object which may be an amulet or perhaps a form of pomander.

I purchased all the objects above for £21. The pornographic vase being worth half this sum.

I then visited the shop where I saw this collection of 99 phallic objects.”

I thought for a moment that within those 99 phallic objects might be my phallus but as Johnston Saint drily records:

 “The price asked is a very high one and I do not think the collection worth it”

He did not purchase them.

But later that same day he is to be found in further small establishments:

 “At another a shop I found a fine Roman lancet, a bronze stigel with unusual form of handle – a weight decorated pornographic subject and a Roman bronze probe. Price £4.”

To put this in some context the average annual wage in 1929 was £200 per year. Johnston Saint spent £25 in a single day and this compared to some days was a low amount. Later this same week he spends £64 on a single drawing. Henry Wellcome's pocket was swimming pool sized, however, as we have seen Johnston Saint is very much using his own judgement on artefacts. Several he rejects as inadequate or over priced but not:

"A huge terracotta Priapus from Pompeii"

Which he snaps up. Priapus is the Roman God of Fertility and is usually represented with a grossly oversized erect penis.

A Priapus from Pompeii. Not
the one JS purchased.
Attributed to Aaron Wolpert

It's not all buy, buy, buy though. Johnston Saint takes the time to visit the sites. A trip to the Vatican Library on Friday 25th January impresses him much:

 “This marvellous collection particularly rich in manuscripts,.. And housed in the most luxurious surroundings. What impressed me most was the excellent state of all the books and manuscripts... although the library consists of some 300,000 books there was sufficient room for 4 times that number”

The baths of Caracalla have him recording wistfully:

 “Their magnificence, their luxury and their marvellous efficiency are only one of the many wonders of ancient Rome.”

 Writing Roman based Historical Fiction I have visited Rome numerous times for research and I found it quite fascinating to read Johnston Saint describing the exact same sites I have visited only eighty years before.

What I found really special was his description of a day trip to the nearby Lake Nemi on Sunday 27th January

“I was anxious to see the Largo di Nemi, the Lake in the Alban hills which the Italian government are draining in order to recover the two Roman galleys which were sunk there in the time of Caligula. The level of the water in the lake has already been reduced by ten feet,exposing the small Roman habour….. The bad weather and the recent heavy falls of snow have more of less held up the work for the present.

..... I think when these galleys are recovered we might be able to get hold of something. At this moment it is not possible to do anything nor there anything to be found.”

Bad weather might have prevented the work that day but work did continue and these massive ships were eventually exposed.

The now lost pleasure barge of Caligula. Look
at the man to the left to see the huge awesome scale
of this boat.

Sadly they were destroyed during the second world war. All that is left of them is a few artefacts recovered and displayed in Rome’s National Museum and photographs that show the epic scale of these ships. They were truly awe inspiring and to think that Peter Johnston Saint was so close to seeing these epic pleasure barges revealed from the water!








On Tuesday 29th January Johnston Saint reveals that he is leaving for Naples. Would he visit Pompeii? Would he stumble across a certain small white phallus, and hopefully write down that he did? Or did the phallus not come from Pompeii at all? Was it maybe discovered in one of those small shops by the Forum selling phallic objects by the hundreds?
There was only one way to find out. I kept reading.....


Those letters of introduction obtained from the Ambassador come in handy now as they gain him access to the Director of the Naples Archaeological Museum and a very famous cabinet:

“I also inspected the Pornographic Cabinets which is ordinarily closed. Here they have many friezes and stuccos found in various houses in Pompeii - a collection of lamps, phallic objects.”

The Pornographic Cabinet of Naples Museum was where some of the most extreme (to Western eyes of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries) were housed. It contained, as Johnston Saint mentions, many phallic objects and imagery. As well as a truly stupendous statue of the God Pan having it away with a goat.

From Naples Museum's famous cabinet. Photo attributed Kim Traynor.

It’s probably worth me pointing out, if you hadn’t already gathered, that Wellcome was very much interested in acquiring erotic/sexual material. The Wellcome Historical Medical Museum contained 300 sexually themed Roman objects. They were very much in keeping with his ambition of a museum dedicated to human kind and biology.

Dr Jen Grove of Exeter University has written a very thorough account of the collecting of sexually themed materials in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This is what she has to say about Wellcome’s collection:

“In the large, richly bound accession registers which the museum used to record acquisitions, a member of Wellcome’s staff entered the term 'PHA' next to each of these items. This stood for 'Phallic Worship' and this label would also be given, almost uniformly, to each of the hundreds of objects featuring phallic and other sexual imagery in Wellcome’s collection from across world history. This tells us that Wellcome was interested in an anthropological theory, first developed in the Enlightenment period, which looked for the origins of religion in the worship of procreation. “

He also collected images and objects outside of this sex/religion theme including materials dealing with the pleasure aspect of intercourse:

“Objects which seem to indicate an interest in sexual pleasure for its own sake include a collection of historical and cross-cultural sex aids.”

This was why Johnston Saint was dutifully examining and purchasing statues of Priapus and other phallic related materials. Although Johnston Saint cannot purchase anything from the pornographic cabinet he does buy an extensive range of photographs of the objects it contains.

One of Peter Johnston Saint's photographs from his 1929 trip to Rome. Image courtesy Wellcome Collection

The next day on Thursday 31st January Johnston Saint is given a tour of Herculaneum. His mood is greatly different from the interest and excitement at securing his photographs from Pompeii. To see the theatre at Herculaneum he had to walk down through 60 feet of lava (this is still the case today).

“One proceeds down a tunnel to the excavated portion and it is here that one can realise to some degree what a tremendous catastrophe the eruption of 79AD was.”

He is deeply moved by what he sees. One description he gives is particularly poignant and evocative:

“In one of the bedrooms on the first floor I saw a lamp, a glass bottle, and other objects including the marble table on which these things stood exactly as they were in AD 79”

That afternoon after his tour of Herculaneum he’s taken to see a local Hotel Proprietor. The hotelier's estate borders the Pompeii site and he has excavated his own grounds and found some objects he wishes to show off (and sell).   The hotelier had the permission of the Italian Government to offer these objects for sale, but with 50% of the receipts going back to the government. A fact that does not please Johnston Saint, as he notes;

 “So naturally there were no great bargains to be picked up.”

However what the hotelier shows him is so impressive that he cannot hold back the bucks:

“I brought some interesting objects. The following are the details. Excavated at Pompeii 1927. A Roman bronze lancet, a bronze probe on spatula handle decorated, a fine pair of tweezers in bronze and two surgical needles both fine in bronze. Then a terra cotta figure of a woman which is very interesting anatomically”

Also he buys a votive leg and foot. And records one final item of purchase:

”A marble phallus about 4 inches long with bronze wings, a chain and ring for suspending – perfect -used against the evil eye.”

A marble phallus you say? 4 inches long? Bronze wings? And a chain for suspending?
A bit like this one then?

Miraculously I had found it! I had found my phallus! It had been excavated in 1927 by the proprietor of a hotel that stood on the Porta Marina gate into Pompeii. He met Peter Johnston Saint on Thursday 31st January 1929 and showed him his collection of artefacts. Johston Saint purchased several of these objects on behalf of Henry Wellcome, including the phallus.
And that folks, is how my little white phallus ended up in a gallery in London’s Euston Road!



Epilogue


For some reason I feel this piece needs an epilogue. So here it is.

Henry Wellcome and Peter Johnston Saint
Courtesy of  Wellcome Collection

Henry Wellcome died in 1936. He left quite a legacy. Not just for his vast collection of curios (of which a very small slice can be viewed today in London’s Science Museum and the Wellcome Collection which stands on Euston Road) but also for science. His will set up a charity named The Wellcome Trust. He wanted the profits from his business to advance medical science.

The company Henry founded with Silas Burroughs went through several incarnations (including Glaxo Wellcome) before it was finally sold off and GlaxoSmithKline one of the largest pharma companies on the planet was formed. The money from this sale was ploughed into the charitable Wellcome Trust. Today the Wellcome Trust has assets worth £20 billion and in 2017 spent £1.1 billion advancing medical science.

And as for that small marble phallus? Well 700,000 people visit the Wellcome Collection each year and let’s assume absolutely all of them stare at that little white phallus and think firstly “Wow” and then secondly “I wonder how it got here?"


Further Reading

I'd highly recommend Frances Larson's "An Infinity of Things: How Henry Wellcome collected the World." if you are at all interested in Henry Wellcome and his mania for collecting. This book gave me much of the material for this article.
Special thanks also to Dr Jen Grove and Ross Macfarlane for their assistance.



L.J. Trafford is the author of the Four Emperors Series set in ancient Rome. She also runs the hashtag #phallusthursday on Twitter, which examines the use of  phallic imagery in ancient art and has a bit of a puerile snigger about it all.