Exploring Gay Culture in Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egyptian Perspectives on Same-Sex Relationships

Evidence of what is now defined as LGBTQ relationships goes back to over 4,000 years of recorded history toancientEgypt and Mesopotamia but was not regarded as anything special since, generally speaking,gay relationships and those now known as transgenders were not seen as anything very remarkable. Same-sex relationships were simply relationships and nothing more.

The issue of homosexuality inancientEgypt has been studied for less than a century. Both the attitude towards, and the methodology regarding, this issue changed constantly over time. The author presents a critical review of the literature, together with some original interpretations. The most important sources, which are relatively not numerous and often ambiguous, are described.

According to common interpretations of the Torah, Leviticus 18⁚3 alludes to the practice thatAncientEgypt permitted two women or two men to marry each other. The best known case of possible homosexuality inAncientEgypt is that of the two high officials Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum. Both men lived and served under Pharaoh Nyuserre Ini during ...

Egyptian Hieroglyphs⁚ The Language of the Gods;Ancient tomb of a royal messenger reveals visions of theancient Egyptian afterlife; A Picture That Has Created a Thousand Words of Debate. At present, the strongest argument for homosexuality inancientEgypt comes from two images from the Old Kingdom tomb of Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep in Saqqara.

TheGay King ofEgypt Pepi II. Same-sex relationships do not receive a great deal of attention in the works ofancientEgypt, possibly because they were not considered anything worth remarking on. As in China or Greece, what two consenting adults wanted to do in a romantic relationship, whether same-sex or opposite-sex, was their business only.

To celebrate LGBT History Month, the UCL Petrie Museum created an LGBT History Trail of objects that tell of homosexuality inancientEgypt. It also considered some of the mythology and stories that constructancient Egyptian sexuality. John Johnston, who is pursuing a PhD in UCL Archaeology, describes a few of the objects on display. Along ...

Additional written evidence of same-sex attraction exists within the New Kingdom period ofancientEgypt (1292-1069 BCE). These records describe sexual relations between pharaoh Neferkare and his general Sisene (Meskell 2001 ). Similar conclusions have been made from theancient Greek writings of Sappho, who described romantic relations ...

The best known case of possible homosexuality inancientEgypt is that of the two high officials Nyankh-Khnum and Khnum-hotep. Both men lived and served under pharaoh Niuserre during the 5th Dynasty ( c. 2494 -2345 BC). 1 Nyankh-Khnum and Khnum-hotep each had families of their own with children and wives, but when they died their families ...

The Bible, Christianity, amp; Homosexuality. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2008. Crompton, L. Homosexuality and Civilization. Belknap Press⁚ An Imprint of Harvard University Press, 2006. Homosexuality in theAncient Near East by Bruce L. Gerig, accessed 24 Jun 2021. Kriwaczek, P. Babylon⁚ Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization. St.

Evidence from Tombs

In 1964, archaeologists in Egypt opened the tomb of Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep, two men who lived and died sometime around the year 2380 BCE. Inside, they would discover what might be the oldest evidence of queer lives in existence.

In the tomb, the two were depicted in many of the stereotypical ways that heterosexual couples were shown in Egyptian funereal art⁚ kissing nose-to-nose, holding hands, and standing very closely together, almost in an embrace. Their wives (and children) are also depicted in the tombs, though curiously, there are no paintings of either man embracing or kissing their wife.

If a man and a woman were depicted in this way, they would obviously be interpreted as a couple. And so, faced with all this evidence, archaeologists leapt to the conclusion that Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep were... brothers really, really close brothers. Possibly even conjoined twins (not that they are depicted as conjoined in the tomb at all in fact, they are often depicted separately).

Jacklyn Lacey, who specializes in African Ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History, is unsurprised about these interpretations. I can almost hear her eyes roll over the phone as she talks about the long history within the field of archaeology a discipline that has reproduced itself through the colonialist white male lens, she says of explaining away things that appear queer.

The Case of Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep

What is definitely known about Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep? They worked as chief manicurists to the Pharaoh in the fifth dynasty of the Old Kingdom. This might sound like the set-up for a terrible gay remake of Bill Teds Excellent Adventure , but at the time, grooming the Pharoah was revered labor. Though they werent themselves nobility, it is clear from their tomb that the two men were of high status. And, curiously enough, they were of equal status, being depicted in complimentary activities without either being shown as smaller, lesser, or subservient to the other.

According to author Wael Fathi , this is far from the only allusion to queerness in Ancient Egyptian culture. For other examples, he cites the Egyptian Book of the Dead , written in 970 BCE (not to be confused with the Tibetan Book of the Dead , written sometime in the 8th century CE). Its female author writes, I never had sex with a woman in the temple. Who knew so much suggestion could be packed into the phrase in the temple. There are also numerous allusions to same-sex sexual activity and gender bending among the tales of Egyptian gods . And in the Book of Dreams (circa 1200 BCE), different fates are laid out for the woman who has sex with a married woman versus the one who has sex with a single woman.

Interpretations and Misinterpretations

Still and all, it would be historically inaccurate to talk about gay Ancient Egyptians, Lacey hastens to clarify, for two reasons. First, were dealing with small amounts of evidence, which makes it hard to interpret what, exactly, were seeing. Its not strictly impossible that Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep could have been especially close brothers, or even twins. As for the Book of the Dead, prominent men (and occasional women) paid to have versions written out specifically for them, and some have suggested that this particular version miscopied a line meant for a man into a text for a woman. Second, even when we do correctly identify a practice say, of women having sex with one another outside of the temple that doesnt mean that that physical activity is correlated with the same kind of identity we know today as lesbianism. (For this reason, I prefer to use the word queer, as a way of gesturing towards a sexual or emotional practice that was unusual no such other tombs of two men or two women have been yet identified and outside the bounds of heterosexuality.)

Beyond the Tombs⁚ Exploring Other Sources

Egyptian history is, in some ways, particularly prone to these problems of misinterpretation, because starting in the late 19th and early 20th century, the country is basically excised out of the continent and moved into the Levant by Westerners, according to Lacey.

The Book of the Dead

Over and over again, historians and archaeologists have contrasted Egyptians with Greeks and Romans, and have seen Egyptian practices through what we know from those cultures, rather than putting them in conversation with other African empires even though, for example, we know that the 25th Dynasty of Egypt (aka the Kushite Empire) was actually a series of five Nubian rulers, who came from Northern Sudan. Lacey tells me that there is a persistent rumor among scholars who study Nubia that there were entirely homosexual groups of men living in the kingdom of Kush, though no one has ever isolated the source of those rumors, or proven or disproven them. Perhaps thats because only a tiny fraction of the time, money, and effort thats been spent on archaeology and ethnography in Egypt and the Mediterranean has ever been spent on other parts of Africa.

Tales of Egyptian Gods

In fact, when the African Peoples hall opened at the American Museum of Natural History in 1960, it was the first major permanent museum exhibition to include Egypt with the rest of Africa. To this day, Lacey points out, this is a problem in most museums. The Met has a Department of Africa, The Americas, and Oceania , she says, essentially combining four continents, but it also has a department of Egyptology . And at the Brooklyn Museum, they have a collection of Egyptian, Classical, and Ancient Near Eastern Art , which mixes Egyptian, Middle Eastern, and Ancient Greek and Roman artifacts.

Queer Egyptian history is thus caught in a double bind⁚ it is rarely seen as queer, and rarely seen as African. Perhaps today, at a time when we are finally willing to accept an Afrofuturist fictive African empire that has nothing to do with the West, as audiences did with the record-breaking film Black Panther this weekend, we can extend our imaginations backwards and begin to imagine a past that sees Africa as an entire continent one in conversation with Mediterranean cultures, but not the same as them.

The Book of Dreams

Hugh Ryan is the author of the forthcoming book When Brooklyn Was Queer (St. Martins Press, March 2019), and co-curator of the upcoming exhibition On the (Queer) Waterfront at the Brooklyn Historical Society. 2024 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Them may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices By Egyptian Streets. A pa [...] [...] [end of information from the Internet]

The Limits of Interpretation

Egyptian history is, in some ways, particularly prone to these problems of misinterpretation, because starting in the late 19th and early 20th century, the country is basically excised out of the continent and moved into the Levant by Westerners, according to Lacey.

The Challenges of Limited Evidence

Over and over again, historians and archaeologists have contrasted Egyptians with Greeks and Romans, and have seen Egyptian practices through what we know from those cultures, rather than putting them in conversation with other African empires even though, for example, we know that the 25th Dynasty of Egypt (aka the Kushite Empire) was actually a series of five Nubian rulers, who came from Northern Sudan. Lacey tells me that there is a persistent rumor among scholars who study Nubia that there were entirely homosexual groups of men living in the kingdom of Kush, though no one has ever isolated the source of those rumors, or proven or disproven them. Perhaps thats because only a tiny fraction of the time, money, and effort thats been spent on archaeology and ethnography in Egypt and the Mediterranean has ever been spent on other parts of Africa.

The Importance of Context

In fact, when the African Peoples hall opened at the American Museum of Natural History in 1960, it was the first major permanent museum exhibition to include Egypt with the rest of Africa. To this day, Lacey points out, this is a problem in most museums. The Met has a Department of Africa, The Americas, and Oceania , she says, essentially combining four continents, but it also has a department of Egyptology . And at the Brooklyn Museum, they have a collection of Egyptian, Classical, and Ancient Near Eastern Art , which mixes Egyptian, Middle Eastern, and Ancient Greek and Roman artifacts.

Queer Egyptian history is thus caught in a double bind⁚ it is rarely seen as queer, and rarely seen as African. Perhaps today, at a time when we are finally willing to accept an Afrofuturist fictive African empire that has nothing to do with the West, as audiences did with the record-breaking film Black Panther this weekend, we can extend our imaginations backwards and begin to imagine a past that sees Africa as an entire continent one in conversation with Mediterranean cultures, but not the same as them.

The Difficulty of Applying Modern Identities

Hugh Ryan is the author of the forthcoming book When Brooklyn Was Queer (St. Martins Press, March 2019), and co-curator of the upcoming exhibition On the (Queer) Waterfront at the Brooklyn Historical Society. 2024 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Them may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices By Egyptian Streets. A pa [...] [...] [end of information from the Internet]

Tags: Egypt,

Similar posts: