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Erotic Art In Pompeii And Herculaneum
Erotic art in Pompeii and Herculaneum has been both exhibited as art and censored as pornography. The Roman cities around the bay of Naples were destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, thereby preserving their buildings and artefacts until extensive archaeological excavations began in the 18th century. These digs revealed the cities to be rich in erotic artefacts such as statues, frescoes, and household items decorated with sexual themes. The ubiquity of such imagery and items indicates that the treatment of sexuality in ancient Rome was more relaxed than current Western culture. However, much of what might strike modern viewers as erotic imagery, such as oversized phalluses, could arguably be fertility imagery. Depictions of the phallus, for example, could be used in gardens to encourage the production of fertile plants. This clash of cultures led to many erotic artefacts from Pompeii being locked away from the public for nearly 200 years. In 1819, when King Fra ...
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Phallus
A phallus is a penis (especially when erect), an object that resembles a penis, or a mimetic image of an erect penis. In art history a figure with an erect penis is described as ithyphallic. Any object that symbolically—or, more precisely, iconically—resembles a penis may also be referred to as a phallus; however, such objects are more often referred to as being phallic (as in "phallic symbol"). Such symbols often represent fertility and cultural implications that are associated with the male sexual organ, as well as the male orgasm. Etymology The term is a loanword from Latin ''phallus'', itself borrowed from Greek (''phallos''), which is ultimately a derivation from the Proto-Indo-European root *''bʰel''- "to inflate, swell". Compare with Old Norse (and modern Icelandic) ''boli'' "bull", Old English ''bulluc'' "bullock", Greek "whale". Archaeology The Hohle phallus, a 28,000-year-old siltstone phallus discovered in the Hohle Fels cave and reassembled in 2005, i ...
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Prostitution
Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in Sex work, sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, non-penetrative sex, oral sex, etc.) with the customer. The requirement of physical contact Prostitution#Medical situation, also creates the risk of transferring diseases. Prostitution is sometimes described as sexual services, commercial sex or, colloquially, hooking. It is sometimes referred to euphemistically as "the world's oldest profession" in the English-speaking world. A person who works in this field is called a prostitute, or more inclusively, a sex worker. Prostitution occurs in a variety of forms, and prostitution law, its legal status varies from Prostitution by country, country to country (sometimes from region to region within a given country), ranging from being an enforced or unenforced crime, to unregulated, to a regulated ...
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Pompei 5234
Pompei (; nap, Pumpeje, ) or Pompeii (, as in the name of the ancient city) is a city and commune in the Metropolitan City of Naples, Italy, home of the ancient Roman ruins of Pompeii that are part of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites. History Modern Pompei was founded in 1891 after the building of the Shrine of Our Lady of Pompei by the lawyer Bartolo Longo. Geography The town of Pompei is located at the eastern borders of its province, and its urban area is contiguous with Scafati, in the Province of Salerno. It borders also with Torre Annunziata, Castellammare di Stabia, Boscoreale, Santa Maria la Carità and Sant'Antonio Abate. Main attractions The ancient city of Pompeii Modern Pompei is mainly famous for the ruins of the ancient city of Pompeii, located in the zone of Pompei Scavi. The vast archaeological area is under Unesco patronage and attracts tourists from all around the world. The Shrine of Our Lady of Pompei The Shrine of Our Lady of Pompei, dedicated to Our ...
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Lupanar (Pompeii)
The Lupanar of Pompeii is the ruins of a brothel in the Ancient Roman city of Pompeii. It is of particular interest for the erotic paintings on its walls. ''Lupanar'' is Latin for "brothel". The Pompeii lupanar is also known as ''Lupanare Grande'' or the "Purpose-Built Brothel". After becoming a Roman Colony, Pompeii was closely associated with Venus a deity of sex and a mythological figure closely tied to prostitution. Location The Lupanar (VII, 12, 18–20) is located approximately two blocks east of the forum and near the Stabian Baths at the intersection of Vico del Lupanare and Vico del Balcone Pensile. This specific location was considered a popular social hub or a "piazza" based on graffiti that included sports tournament advertisements, political propaganda, and other more colloquial messages. Scholars have discovered there to be a great deal of foot traffic around the outside of the brothel. Treatment as Site 19th century guides and historians often refused to examin ...
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Pompeii Priapus 2
Pompeii (, ) was an ancient city located in what is now the ''comune'' of Pompei near Naples in the Campania region of Italy. Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many villas in the surrounding area (e.g. at Boscoreale, Stabiae), was buried under of volcanic ash and pumice in the Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Largely preserved under the ash, the excavated city offered a unique snapshot of Roman life, frozen at the moment it was buried, although much of the detailed evidence of the everyday life of its inhabitants was lost in the excavations. It was a wealthy town, with a population of ca. 11,000 in AD 79, enjoying many fine public buildings and luxurious private houses with lavish decorations, furnishings and works of art which were the main attractions for the early excavators. Organic remains, including wooden objects and human bodies, were interred in the ash. Over time, they decayed, leaving voids that archaeologists found could be used as moulds to make plaster c ...
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Karl Schefold
Karl Schefold (; 26 January 1905 – 16 April 1999) was a classical archaeologist based in Basel, Switzerland. Born and educated in Germany, he was forced in 1935 to emigrate to Switzerland, which he adopted as his home country. His speciality was in the religious content of ancient art, which he interpreted from a perspective informed by the scientific tradition and shaped by the poetic tradition of the German classical period and the ideals of the poet Stefan George. Life After attending high school at the Eberhard-Ludwigs-Gymnasium in Stuttgart, he began his study of the ancient world at Tübingen and Heidelberg University. He met his future wife, Marianne von den Steinen, there. He went on to study at Jena, and in 1930 completed his doctorate at Marburg under the supervision of Paul Jacobsthal. Later he worked especially at the German Archaeological Institute in Rome and Athens, and participated in excavations at Larisa in Thessaly. He was married on 5 February 1935 to ...
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Erection
An erection (clinically: penile erection or penile tumescence) is a physiological phenomenon in which the penis becomes firm, engorged, and enlarged. Penile erection is the result of a complex interaction of psychological, neural, vascular, and endocrine factors, and is often associated with sexual arousal or sexual attraction, although erections can also be spontaneous. The shape, angle, and direction of an erection varies considerably between humans. Physiologically, an erection is required for a male to effect vaginal penetration or sexual intercourse and is triggered by the parasympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system, causing the levels of nitric oxide (a vasodilator) to rise in the trabecular arteries and smooth muscle of the penis. The arteries dilate causing the corpora cavernosa of the penis (and to a lesser extent the corpus spongiosum) to fill with blood; simultaneously the ischiocavernosus and bulbospongiosus muscles compress the veins of the ...
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Priapus
In Greek mythology, Priapus (; grc, Πρίαπος, ) is a minor rustic fertility god, protector of livestock, fruit plants, gardens and male genitalia. Priapus is marked by his oversized, permanent erection, which gave rise to the medical term priapism. He became a popular figure in Roman erotic art and Latin literature, and is the subject of the often humorously obscene collection of verse called the ''Priapeia''. Mythology Relationship with other deities Priapus was described in varying sources as the son of Aphrodite by Dionysus; as the son of Dionysus and Chione; as perhaps the father or son of Hermes; or as the son of Zeus or Pan. According to legend, Hera cursed him with inconvenient impotence (he could not sustain an erection when the time came for sexual intercourse), ugliness and foul-mindedness while he was still in Aphrodite's womb, in revenge for the hero Paris having the temerity to judge Aphrodite more beautiful than Hera. In another account, Hera's anger and ...
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Bronze Sculpture
Bronze is the most popular metal for Casting (metalworking), cast metal sculptures; a cast bronze sculpture is often called simply "a bronze". It can be used for statues, singly or in groups, reliefs, and small statuettes and figurines, as well as bronze elements to be fitted to other objects such as furniture. It is often gilding, gilded to give gilt-bronze or ormolu. Common bronze alloys have the unusual and desirable property of expanding slightly just before they set, thus filling the finest details of a mould. Then, as the bronze cools, it shrinks a little, making it easier to separate from the mould. Their strength and wikt:ductility, ductility (lack of brittleness) is an advantage when figures in action poses are to be created, especially when compared to various ceramic or stone materials (such as marble sculpture). These qualities allow the creation of extended figures, as in ''Jeté'', or figures that have small cross sections in their support, such as the Richard ...
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