Discovering bones in ancient Roman quarry shafts is not unusual—finding a hand-painted dog genital bone, however.

Bioarchaeologist Ellen Green from the University of Reading in the UK has discovered a painted dog baculum, or genital bone, dating back more than 2,000 years. Scientists have found painted bone inside a first century BCE Roman shaft in Surrey, England. Archaeologists discovered the bone among other skulls, and it may have been used in fertility or good luck rituals, as first reported by Live Science. Green describes the red staining artifact in a study published on December 25 at Oxford Journal of Archaeology.

Archaeologists discovered a 13.1-foot-deep (4-meter-deep) ancient Roman shaft (a former quarry, not the penis) in 2015 at a site called Nescot near the town of Ewell, and discovered the hundreds of human and animal skeletons. The researchers specifically discovered the remains of more than 280 domesticated animals, including dogs, pigs, cows, sheep, goats, and horses. Most have no evidence of killing, disease, or burning. Of those animals, almost 200 of them are dogs—but only one of their genitals is painted.

Green used X-ray fluorescence (a non-destructive technique that determines the elemental composition of a substance) to determine that the red paint was iron oxide, a chemical compound whose color comes from light. which is yellow to deep red. He then narrowed down the explanation behind the artifact’s pigmentation to two scenarios: “either ocher was applied directly to the bone, staining it red, or the baculum was placed on an ocher-dyed cloth that then decomposed , staining the bone,” the bioarchaeologist wrote in the study. Ocher is a natural pigment composed mostly of iron oxide.

That said, no other bones appear to have been painted, archaeologists have found no metal artifacts in the shaft that could stain the bone with rust, and natural red ocher is absent from the Nescot site. . As a result, Green concluded that someone had deliberately painted the genital bone with red ocher before dropping it into the shaft, making it a truly special find.

“I have not found any other similar cases of Roman use of red ocher on bone, or any examples from the British Iron Age,” Green said. Live Science. “It’s a rare artifact from a rare site, but it’s ultimately a bit of a mystery.”

As Green described how the bone was probably painted, many questions still remain about Why. In the study, he suggests that the artifact may have been used as a ritual object, citing an “already strong association between dogs and fertility within Roman Britain.” Within the larger Roman world, the penis also represented good luck and protection against the evil eye, although “this is the only example I have found of an actual penis that could have been used as something ritual,” he added, according to Live Science.

This claim, however, failed many examples of genital bones used in rituals across cultures. The Saami of northern Scandinavia, for example, attach bear bacula to sacred drums, while Native Alaskan groups polish polar bear genital bones for knife blades. These works point to a broader tradition of the genitals symbolizing power, fertility, protection, and possibly luck.

The entire shaft, which was used as a burial ground nine separate times during about half a century after it was not used as a quarry, probably also served a broader ritualistic purpose. This is shown by the presence of many young animals, as well as many animals born in spring and summer, which temporarily points to the connection with agricultural fertility, according to the study.

While Green told The Independent that “the idea of ​​ritual shafts associated with fertility is not new,” it actually takes the ancient phallic symbol to a whole new level. Maybe it’s time to replace the rabbit foot keychain.