Phallic Symbolism in vartous cultures.

MENHIR - A menhir is a large, single upright standing stone (monolith or megalith), of prehistoric European origin. The largest surviving menhir is at Locmariaquer, Brittany, the Grand Menhir Brisé ("Great Broken Menhir") which was once about 20 meters high. It lies broken in four pieces but would have weighed around 330 tons when intact and is thought to be the heaviest object ever moved by humans without powered machinery. In other areas, standing stones were systematically toppled by Christians: of the many former standing menhirs of northern Germany, scarcely one stands today. Alignments of menhirs are also known, the most famous being the Carnac stones in Brittany, where more than 3000 menhirs are arranged in three groups and arrayed in rows stretching for several kilometres.


OBELISK - (greek obeliskos, diminutive of obelos, "needle") is a tall, thin, four-sided, tapering monument which ends in a pyramidal top. Ancient obelisks were made of a single piece of stone (a monolith).

Obelisks were a prominent part of the architecture of the ancient Egyptians, who placed them in pairs at the entrance of temples. Twenty-seven ancient Egyptian obelisks are known to have survived, plus one incomplete obelisk found partly hewn from its quarry at Aswan.

The obelisk symbolized the sun god Ra and during the brief religious reformation of Akhenaten was said to be a petrified ray of the aten, the sundisk. It was also thought that the god existed within the structure.

TOTEM POLES are monumental sculptures carved from great trees, typically Western Redcedar, by a number of Native American cultures along the Pacific northwest coast of North America. The beginnings of totem pole construction are not known. Being made of wood they decay easily in the rain forest environment of the Northwest Coast, so no examples of poles carved before 1800 exist. However 18th century accounts of European explorers along the coast indicate that poles certainly existed at that time, although small and few in number. In all likelihood, the freestanding poles seen by the first European explorers were preceded by a long history of monumental carving, particularly interior house posts. Edward Malin (1986) has proposed a theory of totem pole development which describes totem poles as progressing from house posts, funerary containers, and memorial markers into symbols of clan and family wealth and prestige. He argues that the center of pole construction was centered around the Haida people of the Queen Charlotte Islands, from whence it spread outward to the Tsimshian and Tlingit and then down the coast to the tribes of British Columbia and northern Washington. The regional stylistic differences between poles would then be due not to a change in style over time, but instead to application of existing regional artistic styles to a new medium.

PILLARS OF ASHOKA are a series of columns dispersed throughout the northern Indian subcontinent, and erected by the Mauryan king Ashoka during his reign in the 3rd century BCE.

Many of the pillars are carved with proclamations reflecting Buddhist teachings: the . The most famous of the columns is the one that was erected at Sarnath, and is now displayed in the Sarnarth museum. It has been used as one of the central symbols of India, in particular on Indian banknotes.

The Sarnath pillar marks the site of the first sermon of the Buddha, where he taught the Dharma to five monks. The pillar bears one of the Edicts of Ashoka, an inscription against schism within the Buddhist community, which reads "No one shall cause division in the order of monks".

The pillar is a column surmounted by a capital, which consists of a canopy representing an inverted bell-shaped lotus flower, a short cylindrical abacus where alternate four 24-spoked Dharma wheels with four animals (an elephant, a bull, a horse, a lion in this order), a four lions facing the four cardinal directions. The four animals are believed to symbolize different steps of the Gautama Buddha's life:

• The Elephant represents the Buddha's conception in reference to the dream of Queen Maya of a white elephant entered her womb.
• The Bull represents desire during the life of the Buddha as a prince. It is also the symbol of Shiva.
• The Horse represents Kanthaka, the horse the Buddha rode for his Great Departure from palatial life.
• The Lion represents the attainment of Buddhahood.

The four animals may also represent lesser Hindu deities as they existed at the time, and/or possibly how they were under the service of Buddha.

The four lions surmounting the capital symbolize the kingship of the Buddha and his roar over the four directions.