A phallic erection often symbolized resurrection from the dead. In Greece, Dionysus, the dying and rising god, was mourned by women who ritualistically beat their breasts and wailed in grief for the dead Dionysus.
Outpourings of grief, these ritualistic displays were intended both to inspire the god's resurrection and to stir his virile powers and thus invoke an erection.
In Egypt, the symbolic connection between erection and resurrection from the dead was played out in the myth of the god Osiris. And in ancient Etruria, the immortality of the soul was represented by the installation of erect phalluses on burial grounds.