Seen at the British Museum in London

Hieroglyphs and the written record

SEX and HUMOUR

Many aspects of Egyptian culture are not often described in surviving writings. Much remained unwritten and the differences between modern and ancient ideas of what could be written or represented are clear.

Explicitly sexual motifs had a limited role in formal art and literature, apart from coded images or metaphors. But direct representations and refrences to the gods' sexual acts and virility did occur in sacred contexts. Sex between humans, however, was only represented on less formal objects, such as skethces on flakes of limestone. Funerary and religious offerings to do with sexuality are often uninscribed and so can be difficult to interpet; for example, fertility figurines in tombs have often been wrongly assumed to be children's toys.

Similarly, humour was not prominent in official records.

I apologise for the fuzzy quality of these photos from the Museum (you can click on them to enlarge). But anyway, if humour was not prominent, and the Egyptian who drew the picture on the right was not a comedian, I would have loved to have met the very talented young man depicted here.











If you can't quite make out the fuzzy image, the guy is giving himself a blow job! So serious question to my male readers, is this for real???

After seeing this erotic display and a few others, I decided to purchase a small book at the museum. Keep in mind, my trip to London was alone (no husband). I kinda forgot about the book stashed in my suitcase, and when we returned back from the trip to Australia my husband noticed it among all the other junk I had bought on this long vacation. He picked it up and opened it on one of the well-endowed erotic depictions. His reaction was, "Holy crap! The guy's got some serious talent." I grabbed the book from his hands, and said, "Oh, I just got this for the articles."

So here are some articles from the very informative book (click on the images to enlarge, not that I think that's necessary with the first one on the left...):

So I have a couple of questions about the second article (the one on the right):

1. The conical hat - is it really necessary???

2. "Contemporary written sources include erotic poems indicating a specific connection between the consumption of alcohol and sexual activity" - Would anyone happen to know how to say in ancient Egyptian - "DUH!" ?