Tutankhamun’s mummified penis eventually broke off from his body after the mummy was discovered, at one point leading to media speculation that it had been stolen.

Ikram has yet to encounter another Egyptian mummy buried with an erection. “As far as I know, no other mummy has been found thus far with an erect penis,” she told LiveScience in an email.

The imagery of King Tutankhamun’s erect penis has a connection to the god Osiris, Ikram said. “The erect penis evokes Osiris at his most powerfully regenerative moment, and is a feature of ‘corn-mummies,’ the quintessential symbols of rebirth and resurrection,” she writes in her paper. Corn-mummies were nonhuman artificial mummies created in later periods in honor of Osiris. They were made of a mix of materials, including grain.