{"id":645018,"date":"2026-05-02T13:56:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T13:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/645018\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T13:56:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T13:56:14","slug":"tiny-roman-penis-charm-found-at-cricket-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/645018\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Tiny&#8217; Roman penis charm found at cricket club"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A &#8220;tiny&#8221; penis-shaped Roman artefact thought to have been intended to bring good fortune has been discovered by archeologists excavating land around a cricket club.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The bronze 1,800-year-old phallus was unearthed at Carlisle Cricket Club in Cumbria during a dig which started in 2017.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Historians believe the site to be home to an ancient bathhouse and have already found pottery shards, pillar fragments and various large stone heads.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Site director Frank Giecco said the Romans were &#8220;extremely superstitious&#8221; and the phallus was intended to be &#8220;a good luck charm&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;It&#8217;s our first little phallus, it&#8217;s tiny, it&#8217;s bout 3cm (1.2in), but beautifully made in bronze,&#8221; Giecco said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">He said such mementos would often have been attached to belts, carved into walls or worn as jewellery &#8220;to protect you&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">During their yearly digs, volunteers for the team have found thousands of significant items including from the Bronze Age, the English Civil War and the Edwardian period, Giecco said.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Frank Giecco has short grey hair at the sides. He is wearing glasses, a blue t-shirt, orange\/grey rucksack, beige trousers. He is stood on the dig site with soil and rocks. There are volunteers with PPE on with tools and a green wheelbarrow. There is a temporary metal fence in the background a small brick building and large storage shipping containers.\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"540\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/d58e3b357c6952819a1ed266d4a12046.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Frank Giecco said the site was rich in ancient objects [Anna Giecco]<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">He said: &#8220;It&#8217;s unusual we haven&#8217;t found a phallus shaped object on the site before, it&#8217;s so rich in other types of objects.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;It&#8217;s a beautiful little object&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Giecco said the discovery &#8220;gives a fantastic insight into the minds of people who lived in Carlisle 1,800 years ago&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">He added &#8220;All of us give up huge amounts of time for this project to make it work.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;The joy of pulling a bit of pot out of the ground that hasn&#8217;t been touched for years is incredible.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">New items from the dig have been displayed at the Tullie Museum and Gallery.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Follow BBC Cumbria on <a data-yga=\"{\" ylinkelement=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/BBC_Cumbria\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:X;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">X<\/a>, <a data-yga=\"{\" ylinkelement=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/bbccumbria\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:Facebook;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Facebook<\/a>, <a data-yga=\"{\" ylinkelement=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/bbc.in\/3yyMYUI\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:Nextdoor;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Nextdoor<\/a> and <a data-yga=\"{\" ylinkelement=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/bbcneandcumbria\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:Instagram;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Instagram<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>More on this storyRelated internet links<script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A &#8220;tiny&#8221; penis-shaped Roman artefact thought to have been intended to bring good fortune has been discovered by&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645019,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,312035,740,312033,312034,312036,85],"class_list":["post-645018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-carlisle-cricket-club","tag-cricket","tag-frank-giecco","tag-good-luck-charm","tag-pete-savin","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}