According to academics, one of the earliest depictions of male sexuality ever discovered is a polished and carved phallus discovered in a German cave.
The 20 cm long by 3 cm wide stone artifact, which is thought to be roughly 28,000 years old, was discovered buried in the renowned Hohle Fels Cave in the Swabian Jura region, close to Ulm.
14 pieces of siltstone were used to put the ancient "tool" back together.
Because of its lifelike size, scientists speculate that its Ice Age creators may have used it as a sex aid.
It was occasionally employed for knapping flints as well as being a symbolic representation of male genitalia, according to Professor Nicholas Conard of the Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology department at Tübingen University.
He emphasizes, "There are some locations where it has some pretty characteristic scars from that."
There can be little debate about the object's symbolic origins, according to researchers, because of its unusual design and the engraved rings that surround one end.
It is extremely polished and easily recognizable, according to Professor Conard.
The phallus' 13 broken pieces were previously stored by the Tübingen team working at Hohle Fels, but it wasn't until the discovery of a 14th component last year that the team was finally able to put the "jigsaw" back together.
The various stone pieces were all found in a well-dated ash layer in the cave complex linked to current human activity (not their pre-historic "cousins", the Neanderthals).
One of the most amazing excavation sites in central Europe is this one. Thousands of Upper Palaeolithic artifacts have been found at Hohle Fels, which is located in the Ach River Valley and is more than 500 meters above sea level.
Some of them have been genuinely stunning in their intricacy and detail, like a 30,000-year-old mammoth-ivory bird figurine. It is said to be among the oldest examples of a bird in the historical record.
Some slightly older stone artifacts that are plainly phallic emblems are known to science; of special note are those from France and Morocco. Yet, it is quite difficult to find any depictions of male genitalia from this historical period.
Male representations are quite uncommon, according to Professor Conard. "Female images with highly accentuated sexual features are fairly well documented at several sites," he said.
According to the most recent research, the Swabian Jura in southwest Germany was one of the key areas for cultural innovation after modern humans first arrived in Europe approximately 40,000 years ago.
