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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story about terracotta body parts which have been found in Italy by archaeologists for decades:
One site contained 1,654 votive feet, made of terracotta. Another had more than 400 terracotta wombs. At Ponte di Nona, there were 8,395 votives recovered in the 1970s—of the 6,171 that were identifiable body parts, 985 were heads, about as many were eyes, and 2,368 were feet. Overall, at about 150 sites, archaeologists have uncovered tens of thousands of feet, legs, arms, hands, heads, eyes, ears, breasts, uteri, vulvae, phalluses, and sometimes whole midriff sections, with indistinct organs exposed.
[...] It's clear that these anatomical votives were connected in some way with health and well-being, but for years scholars have debated exactly who used them and how. Once it was thought that the votives were primarily used by rural people, but Flemming argues that it was a "wide-spread, accessible, and inclusive," popular inside cities and far out into the countryside, and available both to elites and lower classes.
Some scholars believe that the votives reflects pleas for the healing of particular body parts or were thank-you gifts for prayers answered. Some shrines may have specialized in particular illnesses—at least that's one explanation for why one place might have a great concentration of hands, another a great concentration of eyes, and another a great concentration of uteri.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday November 27 2016, @05:18PM
Anyone who has traveled a bit in Italy and has gone inside a few churches knows how strong the "body part" tradition is there. Relics of saints (mostly body parts) are basically omnipresent, and sometimes a little unnerving to those who haven't grown up in strong Catholic traditions. My personal favorite has to be the "finger of St. Thomas," located in the church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, a bit out of the way from the typical tourist haunts of Rome. There's something quite ironic about the whole business -- the supposed finger of St. Thomas, known as the doubter, displayed as proof. "Don't you believe in the risen Jesus? Well, look here -- there's the finger that poked him!"
(By the way, I mean no disrespect to religious folks, but it's pretty well known that a lot of relics are forgeries. Heck, Martin Luther's concerns about KNOWN forgeries was one factor in pushing him toward leading the Reformation.)
Anyhow, given the later Italian fascination with hoarding body parts, I wonder if there's a connection here to their possible use (and apparent widespread manufacture of fake clay ones) in earlier pre-Christian religious rites.