From Cork antiquities to comparative archaeology
Born into a County Cork landowning family in 1820, Westropp graduated from Trinity College, Dublin, in 1844. He lived at Rookhurst near Monkstown and later settled at Ventnor on the Isle of Wight. Antiquities and museum collections supplied material for his writing. His Handbook of Archaeology appeared in 1867, covering Egyptian, Greek, Etruscan and Roman remains. He also belonged to the Anthropological Society of London from its foundation.
His interests extended beyond collecting. He proposed a middle phase of the Stone Age, using the term Mesolithic in the 1860s, although the concept initially gained little acceptance. The Cycle of Development, published in 1881, set out his broader view that societies passed through comparable stages of growth and decline. Other theories were less durable: he maintained that Irish round towers served as beacons, an interpretation challenged by fellow antiquarians. He died in 1885. His son Michael Seymour Dudley Westropp became a specialist in Irish glass and silver.
The argument of Ancient Symbol Worship
The held volume is the illustrated second edition published by J. W. Bouton in New York in 1875. Westropp contributes Phallic Worship, identified in the book as a paper read to the Anthropological Society on 5 April 1870. C. Staniland Wake supplies the separate essay Phallism in Ancient Religions, while Alexander Wilder provides the introduction, additional notes and appendix. These are distinct contributions rather than a single jointly written argument.
