Vaso de Terracota

This terracotta vase was made in eastern Greece (probably on the island of Rhodes) 2500 to 2550 years ago. Phallus vases are a rare and distinctive kind of archaic Greek pottery. They were used to store perfumed oils, presumably for erotic or medicinal purposes. Archaic Greek potters sculpted vases in a wide variety of shapes, including human heads, legs, and animals. These "peniform" vases reflect a playfulness and unselfconsciousness about eroticism that recurs throughout Greek Art, but regardless of what this represents, it is a gloriously harmonious shape.