Sexuality has often been seen as unworthy of study, not simply because of prudish notions that it should not be discussed in polite society, but also because it is seen as identical across societies. The argument goes that if it is the same everywhere, why study it? However, sexuality is not only differently expressed, and has different effects and influences from culture to culture, but also invariably shapes our identity. It is thus essential in understanding other societies. Before exploring ancient Egyptian sexuality, there should be a word or two on definitions. In this book, the terms ‘fertility’ and ‘sexuality’ are often interchanged since it is very difficult to differentiate between what would have been considered ‘sexual’ in the sense of encouraging procreation or fertility and what would have been considered purely ‘pornographic’ in the ancient world. However, to us, the two concepts have different connotations. Fertility concerns sexual practice with the addition of the notion of procreation. Sexuality concerns beliefs and practices which revolve around gender.
Evidence for ancient Egyptian sexuality is far from straightforward. On the one hand, we have explicit ‘erotic cartoons’, probably manufactured for private amusement. Since these show little more than the sexual act itself, they do not explain the wider social and religious meanings surrounding sexuality. On the other hand, we have the coded ‘high art’ of temple and tomb, and because sexuality is not obvious here, some Egyptologists have even labelled the Egyptians ‘prudish’. Further problems are posed by different media of evidence. Textual evidence includes sensuous love poems, comparable to the Biblical Song of Songs, myths and stories of gods, goddesses and human affairs, letters and medical papyri. But this evidence largely pertains to the elite, and most of it only describes the ideal or mythical. Archaeological finds including ‘votive phalli’ and ‘concubine figurines’ can all have so many different, sometimes opposing, interpretations.
However, all evidence points to the idea that Egyptian gender was basically dualistic, depending upon the opposites of male and female. In exceptional circumstances, gender fluidity was possible; homosexuality was recognized but frowned upon; androgyny among the gods was largely a means of explaining primeval creation. Men were considered the lead actors in procreation, with women acting as Hathoric enchanters, stimulating and nurturing the male seed. Sexuality could be the subject of bawdy humour, or a sacred activity embedded in beliefs of creation and rebirth.
Sexuality was essential to religion and to human rebirth, which is perhaps a strange concept in the Twenty-first century west. Mothers, wives and daughters are largely portrayed in tombs as erotic symbols, that is, beautiful and powerful sexual stimulators, mirroring the allure of the goddess Hathor. In order to be reborn, men and women had to identify with the male god, Osiris, and Osiris’ sexual stimulation by his sister and wife, Isis, was a necessary component of afterlife existence. But where does this Osirian identification leave the woman in her desire for rebirth? How can a woman be reborn and retain her sexuality if she must identify with Osiris? As we shall see, the Egyptians employed various means to solve this conundrum.
If sexuality is defined as a group of biological and mental entities including fantasy, reproduction and gender identity, this complexity makes it difficult to prove that sexuality as a distinct categorization existed for the Egyptians. It has even been argued1 that sexuality is a recent construct, and certainly there is no Egyptian word for it.2 However, we can still discuss the ideas and practices which the ancient Egyptians related to gender and reproduction, and which we would call ‘sexuality’.
We need to be careful, however, not to impose our own ideas when interpreting the past. Eroticism outside our own society is difficult to study. In the modern west, the act of childbirth is rarely seen as erotic, though it is closely connected with sexuality and, of course, fertility. In our society, see-through clothing may be considered erotic, but does not necessarily imply fertility. The Egyptians, however, appear not to have separated out the erotic and procreative in the same way that we do. The Bes deity was associated with young children and with women in childbirth, but he also appears on the thighs of semi-clad, beautiful girls. Was he an erotic stimulator, or a symbol of fertility? He seems to have been both. Hence, in this book, words such as ‘sexuality’, ‘erotic’ or ‘fertility’ are only used loosely.
It has been suggested that, in ancient Egypt, individuals were not defined by their sexuality.3 However, categorizations of people did exist based on gender and sexual activity, and as we have seen, gender shaped people’s lives, including their professions and social relations. Among living humans, two genders were recognized, male (s) and female (ḥmt), though some Egyptologists would also include eunuchs (sḫt). Homosexuality, or at least same-sex relations, were recognized, but abhorred. Among the gods, androgyny was also a factor, and for human females a certain amount of gender fluidity was essential for rebirth. This gender fluidity extended to rulers. However, Egyptian society and the world of the gods was largely dualistic and heteronormative. The male was aggressive and active; he was a person who produced children through taking the active role in intercourse.4 Women were there to encourage, support and nurture the male lead.
In most societies, procreation is considered to be in the hands of women, and in the west this is apparent in the terms ‘Mother Earth’ and ‘Mother Nature’. For some, this aspect of femininity is at the heart of women’s power. There is also a negative side: cross culturally, women tend to be considered at fault if couples cannot produce children. One study concludes that over 50 per cent of societies under consideration had negative attitudes towards women who did not bear children,5 and it is women who are subject to treatment to correct such faults. Unusually, in Egypt, it was men who were central to procreation.6 This has given rise to the idea that Egyptian society was phallocentric.7 Some see the importance of the male in fertility as mirroring the Egyptian landscape and agricultural cycle.8 For the Egyptians, both the earth and the annual inundation that fertilized the land were male.
The ancient Egyptians clearly realized that sperm was necessary for birth and believed it to be the creative aspect. They also knew that semen was connected with the testicles, though did not understand how it got there and assumed it came from the bones.9 In comparison, the reproductive anatomy of the female was much less understood, perhaps because it was considered less vital. The word for ‘to conceive a child’ in ancient Egyptian was the same as the word ‘to receive’ or ‘to take’, showing the role of the woman as simply a vessel for the already created child. Thus, although childless women could be divorced, failure to conceive was not laid entirely at the door of women. The creative power of the human male, though mythical, is demonstrated in the New Kingdom Tale of Two Brothers (Papyrus D’Orbiney British Museum EA 1018310). Bata, the hero, transforms himself into a tree. He then impregnates his wife when a splinter of the wood from the tree flies into her mouth. This causes her to give birth to Bata. In a text relating to actual people, the scribe Nekhemmut from New Kingdom Deir el-Medina is berated for being unable to make his wife pregnant: ‘You are not a man since you are unable to make your wives pregnant like your fellow men’ (Ostracon Berlin 1062711). This idea of the procreative male could also be extended to the animal world; all scarab beetles, for example, were believed to be male.12 It is only in the Graeco-Roman Period that the female is given credit for the forming of a child. While, as stated below, the male god Khnum, the potter, is credited with creation and birth of children through spinning his wheel, by the Graeco-Roman Period, Hathor is sometimes credited with spinning the wheel.13 Another text from this period states that the bones of a child are formed by the father and the soft body parts by the mother.14
The creative power of the male extended to the world of the gods. In order to be reborn, the deceased Egyptian needed to become identified with the male god Osiris. The reborn individual, regardless of gender, was for most of Egyptian history known as ‘The Osiris N’ (‘N’ standing for the name of the once living person). The identification of the female with the male Osiris gave rise to what might be seen as bizarre depictions of female rebirth. A necessary part of the rebirth process, for example, is the resexualization of the god, Osiris, frequently displayed as the mummiform Osiris lying upon a bed while Isis, his sister and wife, hovers in bird-form (as a kite) above his phallus, stimulating it into life. For this reason, the body of Tutankhamun was mummified with his penis in the erect position.15 The inert form of Osiris, despite his erect phallus, and the bird-form of the female, preserve the decorum of religious art, keeping the gods dignified. Surprisingly perhaps, this motif was also used for the revival of the deceased female, with the female bird hovering above the genital area. However, there are no depictions of deceased women displaying an erect phallus.
Creation myths, many of which mirror ideas of human birth and rebirth, also privileged the male role. In the cyclical rebirth of the sun-god, Re-Atum sails across the sky in his boat to enter the mouth of the goddess Nut, and be reborn daily from her vulva (Pyramid Text 1688b). He thereby impregnates her in the west and is reborn from her body in the east. Re-Atum is the active participant; Nut does not affect the sun.16 This was mirrored in human rebirth, where the coffin was associated with Nut. Coffins were painted with depictions of this goddess so that she cocooned the deceased prior to his/her rebirth. The deceased was seen as Re-Atum, with Nut as the mother.
From at least as early as the New Kingdom, Khnum, a male god, is credited with creation and the birth of children through spinning his potter’s wheel.17 A Late Period to Graeco-Roman rite, called the ‘Transmission of the Wheel to Female Beings’,18 asks for the wheel of Khnum to be established in the body of all female beings. Since Khnum is male, creation remains essentially male. The centrality of Khnum’s work is described: ‘May you model on the wheel in heaven, making potter’s work on earth, so that children are brought to life within the wombs of their mothers by the action of your arms’.19 The female womb is paralleled with the kiln.20
Eunuchs, of course, were incapable of reproduction. As most references to them come from myth and legend rather than actual living people,21 it is believed they were rare in Egypt. So, for example, self-castration appears in the Tale of Two Brothers (Papyrus D’Orbiney British Museum EA 1018322). However, this is a fantastical story in which the hero at one point becomes a bull and in another point a woman is made pregnant by swallowing a splinter of wood; it is not a factual tale of real people.
The living together of man and wife and production of children was the norm for Egyptian society. This does not mean that same-sex relationships did not exist.23 Homosexuality was recognized, though frowned upon.
Egypt may lay claim to one of the earliest known examples of a socially acceptable same-sex couple. Dating to the third millennium BC, the Saqqara tomb of two manicurists, Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep, it has been claimed, depicts the first ‘gay kiss’.24 Certainly, the two men are shown in close affectionate embraces, and Khnumhotep appears to be portrayed using motifs usually reserved for women, such as smelling lotuses and standing at the left of the male. However, while this tomb may, in its construction and decoration, show acceptance of same-sex relationships, later texts show that males who were sexually penetrated by other males, were termed ‘backturners’ (ḥmἰw) or ‘fucked man’ (nkkw). The word ḥmἰw, which can also be understood as ‘coward’, is probably related to the word for woman, underlining the essentially passive nature of women. In the story of Contendings of Horus and Seth (Papyrus Chester Beatty I, Recto25), Seth claims to have taken the active role in their homosexual intercourse. Horus is spat upon by the other gods, while Seth appears proud of his actions. It seems that Horus’ transgression lay, not in homosexual activity, but in being the passive partner. Elsewhere, a Middle Kingdom story (the Tale of Neferkare and Sasenet26) recounts how Pepi II visited the house of a general ‘in whose entire house was no woman’. In this story, the whole incident is seen as a joke.
In contrast to male homosexuality, there appears little evidence of female homosexuality. There is a reference in a Late Period dream manual (Papyrus Carlsberg XIII b 2, 33) to the effect that dreaming of one’s wife copulating with another woman is bad.27 Kasia Szpakowska sees this as an admonishment of infidelity – sleeping with another man’s wife – rather than an admonishment of lesbian acts.28
Androgyny is here defined as gender ambiguity, rather than display of dual sexual characteristics. The Egyptians, in their essentially dualistic categorization of gender, did not have a word for androgyny; nevertheless, there is blurring of gender boundaries, particularly in areas concerning creation. As rebirth required both male and female, androgyny was essential where creation was attributable to only one entity, such as a primeval god without a partner, or a king wishing to identify with a primeval god. It was also necessary for female rebirth where the woman needed to become the male god, Osiris.
Primeval gods – gods at the beginning of time – existed alone, without partners. This created a paradox for the Egyptian mind. How could creation occur without male and female? The solution was androgyny,29 though many androgynous gods were still essentially male or female.
The earliest texts, the Pyramid Texts, were first written down in the Fifth Dynasty, though may well have been used orally much earlier. Here creation is a male act by a lone god, and thus, one might say, an androgynous god. In Pyramid Text Utterance 527, ‘Atum is he who (once) came into being, who masturbated in The On [Heliopolis]. He took his phallus in his grasp that he might create orgasm by means of it, and so were born the twins Shu and Tefnet’.30 In the Late Period–Early Ptolemaic Papyrus Bremner-Rhind, Atum says ‘I acted as husband with my fist, I copulated with my hand’.31 In the New Kingdom, the god Amun comes to the fore. Amun bears the title ‘bull of his mother’, he is the god who creates all, including himself. In the Memphite Theology of the Rameside Period, the male god Ptah creates through his heart and his mouth.32
Essentially, male gods are difficult to portray as androgynous in sculpture or two-dimensional representations, and hence are depicted as dual-gendered, either by titles such as ‘the mother and father’, or by bizarre stories of birth through vomiting, sneezing or spitting (for example, Pyramid Text 600). The sun-god Re was said to have created humankind from his sweat or tears. The Egyptian word for people, rmṯ, comes from the word for tears – humankind was created from the tears of the god.
It is noticeable that several male creator gods employ organs which are both creative and feminine. This makes creation essentially the product of a male god. While ‘hand of Atum’ ḏrt (djeret) is female, masturbation by the god is essentially a sexual union with himself. By the Eighteenth Dynasty, the hand of the god is an epithet for goddesses, frequently Hathor,33 and is a title given to priestesses.34 Similarly, during the New Kingdom Amarna Period, the sun’s disk, the male Aten, had rays which were understood as female, sometimes ending in hands. The king, Akhenaten, referred to this god as ‘father and mother of his creation’.35 However, one Egyptologist has suggested that there may be less androgyny in both the Aten and Akhenaten than is usually claimed.36 Finally, the Eye of Re/Horus is the female creative aspect of a male god, though shown in art as a separate being.
While kings were essentially masculine, as divine and creative beings, androgyny could be extended to them.37 This can be demonstrated in several ways. The king’s titulary (all kings were given a series of titles) included his two ladies name. A Middle Kingdom hymn to Senusret III described him as the goddess Sekhmet.38 The feminized shape of Akhenaten, as shown in art of the Amarna Period with pendulous breasts and wide hips, is sometimes considered to be a representation of disease or genetic disorder. Others have seen this as indicating androgyny39 – his self presentation as the ‘mother and father’ of his people. Certainly, the fact that not only Akhenaten, but also the rest of his court display the same feminized traits, suggests something other than a genetic disorder or disease. Androgyny presents the king as a divine creator, a role which Akhenaten particularly stressed, taking several epithets of the creator god.40 This androgynous trend in ideology of kingship is earlier evident under his father, Amenhotep III, who was also sometimes depicted in a feminine manner.41
Only one well-known creation myth, the Hermopolitan creation myth, suggests a more equally male and female creation. The earliest text of this dates to the Middle Kingdom and describes the uniform substance at the beginning of time (the Ogdoad), characterized by eight gods, four male and four female. In this text, neither male nor female is seen as pre-eminent.
So what is the role of the female god? Goddesses such as Hathor and Isis are sometimes considered ‘fertility goddesses’. However, they are not;42 rather, their role is to arouse the male god, to act as a vessel and to be a nurturing mother. Female goddesses rarely, in themselves, create and where they do, these are primeval goddesses and/or very often an aspect of a male god. The idea of an explicitly androgynous, but essentially female, goddess does not appear until the Eighteenth Dynasty and becomes particularly salient in the Late Period.
The creative power of the Eye of Re/Horus (the two could be interchanged), symbolized in the uraeus and the crown, and personified as the daughter of Re, includes goddesses such as Hathor, Mut and Sekhmet. The Eye as an agent of renewal, and thus creativity, as well as aggression, is apparent from the Old Kingdom.43 Its character becomes increasingly explicit, and may have encouraged the emergence of the androgynous female creator goddesses, which are apparent from the New Kingdom. Very often, these goddesses are shown with the head of a lioness, probably symbolizing their aggressive characteristics. To what extent they were considered separate entities, or a part of the male god, we shall never know, though they are depicted in art as individuals detached from the male god.
Female gods may easily be portrayed in art as androgynous by the addition of an erect and overlarge phallus, not only a symbol of the ability to procreate, but also a symbol of power.44 Examples include the ithyphallic goddess Mut from the Book of the Dead 164, dating from the Twenty-first Dynasty.45 At the Graeco-Roman Temple of Hibis, Mut is depicted as an ithyphallic lioness-headed goddess46 similar to an unnamed god/goddess in the temple of Khonsu at Karnak. Mut may at times be considered a primeval goddess, and is even given the name of Atemet – a primeval female version of Atum, the god who creates through masturbation. A text on the propylon of Khonsu at Karnak names her as ‘the Mother who does not have a mother’ and ‘the Mother who gave birth to her father’, that is, Mut is self-creating.47 The goddess Neith, another primeval goddess, is given androgynous characteristics from the New Kingdom onward and a Roman text at Esna describes her as two thirds male.48
Female rulers are given the attributes of essentially male kingship such as false beards (the beard is also false when worn by male kings) and kilts. But depictions of female queens, such as Sobekneferu or Hatshepsut, wearing male attire should certainly not be seen as evidence of transvestism or mythical androgyny. Female kings were rather taking on a male persona, given the essential masculinity of kingship.
Some have seen the pendulous breasts and stomach of the Nile deity Hapi as androgynous. This is not, however, a sexual androgyny, but more an aspect of fecundity; Hapi is portrayed as an overweight male, symbolizing the fruitfulness and plenty brought by the Nile.49 Likewise, there is debate over depictions of the usually male Bes-type deities, who occasionally seem to have breasts. Bes depictions with breasts are accepted as female for the Graeco-Roman Period, but Egyptologists dispute the belief that earlier depictions of Bes are female, preferring instead to see a fecundity aspect.50 However, at least two wooden figures with Bes faces are known from the Middle Kingdom,51 and these are clearly female, as shown by their slim waists, breasts and lack of phalli. There is no evidence to support the idea that these are women wearing male Bes masks. Why should such magical items show a person with a deity’s mask rather than the deity itself?
The idea that the Egyptians were prudish is suggested by the general lack of sexually explicit scenes in ‘high art’, that is, the art of the elite usually displayed in temples and tombs. However, sexually explicit scenes certainly do occur, and tales of penetrative sex are extant in elite literature. It seems unlikely that the Egyptians were any more embarrassed by sexual activity than other cultures.
The earliest known pharaonic Egyptian depiction of a couple engaged in sexual intercourse occurs in the tomb of Khety at Middle Kingdom Beni Hasan.52 Here, a hieroglyphic sign shows a couple on a bed, with the man lying atop the woman. Presumably, as this was a standard hieroglyph, we may assume that this scene was the way the ancient Egyptians imagined typical sexual intercourse. The position, with male on top, is referred to in the Coffin Texts (Spell 576). However, depictions on the Turin Erotic Papyrus, as well as on ostraca and graffiti, show less conventional poses.
While the depictions on tomb walls may be classed as idealized, and largely for religious purposes, there are ostraca from New Kingdom Deir el-Medina which appear more informal in execution. Those depicting sexual activity are explicit, not coded. Since it is likely that these were crafted by the men of the village, they presumably show the male viewpoint.
The several hundred ostraca from Deir el-Medina have been found in houses, chapels and tombs. Not all examples could be classed as erotic. Some borderline erotic scenes depict naked servant girls, musicians and dancers, but it is unclear if these had sexual meaning in the past. Others are more obviously satirical erotic pieces showing fat, old, bald men coupling with young women. The women are replete with erotic motifs such as heavy wigs and hip girdles, and invariably take a passive pose in couplings. Frequently, intercourse is depicted as penetration from behind, though whether anal or vaginal is unclear. Finally, some pieces simply show genital organs, or nursing mothers.
On some of these ostraca, as on other objects showing scenes of an erotic nature, such as a dish showing a semi-nude lute player, a monkey or an ape is depicted. It is also noticeable that on some ostraca the woman shown engaged in sexual intercourse may be shown with an ape-like muzzle.53 Such a depiction, but with both male and female shown with ape-like faces, is also evident on an inscription from Wadi Hammamat. Egyptologists generally agree that the ape or monkey is an erotic symbol. Elsewhere, apes and monkeys are displayed as though mimicking human behaviour such as at Amarna, where small limestone groups of monkeys are shown grooming their young, it is sometimes said, in satire of the royal family. Perhaps the depiction of women with ape-like muzzles is also satirical, indicating a bawdy sense of humour on the part of the Egyptians.
One may wonder quite why these ostraca were produced. Were they merely for entertainment or male fantasies? Or, were they produced with some magico-religious end in mind, or even given as votive offerings to gods and goddesses, especially since some were found in chapels? It is possible that different ostraca had different functions. Only one example includes a child adjacent to a coupling scene,54 which might suggest that these pieces were not produced with the aim of magically inducing fertility, but rather that the sexual act itself was important. Interestingly, many examples show little differentiation between the male and female,55 unlike formal art of the period. This enforces the idea that with this class of object, it was not social ideals, but the act of sexual intercourse, which was important.
The sexual acts depicted on the ostraca mirror those in the famous Turin Erotic Papyrus (Papyrus 5501), the only extant Egyptian papyrus showing explicit sexual activity. It is believed to have been painted in the Rameside period (1292–1075 BC) by a professional scribe.56 The fact that this work is on papyrus, and well drawn, suggests it was intended for an elite audience. The papyrus scroll, which is about 259 cm long, consists of several vignettes; some vignettes are of animals carrying out human tasks and some of people in sexual poses. The men have enlarged genitals and balding heads, they are unshaven, and generally appear unkempt and older than the women. The women are young, elegant and naked except for bracelets, necklaces, lotuses in their hair and girdles around their waists. Sexual poses are varied, and three of seven sexual scenes show coitus from the rear. In one, the male is standing holding the female while she has her legs around his neck. The women are not inactive, and in one vignette the woman appears to mock an exhausted lover, who has apparently fallen out of bed and is crawling away. She asks, ‘Am I doing anything wrong to you?’ One wonders if this reflects a male fear of female sexuality, ridiculing the dominant ideas of male superiority and sexual prowess. Certainly, the idea of the femme fatale discussed in Chapter 3 would suggest that the Egyptians had such a fear.
Most Egyptologists agree that neither the Turin Papyrus, nor the ostraca, had any sacred significance, though this option need not be entirely ruled out. It has been suggested that the Turin Papyrus, in particular, was a humorous satire on human behaviour. In some ways it is similar to the so-called ‘Satirical Papyrus’ in the British Museum, which shows animals engaged in the human activities normally shown on tomb paintings, such as a lion mummifying a corpse. And indeed, part of the Turin Papyrus shows animals engaged in human activities. However, any humour in the ostraca and Turin Papyrus need not necessarily be satirical, but may indicate that the Egyptians also understood the bawdy humour which can surround human sexual acts. This idea is also suggested in the story of Re’s laughter at witnessing Hathor expose herself, which will be explored later.
Many Egyptologists believe that eroticism is displayed in Egyptian ‘high’ art through coded imagery and word play.57 This hidden coding makes sexual imagery difficult to identify; indeed, one sometimes wonders if Egyptologists’ identifications of sexual interaction between couples are over-interpretations. Other Egyptologists disagree that there are encoded messages in Egyptian art.58
Certainly, gestures of affection between couples who appear lost in one another’s gaze, with the woman embracing, supporting or affectionately touching, do not necessarily have a purely erotic meaning. Such interaction may be alternatively interpreted as display of power relations. Kings are shown acting in such an affectionate manner toward gods,59 with the lesser partner embracing the more powerful.
The ‘coding’, at first glance, is as well hidden as the phalli of the male elite. In tombs and temples and upon papyri, the male elite are almost invariably shown with covered genitalia, though attention might be drawn to this area through strangely sticking out, voluminous kilts. Those males shown naked are usually field labourers, boatmen, or children, and all non-elite exposed males are shown with a flaccid penis.
Sexual activity by gods is only subtly hinted at, though there is one extraordinary instance of Geb auto-fellating, which appears on the Third Intermediate religious papyrus of the Chantress of Amun, Henuttawy60 (British Museum EA 10018). In temples and on coffins, representations of the reanimation of the phallus of the reborn Osiris, through the stimulation of his sister/wife, is depicted by a small bird hovering above the genital region of the god. While the phallus is frequently displayed, it is usually unnaturally large, and frequently testicles are not depicted, as with Egyptian art generally, a symbolic rather than lifelike representation. Moreover, depictions of ithyphallic gods are confined to the realm of the religious, where they would be seen by only a few, usually elite, males.
Several ancient Egyptian words use the phallus hieroglyph as the determinative (the glyph indicating the categorization of the preceding word), but the glyph for female genitalia is used infrequently. Perhaps decorum inhibited explicit reference to female sexuality.61 The erect phallus, however, was not simply a symbol of male sexuality, but also of power. Rather than suggesting a taboo on female sexuality, it is possible that the male member was considered particularly important. Perhaps it is hidden though suggested on depictions of male elite because it is powerful. In Egyptian art, gods are frequently hidden from view by a cloth or shrine.
In tombs and temples, women are often shown semi-naked. However, these are rarely elite women, but rather adolescent servant girls. Elite women are almost always clothed, though their bodies may be depicted in outline. Even the pregnant female form of the elite is underplayed, despite the fact that fertility was highly desirable. In Birth Houses connected to temples, buildings in which the conception and birth of kings is subtly indicated, the pregnant mother does not proudly display her rounded belly, but only sports a tiny bump. This clothed nature of elite women extends to deities. With the exception of Nut, the sky goddess, female deities are rarely shown naked. Even Hathor, goddess of love and sexuality, is depicted clothed. However, the clothing of elite women, the settings in which they are depicted, and the roles in which they are shown, frequently convey a coded eroticism.
In art, elite women, while clothed, are heavily sexualized. They wear diaphanous or gaping outfits or tight-fitting clothes, in contrast to the loose clothing in which men stride forth. In tight clothing the woman is forced to be passive, and in the case of both restrictive clothing, and diaphanous dresses, the shape of the female body is clearly suggested. However, clothing found in tombs suggests that the more common form of female Egyptian clothing was loose-fitting and opaque.62 Elite women may also be shown with the symbols of Hathor, particularly the menit-necklace, a symbol of her sexuality. The shape of the menit counterpoise arguably imitates and emphasised the female uterine form.
Women are usually shown as young and slender in ancient Egyptian imagery, but men can be shown as fat. It seems that, for the tomb, it was important for women to appear desirable and youthful, whereas for men, fat was perhaps associated with wealth. There are occasional exceptions. An old woman is depicted as thin with sagging breasts on an Eighth Dynasty false door from Busaris, although at the top of the door she conforms to the stereotype of the slender young woman, as we saw in Chapter 2.
Several activities have been decoded to imply sexual interaction between elites, including scenes of shooting arrows or pouring liquids. A queen pouring liquid into the hands of a king, as for example on the small golden shrine of Tutankhamun, suggests ejaculation; the word meaning ‘to pour’ is the same as the word meaning ‘to ejaculate’ (sti). The same word is used to describe the shooting of an arrow, as carried out by the king.
In Chapter 4, the marking of age by hairstyles was mentioned. Elite women may be shown wearing heavy wigs or have their hair dressed by servants.63 This is a symbol of status, as well as an erotic signifier. It is often assumed that in ancient Egypt, both men and women shaved their heads and wore wigs. However, at least at New Kingdom Deir el-Medina, both sexes had their own hair and women’s hair was long.64 At Deir el-Medina, only one tomb among several hundred contained a wig.65
In many cultures, hair is highly eroticised and the same seems to have been so for the ancient Egyptians.66 ‘Don your wig for a happy hour’ is a loose quotation from The Tale of Two Brothers (Papyrus D’Orbiney, British Museum EA 1018367). In the story, a woman accuses a man of seducing her, and claims he had asked her to put on her wig (or an alternative translation is ‘loosen braids’) so that they may spend time lying together. The motif of the heavy wig appears in scenes of an erotic or sexual nature, such as the Turin Erotic Papyrus, and widows cut a lock of their hair, perhaps symbolizing their loss of sexual activity. Naked adolescent girls may be depicted swimming while wearing heavy wigs. The fact that such wigs would be totally unsuitable swimming attire suggests they had a symbolic importance.
Servant girls, dancers and musicians are more explicitly sexualized. The association of sexuality and music was discussed in Chapter 5. Not only do servant girls and dancers wear heavy wigs, they may also be shown as naked or semi-naked save for a girdle or other jewellery. This girdle was only worn by males until the Twelfth Dynasty, but is later associated with women. Cowrie shell bead girdles are found in the tomb of queens of the Twelfth Dynasty,68 and it has been suggested that such shells were particularly popular because their shape mimicked female genitalia. The genre of the adolescent servant girl, often with hip girdle and heavy wig, makes an appearance in the Eighteenth Dynasty. The hip girdle appears on the women on the Turin Erotic Papyrus and upon dancers. Some girdles had metal pellets which would have rattled (seductively?) with movement, plausibly linking the sound with Hathorian sistra.69 All of this might suggest an erotic coding. However, the girdle is also worn by respectable noblewomen such as Senebtisi.70
In art, the lotus is associated with both the elite and the non-elite, while the mandrake, which is particularly evident from the Eighteenth Dynasty, is largely a plant associated with the elite. Both seem to have similar erotic associations. In the Old Kingdom, it is usually the woman who is associated with the lotus, though later men are shown holding the plant. By the Twenty-first Dynasty, while lotus flowers are only attested for women on statuary, on Twenty-first Dynasty coffins men may wear them.71 In the New Kingdom, mandrake fruit are shown being held and sniffed by women, and in love poems are compared to a woman’s breasts:
The mouth of my beloved is like a lotus bud
Her breasts like mandrake fruits . . .72
While one would assume that, as both men and women wore make-up, both sexes would have needed mirrors. Mirrors, however, were predominantly associated with women.73 They were included as funerary goods for men, but mirrors are rarely shown held by, or in front of, a man. Also, most mirrors were inscribed for women. Mirror dances are portrayed in tombs as being carried out by young women. It has been suggested that women may have been associated with mirrors because of the link between mirrors and Hathor.74 However, we cannot associate all things to do with women as sexual, and the link between women and mirrors may have been related to the more general link between women and grooming.
There are several depictions of women having their hair arranged, but none of men. While men and women both used eye make-up, there are no depictions of men applying make-up, but many of women doing so. This, together with the depiction of application of make-up in the Turin Erotic Papyrus, has led to the suggestion that make-up for women had sexual overtones.
The climbing or trailing plant usually identified as convolvulus appears to be associated with both women and fertility. It appears in the Turin Erotic Papyrus, and on depictions of women nursing young children on ‘Wochenlaube’ scenes. It is also shown on women’s coffins, such as on the Nineteenth Dynasty coffin of Iset, where it is held by the deceased (the coffin of Iset in Cairo Egyptian Museum JE 27309).75
Sexual coding also includes Bes, a deity, or rather group of deities, depicted as a dwarf with a leonine face and tail.76 In the past some Egyptologists have even associated Bes with prostitutes77 despite the fact that, as shown in Chapter 5, there is little evidence for prostitution in Pharaonic Egypt. While Bes may not necessarily have had erotic overtones, and the history of the group of deities shows various guises, usually Bes deities are protective and related to women and young children. In a limestone relief of c.2400 BC, a male figure is shown with a lion head in a register called ‘dancing with children’. In the Middle Kingdom, a leonine dwarf appears with the label Aha ‘the fighting deity’ on carved ‘magic wands’ used in childbirth. In the Eighteenth Dynasty and later he appears in amuletic form. These amulets were worn in life, mainly by women and children, but also appear in the tomb. He is shown on scenes of royal birth on the walls of temples, and is associated with bedroom furniture, appearing on beds, headrests, chairs, mirror handles and other cosmetic items. It is, however, not until later periods that the lion-maned dwarf god and his female counterpart are named as Bes and Beset.
In the New Kingdom, Bes is often shown connected with domestic buildings, such as at Deir el-Medina. In the houses he is painted on walls. Bes is also depicted as a tattoo, body paint or scarification (the medium is not certain despite the fact that these decorations are usually said to be tattoos) on the thighs of swimming girls and on reliefs depicting dancers, and musicians. Some Egyptologists have suggested that the Bes mark was only worn by dancers, but others78 have shown that this was not the case.
In 1891, two ancient Egyptian female mummies were uncovered from Middle Kingdom Deir el-Bahri; they bore tattoos of geometrically arranged dots and dashes. Their burial places were adjacent to those of a number of ladies who held the title ‘King’s Wife’ and thus, the tattooed ladies were considered to be members of the king’s harem. A few years later, another two female mummies were discovered in the same region. The decorations on the bodies bore striking resemblance to faience and wooden figurines of barely clothed women of the same period. Egyptologists noticed that from the New Kingdom on semi-clothed women were frequently depicted sporting depictions of the deity Bes, and suggested that these were tattoos, the marks of dancing girls – or even prostitutes.79 One might suggest that tattooing in Egypt was therefore associated with prostitutes and was erotically charged. Reality is a little more complex and as is often the case, ideas of the past are strongly coloured by modern preconceptions. In our own society the wearing of tattoos has been negatively associated with immorality and low social status and this preconception seems to have influenced an understanding of ancient Egyptian tattoos. In the late 1920s, for example, the conviction of a rapist was overturned because a small butterfly tattoo was found on the female victim. The tattoo was considered to have sexual implications and thus the woman was thought to have misled the man who raped her.80
Much confusion also arises from the conflation of New Kingdom depictions of Bes on dancers’ legs, with Middle Kingdom marks on the bodies of elite women and ‘fertility dolls’. All the evidence suggests that the only Egyptians in Dynastic Egypt to have tattoos were women, and that these women would be elite court ladies and priestesses of Hathor, perhaps decorated to ensure fertility, but not for the simple amusement of men. The origins and precise meaning of the tattoos remain unclear.
Much of the textual evidence for tattooing in Egypt comes from the Graeco-Roman Period, when it is clear that tattooing and branding were considered negative.81 Slaves were branded and tattooing was used as a punishment. Cultic tattooing, however, is also mentioned. Sextus Empiricus says that the majority of Egyptians were tattooed,82 and evidence suggests that both men and women were indeed tattooed in this period. However, the extent to which this took place was probably exaggerated by Classical writers to support their ideas of the ‘weird’ nature of the Egyptians. Evidence from bodies themselves suggests a less ubiquitous practice. Maspero’s excavations at Akhmim in Middle Egypt ‘yielded several female mummies of the Graeco-Roman period with tattoo marks on the chin and sides of the nose.’83 While the discolouration and partial decomposition of mummified bodies means that we would not expect evidence of tattooing on every mummy, one might expect a little more available evidence than merely the Akhmim bodies.
Prior to the Graeco-Roman Period, evidence for tattooing is largely archaeological. One of the few possible textual references comes from the Bremner-Rhind Papyrus (British Museum EA 10188). This papyrus is dated to the fourth century BC, but the archaizing language suggests an earlier prototype. The relevant phrase can be translated as ‘their name is inscribed into their arms as Isis and Nephthys . . .’ The problem is that this may represent scarification rather than tattooing, and like all textual evidence, may suggest an idea rather than a reality.
Firm evidence for tattooing must ideally come from the bodies themselves. As with the Graeco-Roman Period, the evidence does not suggest ubiquitous practice. In fact, only four mummified bodies are known, and these all from the Middle Kingdom, all from Deir el-Bahri, and all female.
Perhaps the most well known tattooed lady is that of the Eleventh Dynasty (c.2055–2004 BC) Priestess of Hathor, Amunet,84 discovered in 1891 in a tomb at Deir el-Bahri. Unfortunately, there appear to be no pictures of Amunet’s tattoos.85 The body often shown as Amunet in publications is actually that of her companion, an unknown lady from the same tomb who was also tattooed.
left: 1. The Gerza palette. (Drawing by the author)
below left: 2. King Menkaure in the centre with Hathor, right, and the nome deity Bat, left. (Egyptian Museum, Cairo)
below right: 3. Taweret, ‘The Great One’, in amulet form, perhaps used to protect women in childbirth. (Accession number PM19. Copyright Egypt Centre, Swansea University)
4. Pottery fertility figurines. (Accession numbers EC446 and EC447. Copyright Egypt Centre, Swansea University)
5. The chapel of the Divine Adoratrice Amenirdis I at Medinet Habu. (Photograph author’s own)
6. The God’s Wife of Amun, Shepenwepet I being suckled by Hathor at the Chapel of Heqa-Djet at Karnak. (Photograph author’s own)
7. Male priests (left) and the God’s Wife of Amun, possibly Neferure (right), engaged in rituals. From Hatshepsut’s Red Chapel at Karnak. (Photograph author’s own)
8. A male harper, male and female dancers and female sistra players. From Hatshepsut’s Red Chapel at Karnak. (Photograph author’s own)
9. Isis in the form of a bird hovers over the erect phallus of the recumbent Osiris. From the temple of Seti I at Abydos. (Photograph author’s own)
10. A graffito at Wadi Hammamat. Note the monkey-like faces of the couple. (Photograph author’s own)
left: 11. A scene from the Turin Erotic Papyrus. (Drawing by the author)
below left: 12. The deity Bes at Dendera. (Photograph author’s own)
below right: 13. The colossal statue of Meritamun (consort of Rameses II) at Akhmim. The queen wears the modius and double plume. (Photograph author’s own)
right: 14. Mentuhotep II embracing his wife Sadeh. (From XIth Dynasty Temple at Deir El-Bahari II by Edouard Naville 1910)
below: 15. The rock-cut temple built by Hatshepsut to Pakhet at Speos Artemidos. (Photograph author’s own)
16. Osirid statues of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahri. The queen is shown as Osiris, the ‘king of the dead’. (Photograph author’s own)
17. Cleopatra VII and her son Caesarion. She wears the sun disk with cow horns and her son, shown at smaller size, stands in front of her. From the back south wall of the temple at Dendera. (Photograph author’s own)
Amunet had tattoos on top of the abdomen, above thighs and breasts and on lower legs and arms in a geometrical pattern of dots and lines. Her titles ‘Sole Lady in Waiting, Priestess of Hathor’ showed that she was a high-status lady of the court. Although, the title ẖkr.t nsw w‘t.t had been translated in the past as ‘Sole Royal Ornament’, and connected with concubines, a better translation may be ‘Sole Lady in Waiting’.86 Ladies holding the title ‘Sole Lady in Waiting, Priestess of Hathor’ were often wives of important officials. The much published tattoos of Amunet’s companion were very similar to her own.
Amunet and her companion were buried close to the temple of King Mentuhotep Nebhepetre, in an area which seems to have been given over to other royal ladies, several of whom were priestesses of Hathor, and which are sometimes considered a harem. Even if these women were royal wives, we should not equate this with prostitution or low status. Indeed, there is even doubt that these ladies were married to the king.
Two other female mummies, again from the Eleventh Dynasty and from Deir el-Bahri, were found by Herbert E. Winlock in 1923 near the Mentuhotep temple. These bodies appear to exhibit scarification, as well as tattooing, and the pattern of designs is like that of Amunet with geometrically arranged dots and dashes.87 Winlock88 identified them as ‘dancing girls’, apparently as their tattoos were the same as the patterns on the faience figurines which he believed to be dancing girls. However, the titles of these women, if they had any, remain unknown and they were buried with few objects, though it is possible that they had been moved from a former grave. Winlock states that their graves had been robbed during the building of Hatshepsut’s Temple. Thus, their status is unclear.
It has been argued that elite women were not tattooed89 but the case of Amunet and her companion, and perhaps also of the two other Deir el-Bahri women, would suggest otherwise. Amunet’s title shows she was a court lady and she was buried near the king wearing bead collars and necklaces. Her companion in the same tomb, given its situation, appears also to be of high rank. As for the other two, the fact that they were buried on such an important site suggests that they may have been court ladies, and like many women buried here could have been priestesses of Hathor. Such women may have danced, though they are not shown doing so, and have no titles suggesting that they did so. They may or may not have been sexually intimate with the king, but they were certainly of high status.
It has been suggested on the basis of the actual skulls, and from iconographic depictions, that some of these women were black Nubians.90 While representation of skin colouring as black is now known to have religious overtones, associated with Osiris, and with fertility and rebirth, rather than depicting skin colour in life, the evidence from the shape of the skull is harder to dismiss. However, the skull identification was carried out some time ago and so was possibly not as accurate as might be expected today. One scholar91 identifies Amunet and the two tattooed ladies found later, as light-skinned, but another,92 suggests that the mummification process may have reduced the melanin in the skin. Interestingly, an archaeological study has shown93 that some of these women had extremely narrow pelvises, a trait associated with at least some ancient Egyptian women. A new examination by a modern physical anthropologist may help resolve the matter.
As well as these four tattooed bodies, a number of Middle Kingdom figurines have been found which not only have similar decorations, and possible Nubian origins, but are also sometimes considered concubines. These figurines fall into two main groups: faience fertility figurines, classified by the British Egyptologist Geraldine Pinch as type 1, and wooden ‘paddle dolls’. Both are Middle Kingdom. There are, of course, other types of fertility figurines, but it is these two types which most approximate to Middle Kingdom mummified bodies.
Pinch’s type 1 fertility figurines,94 faience ‘dolls’ decorated with geometric patterns strikingly similar to those on the mummified tattooed ladies, are discussed first. These figures date to the late Middle Kingdom–Second Intermediate Period and many are made of faience, stone, wood or ivory. Most are found in tombs, though one was found in a domestic context at Kahun.95 They are found in both male and female burials, as well as in votive deposits to Hathor, with the bands around their bodies being similar to the ‘Libyan bands’ worn by priestesses. While Pinch,96 the authority on these artefacts, is doubtful of accepting the idea of their Nubian origins, the connection does seem difficult to refute. While not identical, examples of Nubian pottery dolls of the same date do exhibit similar patterns, and like the Egyptian figures, are without feet. The similarity of design does suggest a cross-fertilization of ideas surrounding them, particularly as Nubia was at least partly under the control of Egypt at this time.
The decoration on the mummies, and also on the type 1 fertility figurines, bears some similarity to the decoration on paddle dolls, common in the Middle Kingdom.97 Such dolls, with emphasized pubic area and long hair, appear to symbolize the feminine erotic, and are usually considered fertility figures rather than children’s playthings. Interestingly, at least one of these paddle dolls sports a depiction of Taweret98 who, like Bes, is associated with women and childbirth. The two seem closely linked and Keimer99 illustrates an example of Taweret with a Bes face. We have seen that, in the New Kingdom, Bes was depicted on the thighs of some women. These paddle dolls are common in Upper Egypt and Nubia.
The geographical distribution of paddle dolls, the possible Nubian origins of the faience and pottery figurines, and the possible Nubian origins of the Mentuhotep Nebhepetre ladies have all been linked to evidence of a Nubian connection for tattooing. In each individual case, the evidence is not clear, with the paddle dolls being the most convincingly Nubian. It is probably going too far to claim that these dolls are somehow depictions of the tattooed ladies; the paddle dolls wear long hair, while our ladies are shown on their chapels with short hairstyles. However, perhaps together, the paddle dolls, faience dolls and Deir el-Bahri women, provide some support for a relationship between female body decoration and Nubian influence, at least in the Middle Kingdom.
In support of Nubian origins for our ladies, Nubian women were decorated with similar tattoos between the Sixth and Eighteenth Dynasties,100 that is, they were contemporary with the Deir el-Bahri ladies. C-group women (2000–1500 BC), in cemeteries near Kubban discovered in 1910, also had tattoos, like those of Amunet and the other three women. Moreover, the Nubian women were buried with pottery dolls exhibiting the same tattoos.101 Other C-Group tattooed women have also been found102 exhibiting similar dot and dash patterning. One expert103 states that all the tattoos found in Nubia are on females, but there is at least one instance of a tattooed male from the later period in Nubia.104 A Nubian connection may be accepted with caution.
An alternative suggestion is that the origins of Dynastic Egyptian tattooing may be sought in Egyptian prehistory. There are several depictions of female Predynastic figurines patterned as though tattooed.105 However, we do not know if this practice continued unbroken into Dynastic Egypt, or again if these patterns represent tattoos, body paint or scarification.
We may ask how the tattoos were executed. An early Dynastic flint flake set in a wooden handle, found at Abydos, was said by Petrie to be a tattooing instrument. Petrie writes, ‘The flint set in wood did not seem capable of bearing any strain, but it was explained by my friend Prof Giglioli as a tatuing [sic] instrument of usual form . . .’106 This suggests that Professor Giglioli had seen similar contemporary items. Another instrument, consisting of wide, flat needles found together, was uncovered from Eighteenth Dynasty Gurob. The latter is now deposited in the Petrie Museum.
Interestingly, tattooing seems to have either continued, or been revived, in more recent times in Egypt. At least one drawing of an Egyptian woman is known, as well as bone figurines, a lusterware dish and other artefacts of the Fatamid Period (AD 969–1171), apparently showing tattoos.107 Of course these could also indicate body paint.
Ethnographic evidence shows that, at times, tattooing may be associated with the elite, and at other times, subordinate groups.108 It is frequently practised as a means of healing and protection, and thus is not always intended as mere sexual ornament. For ancient Egypt, it is certainly evident that tattooing in the Middle Kingdom was associated with some high-status women. As to the meaning of the tattoos, all that can be said is that there is some suggestion that the body decorations are associated with fertility. The faience dolls and paddle dolls are very clearly fertility figures and these have designs which appear similar to the tattooed mummies. As for the later Bes body decorations, Bes, if not an erotic symbol, was associated with women in childbirth, and hence fertility and/or protection. This, of course, need not rule out a connection with eroticism, as the fertility and eroticism are difficult to untangle. What can be ruled out is the association of tattoos and low-status women. Additionally, the paucity of tattoos suggests it was not common practice.
The positioning of the tattoos on the abdomen and upper breasts and thighs of these mummified bodies, and also on the dolls, has suggested to some an erotic connection. However, some of the tattooing also occurred on the lower legs and arms; and besides, positioning near female genital areas may be associated with either fertility or protection. It is also possible that the tattoos may be marks of devotees to Hathor, given that these dolls are often given as votive offerings to Hathor, and that Amunet, and possibly the other mummified ladies, were Priestesses of Hathor.
By the New Kingdom, women are sometimes shown with depictions of Bes upon their thighs, often assumed to be tattoos. These appear in a different tradition to the geometrical designs of the Middle Kingdom, though the difference may be superficial. The Bes ‘tattoos’ are sometimes cited as supporting the link between tattoos and eroticism in ancient Egypt. However, this link is open to question for three main reasons. First, we do not know if these were tattoos, scarification, or body paint. The suggestion that these may have been tattoos is supported by the interpretation of a dotted design on a Nubian Meroitic female mummy from Aksha as a Bes figure.109 However, the Meroitic Period is equivalent to the Ptolemaic Period of Egypt, that is, it is much later than the Egyptian New Kingdom. Secondly, Bes was associated with women and childbirth, and had an apotropaic role, thus to assume a mere erotic role limits, or even twists, the nature of Bes. Thirdly, it is possible that all Egyptian women had depictions of Bes painted upon their thighs, though they are not shown on higher status women because such women were usually depicted clothed.
We need to consider the link between Bes and the erotic. Certainly Bes is sometimes shown on the thighs of women who are holding musical instruments, wearing hip girdles and sporting long flowing locks. The presence of a small monkey110 appears to enhance the erotic feel. The problem is to disentangle the erotic from the fertility aspects, which is probably largely impossible for an ancient society. It is very likely that such a distinction simply was not made in ancient Egypt.
The front rooms of houses at Deir el-Medina show scenes of almost nude nursing mothers, the so-called ‘Wochenlaube’ scenes. Similar motifs to those on the Wochenlaube scenes can also be found on more explicitly sexualized scenes, where, for example, make-up is being applied and hip girdles are worn, as on the Turin Erotic Papyrus. Within the front rooms, artefacts and paintings associated with childbirth and fertility were also found – depictions of Bes and Taweret. In addition there are also the so-called ‘lit clos’ (enclosed beds). There were also more conventionally domestic items such as mortars. Similar sexualized or fertility paintings occur in the front rooms of houses at Amarna.111 Such artefacts and paintings show that items associated with fertility or sexuality were not hidden, but rather celebrated, in the front rooms of houses.112 As stated in Chapter 5, the front room in New Kingdom houses tended to be for use of women and the middle, divan room, for men, though it seems likely that all rooms, especially in smaller houses, would be used by both sexes.
The ‘lit clos’ structures of Deir el-Medina were initially so christened by the French Egyptologist Bernard Bruyère,113 who considered them as day beds. At the time of Bruyère’s excavations, the ‘lit clos’ was, in France, a type of day bed used for short naps which took the form of a divan usually hidden by a cupboard when not in use. Ancient Egyptian ‘lit clos’ structures date to the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties. One house even contains two such structures. They consist of a brick elevated area approximately 1.7 m long, 80 cm wide and 75 cm high. Steps go up to them and some appear to have been enclosed by side walls. A number were decorated. The most common scene was that of Bes, but others show a woman at her toilette, a dancing girl, a person on a papyrus skiff in the marshes, and a possible scene of a nursing mother. One structure was found to contain a limestone headrest, part of a statue and a fragment of a female statuette.114 Similar items were found in other ‘lit clos’.
The purpose of these structures remains highly debatable. The ‘lit clos’ are unlikely to be casual sitting areas, as the Deir el-Medina houses had sitting areas in the central room of the house. One suggestion is that these were used for ritual intercourse, with the motifs intended to be erotic. However the enclosing walls and restricted area would seem to inhibit such activity. Alternatively, based upon the motifs therein, they may have been places for childbirth. However, use as a birthing area seems unlikely given the evidence for women giving birth squatting and the fact that ‘lit clos’ are enclosed might have caused problems for midwives. Similar, though not identical, structures were found at Amarna, and it was suggested by some that these were household altars. Some115 see the Amarna structures, like those at Deir el-Medina, as functioning to celebrate successful childbirth.116
Alternatively, given their size and motifs, these elevated areas may have functioned as a safe place for babies or toddlers, while mothers were engaged in work around the house. The motifs would then be a celebration of childbirth and have an apotropaic function. This would not preclude ‘lit clos’ from also being used as storage areas.
As we have seen, display of sexuality also appears common in tombs and temples. Ostraca showing sexual activity are apparent in chapels and houses. That sexuality, including scenes of semi-nude women, was not tabooed, but rather considered part of everyday life to be celebrated in front rooms, does not mean that all sexual acts were considered acceptable. Extra-marital sex seems to have largely been frowned upon.117 In Victorian society, depictions of nude women in classical poses were on display in houses, while Victorian women themselves retained a modest dress code. We need not assume that sexuality was totally embedded in Pharaonic culture, anymore than in Victorian society. What we can say is that it is apparent that sexuality was important, both in the everyday, and in the reanimating environment of the tomb and temple.
In different cultures, different parts of the body may be considered erotic. We may assume that the young women illustrated by men in Egyptian tomb paintings and temples depicted sexually desirable women. We might also assume that the desirable women of Egyptian love songs and tales had some relation to male fantasy. Of course, in both cases, men are those who are executing the art, and so we have problems in deciphering what Egyptian women may have found sexually attractive in their men.
Egyptian ideas of sexual beauty for men and women varied over time. In the New Kingdom, the ideal of the adolescent girl appears, and at times such figures seem almost androgynous. In the Amarna Period, older women are also occasionally celebrated and in the Third Intermediate Period, women are depicted as almost voluptuous.118 The Middle Kingdom Papyrus Westcar119 gives a male fantasy of the female form. Pharaoh asks to go sailing ‘with twenty women with the shapeliest of bodies, breasts and braids, who have not yet given birth. Also let there be brought to me twenty nets and give these nets to these women in place of their clothes’. Generally, the feminine ideal is shown two-dimensionally by slim, usually long-haired, youthful beauties. Smooth skin is clearly desirable in ancient Egyptian love poetry and it has been suggested120 that hairless bodies were the ideal.
The fact that elite, mourning women are sometimes shown with revealed breasts, and in other contexts both goddesses and human women are shown with one breast revealed, suggests that breasts were not highly sexualized. The pubic area of elite women, while often suggested, is not usually explicitly shown. The hiding of this area might suggest that, for the Egyptians, this was taboo and hidden from view. The problem is, of course, that it is quite difficult to tell what was hidden and what was not in everyday life, and if the hidden was necessarily the sexualized.
Women’s sexual needs are apparently ignored in tomb paintings, and even in love poetry, so it is difficult to know what an ancient Egyptian woman would have found desirable in her man. This is particularly problematic as art and literature were created by men, and so at best, only describe what Egyptian men may have thought women desired. Funerary and temple images of men are largely made by, and often for, a male audience, though one may argue that these too are sexualized.121 These often show muscular men in the prime of life with naked V-shaped torsos, or occasionally, and especially in the Old Kingdom, older men with some body fat. Muscular males are described122 as inducing a woman’s desire in the Tale of Two Brothers. Further clues to male imagining of women’s desires are to be found in love poems, such as: ‘He grants me the hue of his loins. It is longer than it is broad’.123
‘Love poems’ are often cited in evidence for sexuality. Most were found at Deir el-Medina, and date to the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties. Hence, these were only short-lived phenomena and may be atypical of usual Egyptian ideas of love. Although usually taken at face value and considered ‘secular’,124 as with other areas connected with sexuality, there is a strong case for considering them religious.
Mystic love poetry abounds across cultures. Examples include the Song of Solomon in the Judeo-Christian tradition, or the love poems of the Islamic mystic Rabiya al-Adawiyya. Papyrus Harris 500 includes several love songs along with the Song of the Harper. Usually harper’s songs are written on tomb walls, a place where one would expect to find religious texts.125 Against the idea of the religiosity of these poems, deities are only rarely mentioned.
Since it seems likely that these poems would have been written by men, it is difficult to know if they truly reflect female sexuality or are a male fantasy. The women are portrayed as beautiful, exotic and intoxicating figures of desire. While they are obtainable, they appear with no personality and are, in some ways, the archetypal male fantasy. There is no mention of the femme fatale stereotype which appears elsewhere in Egyptian literature, or of the sexually active powerful male. It has been pointed out126 that the women are not portrayed as passive, but as active in seeking out and ‘catching’ their lovers, while the males are the passive partners; ‘the boys in the Egyptian Paraclausithyra just pout’.127 This contrast with the dominant discourse does not appear to be considered in a negative light.
There is little direct mention of genitalia, but the songs are steeped in desire, and describe the sexual act without dwelling on detail. There is mention of naked or semi-naked limbs clothed in diaphanous garments:
Just for you I’d wear my Memphis swimsuit,
made of sheer linen, fit for a queen–
Come see how it looks in the water!128
Flowers, fruit and scent are portrayed as intoxicants. The settings are gardens and water:
When I hold my love close
(and her arms steal around me),
I’m like a man translated to Punt
Or like someone out in the reedflats
When the whole world suddenly bursts into flower.
In this dreamland of South Sea fragrances,
My love, you are essence of roses.129
It appears that 70 per cent of lovers’ trysts described in the poems take place near the house of the woman.130 Her house is metaphorically her body and entry to the house is metaphorically possession thereof. It has been suggested that the sequence of events described in the poems mirrors the real-life courtship process. The man makes a request to the girl’s mother. The girl is then his wife, but stays for a time in her own home. She then enters the house of her mother-in-law. These poems show no sanctions on sex before marriage. However, anthropological studies clearly show that often the reality of social life may be very different from ideals expressed in other spheres.
The means to existence in the afterlife and conceptions of life after death were largely male centred. This is not surprising in a society where life and the afterlife revolved around the king, intrinsically and essentially male. Additionally, the afterlife mirrored human reproduction, which was again, for the Egyptians, essentially male. Women, whether wives, daughters, sisters or mothers, are apparent in men’s tombs to enable the deceased male to regenerate through sexual activity, thereby mirroring the activity of the gods. How, then, did the female ensure an afterlife? While concessions were certainly made to femininity, for most of Egyptian history the process of rebirth and existence in the afterlife was essentially male. Women, in order to achieve the afterlife needed an extra transformational step that required attaining gender fluidity.131 Women needed first to identify with the male Osiris and then regender themselves.132
The woman has an importance in the tomb of the male beyond being her own means of achieving an afterlife existence through association. The woman’s role is important as the man metaphorically impregnates her with himself as ‘bull of his mother’. This need not be the wife, but at times may be the mother or even the daughter.
Ideas concerning the part played by the wife in the tomb vary from period to period. In the Early Dynastic Period, spouses did not appear in the tombs of their partners, and children were not depicted.133 By the Fourth Dynasty, however, in the private tombs of Meidum, an emphasis on the family appears, perhaps related to the emergent sun cult. Such cults stressed fertility and sexual reproduction. However, by the end of the Fifth Dynasty, wives begin to be omitted from their husbands’ tombs,134 a situation preceded by a marked decline in illustrations of affectionate gestures from wives toward husbands. By the Sixth Dynasty, wives reappear in tombs, but are omitted from Theban tombs of late Eleventh to early Twelfth Dynasties even though in several cases it is clear that the tomb owner was married. In the New Kingdom, there are several tombs of men where women are omitted. Perhaps such men served powerful women and it would be considered unseemly to mention the name of one’s wife. It should also be noted that in several tombs where wives are omitted, the mother is shown as important.
It is difficult to know if sexualized tomb paintings were created to provide the means of rebirth,135 or as a means of ensuring that sexual activity continued in the afterlife.136 Some Egyptian inscriptions state that apotheosis replaces lovemaking in the afterlife; elsewhere it seems that it was intended that sexual activity continue. However, it is clear that human reproduction, divine creation and attaining an afterlife existence were very much paralleled.137 The term for divine creation was the same as that for birth (msi). Just as Atum created life through sexual activity, so rebirth required sexual activity. The cyclical birth of Re-Atum from the vulva of Nut and its parallel with human rebirth was discussed above. It must also be noted that human rebirth and creation were paralleled in the act of creating a cult statue, particularly within the Memphite creation myth of Ptah.
Several implements connected with the rebirth of the deceased parallel implements used in childbirth. The psš-kf and nṯrwy blades are both stone instruments used in the ‘Opening of the Mouth’ ceremony, a ritual used to ensure the rebirth of the deceased. It is also a ceremony carried out on cult statues to ensure that they function as a dwelling place for deities. Both the psš-kf and nṯrwy blades have parallels in artefacts used shortly after the birth of infants, with the psš-kf knife being used in childbirth to cut the umbilical cord.138 The nṯrwy blades mirror the little fingers used by the midwife to clear the mouth of the newborn. In the ‘Opening of the Mouth’ ceremony, two jars were presented, one full and one empty and were called the breasts of Horus and Isis (Pyramid Texts 41 and 42). Hard and soft food was also offered, perhaps mirroring weaning.139
Other childbirth instruments are used in funerary ritual. Apotropaic wands appear to have been used primarily to protect living children, though several have been found in tombs. On the rear of wall of the Eighteenth Dynasty tomb relief of Bebi at Elkab, two figures called ḫnmt (khenmet meaning ‘nurse’) raise an amuletic knife, while others hold knife and serpent staffs.140 The four magic bricks placed in tombs from the New Kingdom parallel the bricks upon which women squat when giving birth.141 On scenes of the weighing of the heart depicted in the New Kingdom, wherein the deceased heart is weighed against the feather of truth to ascertain their suitability for the afterlife, a birth brick is also depicted. Containers apparently meant for milk for the newborn have also been found in tombs of adults.
Rebirth images also make use of Hathorian images of motherhood. In the Old Kingdom, images of cattle ‘coming forth’ from the marshes were popular. These include references to the mother cow and to the feeding of calves. Such scenes herald the later motif of the Hathor cow in the papyrus thicket, and Hathor coming out of the western mountain at Thebes. The later scenes of Hathor coming out of the hillside at western Thebes at times make the rebirth concept explicit by the inclusion of Taweret, a goddess of women in childbirth and protector of young children.
Other evidence suggests that the reason for sexual images in tombs was to ensure sexual activity in the afterlife. Because of the importance of afterlife sexual activity, enemies of the deceased were to be rendered impotent. In some renditions of Spell 39 of the Book of the Dead, the arch enemy of order, Apophis, will be made impotent: ‘You shall not become erect, you shall not copulate, O Apophis . . .’142 Temple scenes show that the enemies of Egypt had their phalli removed. While this was an effective means of counting dead enemies, it was also a means of ensuring that these individuals could not achieve an afterlife.
Whether sexualized elements of funerary artefacts are intended as a means of rebirth, or of providing a sexualized afterlife, the archaeology surrounding funerary monuments makes it clear that the sexual needs of the male, not the female, are paramount. Or at least, it is not that women’s sexual needs are ignored, but rather that the woman needs to become a man with male sexual needs in order to achieve the afterlife.
In the New Kingdom, both the male and female were, like Osiris, fragmented before being reborn.143 By the Dynastic Period, this did not take the form of actual dismemberment, but rather is implied by the mummiform coffin, mirroring the mummified Osiris, a male. Anthropoid coffins are, in the large part, male, though some concession to femininity may be made by showing stylized breasts. However, the reborn person is often shown gendered on inner mummy boards, as an akh, a transfigured one, one who has been dismembered and then reborn complete. Similarly, on the exterior sides of later coffins, the reborn deceased is clearly gendered. The Egyptians obviously believed in the revival of the self in some form after death, and so, transfigured deceased females retained their female forms, and deceased males retained their masculinity. The deceased needs to become male Osiris to reach the afterlife, but once the journey is complete, a woman may become fully feminine again. But, who acted as the female vessel in the tombs of women?144 The answer must be the woman herself. She was her own husband, wife and mother.
Shabtis (servant figurines or substitutes for the deceased) are largely male and like Osiris, are shown mummiform. Very occasionally, female shabtis have breasts, but otherwise they are masculine. One female shabti of the Eighteenth Dynasty145 has a masculine, red skin colour, not the typical yellow skin colour of women. Additionally, even the text on the shabti may use the male pronoun.
From the Eighteenth Dynasty on, penises in the form of amulets provided for procreation after death.146 These amulets were provided for both women and men. Similarly, fertility figurines, once considered concubines for the dead, have sometimes also been seen as a means of stimulating the male. However, these are also found in the tombs of women, though their function is much debated.
Royal Rameside women were given a gender fluidity to achieve the afterlife through being described in male terms.147 Women of this period are given a red-brown skin colour usually reserved for men and images of kings are missing from the tombs of women, presumably to protect the woman’s association with Osiris and Re. This role would otherwise be usurped by the superior position of the king, who would be more appropriately identified with these gods. Additionally, if king and queen were shown together, the queen would need to be shown in a secondary, feminine role and would not be able to take on identification with Osiris and Re.
Often coffins, shabtis and scarabs appear to use male and female pronouns on the same artefact. On several coffins of the Third Intermediate Period, which belong to women, the deceased is depicted in male dress. Some have said that this shows that such high quality items were mass produced and simply altered slightly to suit the gender of the deceased. However, it has been suggested148 that, for women, this could actually be a deliberate act of gender ambiguity; women wished to show their connection with Osiris and Re to achieve the afterlife, but also keep their own gender once in the afterlife. During the transformation in the afterlife Hall of Truth, one woman is given a masculine pronoun, but elsewhere the feminine pronoun is used. In other funerary items, however, the division between male and female does not so easily divide between transformation to reach the afterlife and existence in the afterlife. Certainly, by the Third Intermediate Period, transformation scenes on coffins may show the deceased as a female, while at the same date, one coffin may show the deceased as alternately male and female. There is no clear pattern; at this period, the lids of coffins often show an androgynous Osirian form.
Some have suggested an increasingly gendered afterlife for women during the Graeco-Roman Period149 citing a female mummy of the Period with both false nipples and a linen penis. It is possible that this shows an attempt to ensure a masculine form for Osirian transformation and femininity for afterlife existence. It may alternatively be a case of later rewrapping of the mummy by priests unsure of the gender of the deceased. Generally, from the fourth century BC on, there appears to be a change in outlook which meant that the deceased female came to be associated with the goddess Hathor. Thus, the reborn female is called ‘The Hathor N’.150 As stated above, it is during this period that the woman is credited with more of a role in forming the child, and at this time too, more burial equipment is made for women rather than being subsumed in male burials.
Coded erotic scenes are common in the reanimating environment of temple and tomb. In various cultures, areas of the body which are considered erotic are hidden, possibly relating to the power thereof. Additionally, for the ancient Egyptians, that which was considered sacred and powerful, such as an image of a god, was hidden, and as stated above, this may explain hidden elite phalli. The power of female sexuality could be dangerous if not controlled.
This idea might in part explain the strange story of Hathor exposing herself before her father. In the Contendings of Horus and Seth,151 written down in Rameside times, the sun-god Re-Horakhty presides over a contest between Horus and Seth. However, the god is weary and the contest founders. Hathor exposes her genitals before her father, and the sun-god laughs and is revived. One theory152 as to why this act would have been found funny suggests that it could in part be due to the incongruity of a goddess exposing her genitals, that is, the shock of such a bawdy act elicits laughter. In this story, the revival of the male causes the continuation of proceedings, but Hathor acts as the stimulus.
There is also a later Egyptian practice of women exposing themselves before the Apis bull, and Graeco-Roman depictions of Isis exposing herself. The Greek historian, Herodotus, states that other festivals (he notes the festival of Bubastis) also include women acting in this manner. A steatite bowl dating to 525–500 BC shows a procession to a temple of Hathor, including animals to be sacrificed, several female musicians, and a woman apparently slapping her bottom in time to the music while displaying her genitals. This woman could be mirroring Hathor as ‘Lady of the Dance’, or ‘Lady of the Vulva’.
This exposure of that normally hidden may also reflect the idea that female sexuality was a powerful tool, not normally flaunted, at least in ‘polite society’, but nevertheless utilized where creation and rebirth were desired. Sexuality could be a bawdy act, but was also a sacrament. Mirroring Hathor, the Egyptian woman may have played a supporting role, but without her, creation was impossible.
