If you're mourning the cancellation of American Vandal, an archaeological dig in southern Turkey just turned up some very exciting loot in the form of second century Roman mosaics depicting “Narcissus enchanted with his own penis and Ganymede having his swimsuit area sponged clean by a bird,” Artsy reports. Kinky!Archaeologists working with the Antiochia ad Cragum Archaeological Research Project (ARCAP) found the mosaics in the ruins of a Roman latrine in southern Turkey, because what more fitting site could there be for dick art than a second century men's room?
Photo courtesy the Antiochia ad Cragum Archaeological Research Project.
We’d have to get deep into the annals of art history to know for sure, but could the above portrait of Narcissus be one of history’s oldest and pioneering dick pics? You have to admit, in terms of composition, it bears a striking resemblance to a blurry, mirror-shot Tinder pic (come on, Narcissus, everybody skips over those profiles).While the Venus of Willendorf is indubitably history’s first thirst trap, the male sex organ has been an objet d'art since the dawn of time: the cave art at Lascaux depicted “a rather comical stick figure with an avian beak or mask, a puny physique, and a long skinny penis,” and, millennia later, men are still making art about their dicks!Why? Broadly even spoke to a psychoanalyst about the pervasive question of why men feel compelled to draw dicks on everything. (Not to generalize, men! We know you don’t all construct ancient mosaics of yourselves admiring your dicks!) Still, these newly discovered Roman mosaics stand out as a particularly timeworn, triumphant ode to le dique. Will the next Turkish archaeological dig uncover ancient drafts of the first “u up?” text?