Loggin stones are by Payne Knight considered as Phallic emblems. “Their
remains,” he says, “are still extant, and appear to have been composed
of a crone set into the ground, and another placed upon the point of it
and so nicely balanced that the wind could move it, though so ponderous
that no human force, unaided by machinery, can displace it; whence they
are called ‘logging rocks’ and ‘pendre stones,’ as they were anciently
‘living stones’ and ‘stones of God,’ titles which differ very little in
meaning from that on the Tyrian coins. Damascius saw several of them in
the neighbourhood of Heliopolis or Baalbeck, in Syria, particularly one
which was then moved by the wind; and they are equally found in the
Western extremities of Europe and the Eastern extremities of Asia, in
Britain, and in China.”
Bryant mentions it as very usual among the Egyptians to place with much
labour one vast stone upon another for a religious memorial.
Such immense masses, being moved by causes seeming so inadequate, must
naturally have conveyed the idea of spontaneous motion to ignorant
observers, and persuaded them that they were animated by an emanation of
the vital spirit, whence they were consulted as oracles, the responses
of which could always be easily obtained by interpreting the different
oscillatory movements into nods of approbation or dissent.
Phallic emblems abounded at Heliopolis in Syria, and many other places,
even in modern times. A physician, writing to Dr. Inman, says: “I was in
Egypt last winter (1865-66), and there certainly are numerous figures of
gods and kings, on the walls of the temple at Thebes, depicted with the
male genital erect. The great temple at Karnak is, in particular, full
of such figures, and the temple of Danclesa likewise, though that is of
much later date, and built merely in imitation of old Egyptian art. The
same inspiring _bas-reliefs_ are pointed out by Ezek. xxiii. 14. I
remember one scene of a king (Rameses II) returning in triumph with
captives, many of whom were undergoing the process of castration.”
Obelisks were also representative of the same emblem. Payne Knight
mentions several terminating in a cross, which had exactly the
appearance of one of those crosses erected in churchyards and at cross
roads for the adoration of devout persons, when devotions were more
prevalent than at present. Stones, pillars, obelisks, stumps of trees,
upright stones have all the same signification, and are means by which
the male element was symbolised.