Life
in Ancient Egypt
Text Excerpts with no intention to infringing on any of the copyright of original authors. Articles written by Caroline Seawright, Alissa Lyon, Daniel Kolos and Richard Sullivan
Sexuality in ancient Egypt
was open, untainted by guilt. Sex was an important part of life - from birth to
death and rebirth. Singles and married couples made love. The gods themselves
were earthy enough to copulate. The Egyptians even believed in sex in the
afterlife. Sex was not taboo. Even the Egyptian religion was filled with tales
of adultery, incest, homosexuality and masturbation ... with hints of necrophilia!
Masculinity and femininity itself were strongly linked with the ability to
conceive and bear children.
...Revel in pleasure while your life endures and deck
your head with myrrh. Be richly clad in white and perfumed linen; like the gods
anointed be; and never weary grow
In eager quest of what your heart desires - Do as it prompts you...
MARIAGE
To the ancient Egyptians,
the most attractive women tended to be the
fertile ones.
A woman who had children was
seen to be more fortunate than ones without. Taking after Isis, the mother goddess of
Horus, Egyptian women strove to be intelligent, wise, mystical and mothers.
Where her twin sister Nephthys was barren, Isis was fertile.
In the Egyptian community,
men had to prove their masculinity by fathering children, while the women had
to be able to bear these sons and daughters. Being a mother meant being able to
keep her marriage secure and to gain a better position in society.
But an Egyptian family was
not just a status symbol - the Egyptians loved their children and were not
afraid to show it. But there were some advice to parents, written by scribes:
Do not prefer one of your children above the others;
after all, you never know which one of them will be kind to you.
Adultery in Egypt was wrong.
Women got the worst punishment for adultery - a man might just be forced into a
divorce, but a woman could conceivably be killed for that crime. In
the Tale of Two Brothers, the adulterous wife was found out, murdered and
her body was thrown to the dogs.
Unmarried women, on the
other hand, seem to be free to choose partners as they so desire, and enjoy
their love life to its fullest.
Itinerant
Performers and 'Prostitutes'
The Egyptian sacred
'prostitute' (who was probably a highly regarded as a member of Egyptian
society because of her association with different gods or goddesses (such
as Bes and Hathor), rather than the
street walker that the modern mind imagines) advertised herself through her
clothing and make up. Some of these women wore blue faience beaded fishnet
dresses. They painted their lips red, and tattooed themselves on
the breasts or thighs and even went around totally nude. There is no evidence
that these women were paid for these fertility-related acts, so some believe
that word 'prostitute' is probably an incorrect term for these women. In fact,
the Victorian era theory that these women were prostitutes is not backed up by
evidence at all. All archaeological evidence for women with such tattoos shows
them to have been New Kingdom female musicians or dancers.
Another idea pointed out
by Daniel Kolos, an Egyptologist academically trained at the University of
Toronto, is that this premarital sexual activity might be a prerequisite for
marriage. One of the theories that disassociate these women from being prostitutes
is that their sexual activity could be part of a "coming-of-age
ritual", just as circumcision was one for males. With Egypt's heavy
emphasis on fertility as the defining nature of a man or a woman, this idea is
a highly likely probability.
Other theories could be that
the young virgin girls joined itinerant performing groups - dancers, singers
and the like - and during their time with these groups they experienced their
first sexual encounters. If a girl became pregnant, she would probably leave
the troupe to head home to her family with proof of her fertility. (Motherhood
was venerated, giving a woman a much higher status in society, so pregnancy was
something to be proud of in ancient Egypt.)
These travelling groups of
women were strongly linked with midwifery and childbirth-related deities. The
goddesses Isis, Nephthys, Meskhenet and Heqet disguised themselves as itinerant
performers, travelling with the god Khnum as their porter.
Carrying the sistrum and Mena instruments - instruments with sexual
overtones - they showed it to Rawoser, the expectant father. Knowing that his
wife, Raddjedet, was having a very
difficult labor, he told these women - the disguised goddesses - about his
wife's troubles, and at their offer of help, he let them in to see her.
These women do not seem to
be pay-for-sex prostitutes; instead they seem to be a link with the divine, a
helper of expectant mothers and singers, dancers and musicians. This is not to
say that there were no pay-for-sex prostitutes in ancient Egypt, it it just
that there is little evidence of this found. Considering Egypt's very different
image of sexuality, the modern concept of both sexuality and prostitution do
not fit this ancient society. Women operated under a totally different cultural
imperative than women today, thus ancient Egyptian sexuality must be looked at
without modern prejudices. It seems that these female performers, these
'prostitutes', were treated with courtesy and respect, and there seemed to be a
well-established link between these travelling performers and fertility,
childbirth, religion and magic.
Contraception
The Egyptians had their own
ways and means of getting around the fact that sex produced children. They had
both contraceptives and abortions; mostly these were prescriptions that were
filled with unpleasant ingredients such as crocodile dung. Here is one of the
nicer ones:
Prescription to make a woman cease to become pregnant
for one, two or three years: Grind together finely a measure of acacia dates
with some honey. Moisten seed-wool with the mixture and insert it in the
vagina.
Incest
From the close family
relationships in Egyptian mythology and the fact that Egyptians seemed to have
no taboo against incest, many have concluded that incest was rife in ancient
Egypt.
There were probably some
brother and sister marriages, but more likely than not, the siblings in
question would have been half-brothers and half-sisters. The problem arises
from the limited Egyptian terms of kinship, which are very confusing. A
'father' could refer to the actual father, the grandfather or male ancestors,
while 'mother' could be the same, but for the females of the family. 'Sister'
could mean the royal family, on the other hand did have more incestuous
marriages. One theory is that the royal blood ran through the females, not the
males, and so to become pharaoh a man had to marry a royal princess (who would
be his sister or half-sister). This is known as the Heiress Princess
theory, which is now largely discredited.
Another explanation for these marriages is that:
The prevalence of brother-sister marriages within the
New Kingdom royal family, a custom in obvious contrast to contemporary
non-royal marriage patterns, appears to have been an attempt to reinforce the
links between the royal family and the gods who themselves frequently indulged
in brother-sister unions.
THE GODS AND SEX
Hathor and Ra
Baba a pre-dynasty baboon
god, taunted Ra who stood for Set becoming ruler rather than Horus, "Your
shrine is empty!" With that, Ra stormed off to be alone - presumably this
is a story about a solar eclipse - and refused to join the other gods. Realizing
that they'd gone too far, the others sent Baba away, but still Ra refused to
stop sulking. Finally, Hathor decided on a plan. She went into Ra's presence
and stood before him and started to dance and strip, revealing her nakedness
and lewdly showing him her private parts. The dance caused Ra to laugh, forget
his hurt feelings and he once again rejoined the gods.
Nut and Geb
Nut, the goddess of the
night sky, and her brother Geb, the god of the earth, were originally thought
to be in a constant state of lovemaking. Ra grew angry with his grandchildren,
and commanded their father Shu to separate the two lovers. The god of the air
took his place, and trampled on the ithyphallic Geb, and lifted Nut high into
the air. Nut was found to be pregnant, and was then cursed by Ra - she would
never be able to bear her children on any month of the 360-day year. Thoth managed to win a
game against Khonsu, god of the moon, and used some of the light of the moon to
create five extra days (making the year 365 days). During those days Nut gave
birth to her five children - Isis, Osiris, Nephthys, Set and Horus the Elder
(not to be confused with Horus, the child of Isis and Osiris).
Nephthys and Osiris
Some tales of sex and the
Egyptian gods is on the seamier side - one of the reasons given as to why Set
and Osiris hate each other was because of Nephthys, Set's sister-wife. She was
barren (she represented the desert, as did Set), and she hit on the plan of
disguising herself as Isis and seducing Osiris. Getting Osiris drunk, Nephthys
took Osiris to her bed, and the two had drunken sex together. Osiris dropped
his garland of melilot flowers in the act of passion. Set found the adulterous
goddess and the flowers, and knowing whom the flowers belonged to, he began to
plan Osiris' death. The child of this union was thought to be Anubis, god of mummification.
Now as the overflowing of the Nile are sometimes very
great, and extend to the boundaries of the land, this gave rise to the story of
the secret intercourse between Osiris and Nephthys, as the natural consequence
of so great an inundation would
be the springing up of plants in those parts of the country which were formerly
barren.
Isis and Osiris
After his first attempt, Set
managed to kill Osiris again and cut up his body into numerous parts. These
parts Set spread all over Egypt. Isis, Nephthys and Anubis searched Egypt, and
managed to retrieve all of the pieces of the body, except one - Osiris' phallus.
Set had dropped the penis into the Nile (making it fertile), where it was eaten
by a fish. The god and goddesses pieced Osiris together and created the first
mummy. Using her magic, Isis fashioned a replacement for Osiris' missing part,
either out of clay, wood or gold, and attached this to her dead husband's body.
Through magical spells, life was breathed back into Osiris' body (though some
dispute this and believe that Osiris was dead at the time)... The goddess
managed to share a time of passion with her husband who impregnating her with
their child, Horus. Osiris then passed into the afterlife, becoming god of the
dead. This part of the mythos borders on necrophilia!
Hapi
The Egyptian god if the
Nile, Hapi, was a masculine deity, given female properties because of the
fertility of the Nile River. Without the Nile, there would be no Egypt. Due to
the duality of Egyptian thought, there were two Hapi gods - one of Upper Egypt
wearing the water lily (lotus) on his
head, and one of Lower Egypt wearing papyrus. He was usually depicted as a blue
or green colored man with a protruding belly, carrying libation jugs. He also has full breasts, indicating his ability to nourish Egypt. Despite being a
hermaphrodite god, both the northern and southern versions of Hapi were given
wives - Nekhbet in Upper Egypt and Wadjet in Lower Egypt.
Min
Lettuce was thought to be
the favorite food of the fertility god, Min. He was depicted as a god with an
erect penis, wearing a feathered crown and carrying a flail. Lettuce was his sacred
plant, and an aphrodisiac to the ancient Egyptians - this particular species of
lettuce was tall, straight and secreted a milky substance when pressed!
Another aphrodisiac was the
onion. They were forbidden to the priests who had vowed celibacy, for fear that
their passion might take over, and that they might desecrate themselves!
Fennel, ginger,
pomegranates, coriander in wine and radishes mixed with honey were thought to
have aphrodisiac qualities, too.
The water lily was also a
symbol of sexuality, as well as immortality and health. It was possibly even a
narcotic that the Egyptians used, but it was more likely to be a sexual
stimulant.
Some of the more unusual
aphrodisiacs included pearls dissolved in a cup of wine, baboon feeces added to
aphrodisiac ointments!
Artwork
The Turin
Erotic Papyrus contains various pictures of sexual activity,
perhaps focused on Ramses II and his many wives. It has been theorized that,
more likely, it is just the fantasies of an ancient Egyptian who happened to
sketch them out on papyrus, or an artwork poking fun at the sexual side of the
Egyptian lifestyle. Most of the positions drawn on this papyrus seem to be
rather uncomfortable!
The most erotically graphic - some would say
pornographic - work of Egyptian art is the so-called Turin Erotic Papyrus
(Papyrus 55001), now in the Egyptian Museum in Turin, Italy. Painted in the Ramesside
period (1292-1075 BC), the severely damaged papyrus has not been treated well
by time and the elements. It consists of a continuous series of vignettes drawn
on a papyrus scroll about 8.5 feet long and 10 inches high. The first third of
the scroll (reading from right to left) shows animals and birds carrying out
various human tasks. The rest consists of explicit depictions of sexual acts
...
Yet the vignettes' artistic merit is high, indicating that the papyrus had an
elite owner and audience. The draftsmanship is of good quality, and the 12
erotic vignettes are carefully designed both as an entire structure and as
separate.
Another sexual sketch - this
time graffiti - from ancient Egypt shows a woman with a pharaoh's crown,
maybe Hatshepsut (1473-1458 BC) engaging in sex with a male that many
presume to be Senmut. This sketch has caused many people to believe that
Hatshepsut and her favorite courtier were lovers.
From various sources, it
seems that the Egyptian preferred method of intercourse were face-to-face or
from behind.
References in writing to sexual intercourse between
men are as rare as those to sexual intercourse between men and women; the
absence of references in writing to sexual intercourse between women reflects
the general male bias of the written record. Homosexual intercourse between a
king and his general is implied in the fragmentary 'Tale of Neferkara and
Sasenet', in the description of secret nocturnal visits by the king to the
general, detected by the hero of the tale; although the tale is damaged, it
reads as if the nocturnal visits are considered illicit.
After Life
The Egyptians thought of
their afterlives as more of a continuation of life on earth (albeit a better
life). This being the case, the Egyptians believed in sex life after death!
Egyptian men had false
penises attached to their mummies while Egyptian women had artificial nipples
attached. Both would become fully functional in the afterlife, where they were
free to engage in sexual intercourse, if they so desired.
There were even fertility
dolls in many graves - women with wide, childbearing hips that were often
carrying children in their arms. Other fertility dolls, known as paddle dolls,
don't have any legs, and their bodies end in very wide pubic area, with tiny
heads and arms.
These dolls show that the
Egyptians believed that fertility and sex were interlinked, though the ancient
Egyptians quite clearly enjoyed sex in its own right!
