Carving of Roman virility found on Britain’s biggest roads project
New find from A14 upgrade is almost 2,000 years old
The team examining the finds unearthed on Britain’s biggest roads project had a surprise when they found one millstone engraved with an enhanced phallus.
More than 300 querns (hand mills) and millstones were recovered during archaeological work on Highways England’s £1.5 billion A14 upgrade between Cambridge and Huntingdon in 2017 and 2018, but this find was only recently pieced together by archaeologists MOLA Headland Infrastructure.
The archaeologists and their partners, Oxford Archaeology, discovered two crosses inscribed on the circumference of the quern, and a different type of carving on its upper face. The millstone had been broken during its use and was then adapted, which preserved the carvings as it was then reversed to be used as a saddle quern, one of the bedstones used in the grinding process, hiding the genital carving.
