the subject of this program is sexuality.it contains explicit images and content meant for a mature audience. viewer discretion isadvised. 19th century egypt, near the valley of thekings. an extraordinary discoveries made. contained within a fragile part are some ofthe most graphic images from the ancient world. it would become known as the turin eroticpapyrus and would be one of the most controversial
sex with a women, artifact ever found from the ancient world. its prolonged pornography really. even bytoday's standards, the images on the 3000 year old papyrus are explicit. __ i thinkyou have to be looking at one of the most shocking sets of images from the whole ofantiquity.
how does this one discovery change our perceptionof ancient egypt. the egyptians we tend think of being muchmore bottoms up and repressed but actually that's completely wrong. what intimate messages are hidden among allthe symbols and codes and clues. egypt is the untold story of the ancient world.if we can decode the sexual morales, the customs the morales, the lures of ancient egypt, wecan understand for the first time what was really happening between these sheets in ancientegypt. turin, italy. among the collection artifactsin the egyptian museum, the largest in the world outside cairo, one item stands out.papyrus 55001 more commonly knows as the turin
erotic papyrus. its the very explicit sexual document fromancient egypt. its very rary ____ cause there aren't all that many of that kind. depicted within its fragments are images of12 ordinary men and women in explicit sexual positions. for centuries, it was kept outof public view. it was locked away in libraries and you hadto go and register to look at it and have a very good reason looking at it and thenit was only men so in victorian times when it was published women will have no go reason to look at somethingconspicuous this turin papyrus. the controversy that has always followed theturin erotic papyrus has created a mystery.
even today, we don't know its true meaning. does it portray the sex life of the gods andprovide a coded message to the afterlife. is it part of an elaborate and mystical, ritual,conceptual or is it simply a relic of everyday erotica - an ancient pornographic magazine. now for the first time on television, we willdecode this ancient puzzle. by deciphering its images and symbols, we will discover itstrue meaning and gain a more intimate view of the sexual lives of ancient egyptian. by looking at the dates we have the ancientegyptian sexuality, we get a sense of the people as they actually were, with the sameissues, the same emotion, the same desires
as us. and i think that view of them is muchmore interesting that just seeing them as strange exotic figures,dominated by mummies,myths, magic and pyramids. for centuries, the sex lives of ancient egypt,were overshadowed by other civilizations. the greeks, the romans have reputation ofbeing very lustful society and that's partly because of the evidence they've left behind. we see orgiestic scene and genosevices orbeastial action on tombstones. the full view of ancient egypt was obscured.the ancient egyptians were very sensuous, sensual society . for an ancient egyptian,it was very very important that you learn actively sexual creature.
it was a coverup aided by historiansthemselves. sexual artifacts recovered from ancient egyptwere often subject to censorship. we've lost some of the sexuality from theancient world in italy for example the pope decreed that all genetalia should be coveredup with fig leaves. and then victorian heroditus while in the uk, this was not something whichpeople wanted see. one such example is the mutilated statue ofnim. the egyptian god of fertility kept at the british museum. significantly, the statuewas missing one important item. during the victorian era, the penis wouldbe removed in order to save blushes of people visiting the museum
theres also another example of our men ona wall inscription in this case, mens penis could not be removed.he had to be censored in a much more amusing way. in feature museum, the penis is covered upwith the museum number nicely put over it against so that no one would actually seesuch a disgraceful thing in the public eye. even today, some sexual images are kept hiddenfrom the public. close to the turin erotic papyrus was discovered on the west bank oftheves, there was an archeological site... 3000 years old, kept secret from thousandsof visitors nearby. it contains one of the earliest, slanderous, pornographic imagesin history and it remains conceals in a cave.
not simply due to the nature of the imageitself but because of who the images thought to depict. hatshepsut, one of ancient egypt'sfew female rulers. its possible that sealed is piece of sexualgraffiti in the world, it certainly is not the oldest image of people having sex, butpossibly the oldest piece of graffiti showing this kind of act. the drawing is located on the site of thetemple in honor of the queen. creating such a sexually explicit image would have beendangerous for the artist. an image of the queen in the sexual position was a seriousno no for sure and would have been something that had to be hidden away, something thatthe person would probably get in serious trouble
for if they were found out. due to the controversial nature of this graffiti,few academics have accessed the cave. for this program, we have been given permissionto investigate this unique archaeological site. they blocked up the site to keep visitorsout and nobody gets to go in usually so now i'm getting to go in and i'm very excitedso were gonna take the door down and we're gonna go in. it is not known who cut the limestone cave,but it is thought that it is one of the craftsman from the valley of the kings who may havedecided that it would be a good location for
his own tomb. for a number of years, liz haswanted to access this remote site. we'll... this is fantastic. oh yeah, i've always seen it in books, now that's reallygood to see it in real life. this graffito was probably created by oneof the worker around this area so probably a tomb worker or even a temple worker. thegraffiti shows what appears to being hatshepsut being taken from behind by who they thinksenenmut, her stewards and crossful lover. details of the drawing provide clues to itssignificance. it have the male behind a female and its believed it might be senenmut andhatshepsut because we have here the headdress. they think its maybe the nemies headrest whichwould have been the sign of royalty and since
its obviously a female figure they thoughtwell this was probably hatshepsut. why would someone take the enormous risk ofportraying a royal figure in such explicit terms. this was the artist way of showing his distasteat they did have a female king. it went against the law of mark, it went against everythingthat egypt stood for. the graffito offers a new view that turinerotic papyrus when matched against the turin images it shows similarities to one of thetwelve sexual intercourse positions depicted. could it also been a slanderous message. thegrafitto does provide an uncensored glimpse of everyday life in ancient egypt
it seems like it's a unique window into theworld of the two workers that lives in this area and their concepts of sex in a completelydifferent way than they were allowed to show in the temples and tombs as they spend mostof their time really showing thing is the only were part of this idea of decorum andin here they can express themselves and were in a completely different way. but egyptologist still faced incomplete pictureof sexual life in ancient egypt. to get the whole intimate details, we must piece togetherthe true meaning the turin erotic papyrus. could they be messages to the kings and queensof ancient egypt or perhaps to an even higher power. to find out must explore tombs andtemples of the gods. there the walls are built
with hidden codes and if you know where tolook, the sexual messages are everywhere. we are decoding and ancient sexual artifactknown as the turin erotic papyrus. could it be a message to egyptian royalty like thispiece of graffito found near the valley of the kings or could it be a message to a higherpower a message to the gods. to find out we must enter the sacred temple, the gatewayto the afterlife. here, the images contained code, symbols filledwith sexual messages. in religious iconography on temple walls yousee lots of gods with huge erections you se deities having sex but egyptian temples arevery much enclosed spaces which very few people would have access to.
journeying along the river nile, a team ofexperts will enter the sacred heart of egypt's most important temples. by analyzing theirartwork, they can unlock their hidden meaning. in contrast to the showy pornographic worldof ancient rome, egyptian sex is much more coded much more symbolically displayed. centralto the tombs was the idea that when you die your body would need to go to the afterlife.the tombs were portals and sex would be an important part of that transition. when you die the idea is it's not the endof life it's beginning a new life and the beginning of new life starts with birth soyou do have the sexual and fertility aspects associated with everything to do with deathand the funery rituals.
dr lise manniche one of the leading expertsin the sexual history of ancient egypt. she has been studying ancient tombmarks for thelast forty five years. on the walls of some of the tomb captains we have a number of scenesthat look like scenes out of daily life, the ideal daily life scenes, parties, banquets,etcetera but they all have a funery purpose because they're all on the walls of the tombtackle? the ancient egyptians believed these imageswere instrumental in the act of being reborn. this is sex in disguise you may call it likethat it is a picture of the ideal location in real life. in order to be reborn, you haveto have these sexual activities that goes before any birth, birth or rebirth
symbols that we see on the temple walls arealso present on the turin erotic papyrus. the keyword here is the "lotus flower". thelotus flower is the symbol of resurrection we probably had not haughtic properties soits not without reason that their sniffing these lotus flowers but they're just everywhere. there are also other similarities betweenthe codes here and our mysterious papyrus, symbols that also rings true today. sex is greatly facilitated i think the initialsteps by means of alcohol and egyptian knew that and we always have this triangle of sexuality,of the music and of drunkeness it really goes together, it is then as it goes today.
the message is revealed that sex was centralto rebirth in the afterlife but their interpretation can be complex. sexuality was of paramount importance andthat it displayed not directly but through symbols leaving the temples of luxor behind, lisais traveling to the egyptian capital cairo to study one of the most important fines fromthe ancient world the treasures of tutankhamun. hidden on a 3,500 year old clothes chest,lisa believe she has found a significant clue to how the ancient egyptians depicted sexin a covert manner. this is a clothes chest that was found inthe tomb of tutankhamun, on it we see a picture
of a king sitting on a chair, shooting bowand arrow, at his feet we have his wife queen ankhesenamun who's holding an arrow readyfor him to shoot. the mere fact that he's actually shown in that position shooting withbow and arrow takes us to the real significance of the scene symbolic in coded message. the key to this clue is it's double meaning.the word seti in egyptian means shooting but it also means to ejaculate which has a sexualsignificance because they wanted to be reborn in the here after in the after life and inorder to be reborn they had to have some sexual activity before hand and this is what is explainedyet in a coded message and this is a way of visualizing this very vital sexual energywhich they needed to be reborn.
hunter was a common metaphor for sexual prowessin the ancient world similar codes have been found on the tomb wall of an accountant namednebamun. it shows nebamun accompanied by his wife, his young daughter and he's asked hima marsh hunting birds and catching fish and it is also of course an intensely erotic sceneto the regional ordeals his size traveling through the marshes is known tobe an ancient egyptian euphemism for having sex all of these overtones of fertility productivitysensuality all combined in this image to suggest how nebamun will be reborn in the eternallife, how he'll continue very much the sexual sensual being could the turin erotic papyrus have been alink to the afterlife? could it have been
coded message to the gods? it does shows thetwelve positions of intercourse wether they relate to this world or the next or to theworld of the the gods that is very much debated at the moment. to find out, we must first explore the sexlives of ancient egyptian gods themselves. only certain people would be able to comeinto this part of the temple probably priests i've not ordinary people who would be keptoutside the temple precincts so these images would be hidden and wouldn't be a part ofwhat everyday people would be seeing. 3 hours south of luxor is the temple of abydos,hieroglyph symbols provide clues that sex was important to the ancient egyptian god.the ancient egyptian god had two ways of writing
their language one of which was in hieroglyphicsor sacred carved writings theres a lot of symbolic imagery behind both the illustrationsthemselves and the rating system because each individual hieroglyph is in fact a pictureof something there a lot of different meanings things can be read in variety of differentways, in this section right here you can see this one particular sign which is the a phallus.the phallus is part of the egyptian repertoire of hieroglyphics signs and it can have oneof many meanings but is indeed a very sexual symbol. the phallus hieroglyphs signifies masculinity,aggression, fertility and sexual power revealing the sexual side to the gods. sex was deeplyingrained into religious beliefs.
[dr karen exell] the whole of egyptian soceitiesis certainly based trance sex in the sense that they ends to this importance and itssignificance and that without the sexual acts the soceity wouldn't continue. sex was alsocentral to ancient egyptian creation myths. contained within the british museum is anancient papyrus which shows how the egyptians believed their god perform sexual acts tocreate the world its a rare piece of evidence which reveals that sex formed the magicaland mystical aspects to religious beliefs in ancient egypt. in one way the egyptiansare very different from us. they are very discreet about human sexual activity the traitcomes to the gods the iconography to us seems just to be simply pornographic.
to represent how self sustaining and fertilethe earth is, the ancient egyptians show the autofellatio the earth god geb. it's not somethingwe would consider putting in a religious context, still less burying as a religious documentwith a priestests of the main god at the time. the man in the turin erotic papyrus are allexceptionally endowed like the god geb. rather than mere mortals, could these men and theirsexual acts be a depiction of gods in the afterlife to investigate further must go intothe temples of abydos. deep within its chambers is a phallic symbol linked to the story ofisis and osiris a mythical tale of life and rebirth. we're going into the chapel of tasucharand there's a few really interesting reliefs that are located here to show the god of cyrus.her we have an image of the mama form of cyrus
shown on a bed with the goddess isis as abird located on top of his erect phallus. the scene is a lot more coded than you wouldsee in the tomb or it may be the graffiti or one of the crassus shows the gods and soyou don't have the image of isis as a woman you have an image of isis shown as a kiteor the bird of prey. this was probably not a shocking image tothe egyptians though, its something that showed the power of both cyrus through this phallusand it was very important to show these two on a different level than say the rest ofthe divinity is or even the rest of the population at large. even today the sexual artifact still holdsa certain power for some visitors. the site
attracts women to the temple who were in searchof the magic of the gods to help them. the phallus has been chipped down it's been touchedguardians come in and people come in and want to touch it. and kind of be part of this powereven today people go to temples and want to be part of this fertility they can even makethem pregnant in modern times. so the coded symbols and graphic depictionswere not just a way to the reborn into the afterlife they were linked to fertility ineveryday life and the act of sex itself. for some this would all be revealed all take placein a dark intimate room called the best chamber. the turin erotic papyrus offers a shockingbut cryptic image of sex in ancient egypt. to understand its meaning, we are decodingother sexual images from the era. they reveal
that sexuality is connected with the godsand helped the transition into the afterlife. but how did this affect ordinary egyptiansin their everyday lives? the ancient egyptians, sexuality was very much just a paw of dailywants. from the few settlement sites that we have, we can see that they lived in fairlysmall houses and would've lived on top of each other quite literally so the sexual actswould've been fairly visible to all the family. sex, conception and fertility were closelylinked with the gods with one god in particular. this is the god of fertility, he is the protectorof pregnant women, who's the protector of young children. how the ordinary egyptians trying to conceiveinteract with the gods thus. a fascinating
new site may provide the intriguing answers.it is situated 22 miles south of cairo, in sacarra which is also known as the city ofthe dead. at sacarra, there are the so-called best chambers4 little rooms decorated with the figures of best and naked women on the walls. mystery still surrounds this incubation forbest chamber. these chamber seem to have been used by people who are having trouble conceivingperhaps they came there to sleep the night in the chamber and to go wait expectantlyhoping to conceive.. perhaps they came to receive advice from the priests of the godshimself. thus this first and foremost the deity connected with everyday life he wasconsidered to bring good luck and prosperity
to married couples and their children he alsoplayed a vital role in the ritual of child birth. there is always a dangerous time andso there is rites that have to be performed and certain gods are really dedicated to watchingover the new mother and the new child such as that. theres also a scents leaves a householdfamiliar, he is a visible comic character. the mystical rites that surrounded that werealso important in warding off evil spirits during childbirth. in the manchester museum is a unique bestmask which may be worn during childbirth by a priestess. this mark may be worn by a dancerwho then been involved in a ritual some kind of ritual dance to protect the household,to protect the women.... as well as ritual
masks priests would also use magic wands inthe process of childbirth. [dr joyce tyldesley] very used to maybe drawcircle protected by her random mother and child during the ritual light encircling itto ward off evil and to keep goodness in my touch should be a completing thing for themother in labor. this is also believed to have a more eroticcharge one theory suggests that he was used to prevent sexually transmitted diseases.a mural has been discovered which shows best tattoo on the young egyptian woman. tattooin the egyptian society were almost exclusively drawn on the most erotic part of the femalebody. what we've got here is a new kingdom fertilityfigurine she's tattoos across her buttox there's
a line of dots and rather like though it'salso a sign of fertility and sexuality another interesting feature the fact she doesn't haveany feet and the reason for this is so that when she's placed into the tomb, she doesn'trun away taking her fertility with her. egyptologist believe the statuette calledbrides of the dead were symbols of fertility and rejuvenation. strange markings on tattooedmummies have led other scholars to ask if tattoos were use to protect the unborn child.one theory is that dots tattooed it on a woman's abdomen during childbirth as the stomach expands,the dots would create a net-like structure protecting the child. but there is anotherside to the god ves. he's also the patron god of dancing, music,singing, getting drunk over sort of front
party aspects. another depiction of ves on the thigh of anegyptian woman is shown on the blue bowl of which dates to 1300 bc. the woman depictedis a musician which is at as sex and music were very much linked. today's modern belly dancers use coin beltto accentuate the sensuality of the movements as well as the sounds. and sound would bea key signifier of sex in ancient egypt. there also seemed that music because music and thissexuality get to get that images of music and dancing would signify another associationwith the gods. one goddess in particular reveals another side to sex for the ordinary egyptiansthe goddess known as hathor, the daughter
of the sun god ra was the most important deityin one sexual life. she was the goddess of physical love and spiritual love. [dr lise] there was one object that was particularlyimportant in the court of hathor and that's what going to system a sacred vassal whichhas a picture of hathor on it and whenever, anybody rattle, made a noice for such as systrumit meant that the goddes was present, she was there. could this sound have heralded the sexualact. we see in many two scenes dating as far back as the old kingdom, where there are scantilyclad women who are dancing and shaking this systra as part of a ritual celebration.
the coded references on the templed wallsbetween sex and music are mirrored on that turin erotic papyrus. via our reconstruction,we have also discovered this systrum on papyrus suggesting that the goddess hathor is presentin the sexual acts being carried out. the gods in their rituals were seen to aid tothe fertility and ultimately the physical act of sex. but how did ordinary ancient egyptiansfeel about sex. the turin erotic papyrus provides a startling glimpse back 3000 years throughexploring the daily sex lives of the ancient egypt. can we unlock its graphic images? weknow that some sexual images are connected with the gods and others with the ritualsof fertility. but could the turin erotic papyrus have simply been ancient pornography? to findout we must first understand what the ordinary
egyptian consider erotic. to do this we mustreturn to the site where the erotic papyrus may have been discovered. it is an importantsettlement that was occupied by the workman who built the valley of kings. known as dierel-medina, it has provided key evidence for unlocking some of the mysteries of ancientsex. at deir el-medina began a sense that smuts we guess a sense of the adultery weget a sense of how people thought and felt about sex. sources recovered from the village indicatethat as many as one hundred individuals lived in the community for much of its history. here we are above the village of dier el-medina,over on the other side of the mountain is
the value of the kings. another we had thevillage here but we also have the tombs of the workers who went to work in the valleyof the kings to excavate and decorate the tombs. these construction workers and craftsmenleft clues. these workers were on a 10-day weed so they go off not doing their jobs clearlybuilding a bit of sexual tension on those 10 days and then come back and release themselveson their women and so what you don't know is wether this is a kind of archaeologicalrecord of the actual sex lives of the workers or whether its a kind of fantasy if this isthe perfect sex that you'd get after that long 10 day week. the ancient name of the site was sethmard.the place of truth.
[professor alan lloyd] it came into existenceof amunhotep i, perhaps sometime about 1520 - 1510 bc and it existed for over 400 years.it is now viewed as a microcosm of the egyptian society. you would find people who were extraordinarilyliterate because of the scribes and artists so compared to other religious all over egyptthis is very very special place. the site has yeilded a wealth of artifactsand texts to provide vital information about the way these people lived and how they viewedsex. this papyrus has survived from the late new kingdom period in around 1500 bc. it revealsthe sexual antiques of an artisan. it describe him sleeping with a married woman and herdaughter who is then passed on to his son.
and there is no such which provides as muchinformation on daily life in the ancient egypt as this site does. the site provide so muchlasting archaeological information simply because the area surrounding the valley ofthe kings consists of limestone. this provided the workman charges or rocks that they coulduse as sketch books. in dier el-medina, having found lots of flakes of limestones with wonderfuljoins on them which the craftsmen sudden digged while they were having their time off whenthey are not working over in the valley of the kinds. known as astraca, thousands have been foundthey have been proven to be fascinating in important slices of ancient history. thisis a small flake of limestone from the village
of dier medina, and on it is a doodle a cartoondone by the workman who decorated the tombs of the valley of the kings and it shows aman having sex with a woman and the site is was aligned with heiroglyphs and she's saying"come now,it's the desire of my skin" and it seems to be a subtle parody of the villagewas seeing you've seen on templed walls. the craftsman would use these pieces of rock assketchbooks for their thoughs, thoughts which would reflect everyday life. some of these drawings also have some of theirerotic scenes people having sexual intercourse which is a very rare thing in egyptian arteven in an unofficial art but this is a place where this things would come from.
just like egyptians statues, these imageswere subject to censorship through the ages. today only a few remain on display to thepublic. hidden in the corner of an old cabinet inthe cairo museum is a sexual representation that is both shocking and beautiful after persuading the museum, we were allowedto show its 3000 year old sketches on camera here we have some ostraka from deir el-medinafrom luxor and ostraka is a greek word means like "chill" or limestone face. and actuallythis ostraka the ancient egyptian worker from deir el-medina had sketched some of the dailylife activities like showing animals, showing kings, even relationship between man and womanlike this one for example it shows a man and
woman making love and it's painted in blackink. the man is leaning in front of the lady andshe's had wrapping her legs, her thighs around his neck. this mus have been the favoriteones because its been depicted so often. its been beautifully drawn not all the pornographicdrawings are very well drawn but this one's from an artistic point of view is also veryhigh quality. we begin to see more common view of eroticaof everyday life. from another image recovered from the diereal medina, we see a young womanwearing see through clothes a recurring image in egyptian society. when they would representwomen in linen garments, they were long linen gaments in the new kingdom, they create theimpression that you can see through the linen
garments which of course you could in it buthigh quality linen will cling to the shape of the body and they therefore representsthe ghosts of the body underneath which will gain the indicates the introskin the femaleform. by studying ancient egyptian love poetry,we can gain a further insight into the type of sexual fantasy that were prevalent intoeveryday soceity. these texts reveal the central feeling of ancient egyptians. around the start of 1500 bc, we start getevidence of these beautiful love poetry that ancient egyptians would write to one another,the men are describe as superheroes and the nigel women emerges from the nile with herclothes clinging to her body.
that new hues discovers one reference to afantasy that is just as evocative today. this is one very good example of love poetrywhich came from deir el-medina and it was written about 3000 years ago, it's a loverwriting to his girlfriend and he describe her perfect white breast that she has fingerslike lotus flowers. he says,in her thighs how beauty rest when she passes all men turntheir neck to look at her. of the clues come together to paint a pictureof the ultimate ancient egyptian male fantasy. a beautiful and seductive young women rising,dripping wet from the sacred river nile. its a seductive image we could easily see in amovie or advertisement today. delivering sensitive and if the words are anything to go by, thensome of them were clearly very skilled lovers
too. so if they have the same sexual appetite aswe do, did the ancient also have the same warrioristic desires. could the sexually explicitpapyrus be the worlds first men magazine? the smoking gun that reveals the truth aboutsex in ancient egypt. the turin erotic papyrus is one of the mostsexually explicit document ever recovered from antiquity yet its true meaning remainsa mystery. it's a code that needs to be cracked if we are to understand the truth about thereal sex lives of the ancient egyptians. the turin erotic papyrus is a document withsome egyptologist carefully __ they're clearly deeply embarrassed about this thing but theplain fact is that the ancient egyptian's
approach to sexuality was a breakthrough morerelaxed than the attitudes of the we find in current normatheistic societies. for much of its history has been kept underlock and key. the previous curator at the egyptian museum in turin placed a table infront of the artifact so that no one could steer deep into its surface. we have beenafforded unique access to film the papyrus. historians ___ has been fascinated by thisartifact and is intrigued to see the object up close. it is a shocking revelation forher. [bettany hughes]what i'm looking at is completelyunique in the world. there's nothing else like this. and it is fantastic thing thatit is so beautifully, so beautifully produced
but then when you get in to it and see whatthe pictures are this is where it becomes really intriguing because this is basicallyplayboy magazine of the ancient world so there are twelve erotic scenes here where elderlyman having a great time with young beautiful egyptian girls. the severely damaged papyrushas not been treated well by time although sections are missing, there is enough fragmentaryevidence to allow scholars to fill in this ancient jigsaw puzzle. using this information,we have restored the papyrus to its original state using computer graphics. this is ourdepiction of the graphic images that the ancient egyptians would have seen over three melenniaago. with something like the turin erotic papyrus, its very hard to know what it wasused for.
[dr richard parkinson]it certainly wasn'twritten by peasant farmers, it comes from very literate sophisticated people. some workingscholars have thought it's a treaty on the art of love making, some have suggested thata religious text. on one section of the papyrus are images ofanimals imitating human behavior which has left some scholars to believe that the papyrusis meant to be humorous. so with their this was someone's way of spendingthe hours you need him was to sketch as to however there was some deeper purpose, wedon't really know. as the images come to life various scenesare depicted showing sexual positions. one sequence shows a woman having sex on a chariota mysterious image to scholars. i'm not completely
sure what's going on here cause this is avery rare image in ancient egyptian art but thte thing what it probably is, is the chariotwas the real symbol of prestige, or power so its probably what we've got is a conflationof sex and violence 3200 years ago just as being put together today. the woman's hair is being pulled by the oldman. hair was very erotic in the ancient egypt. hair was one of the most erotic thing a womancould have in ancient egypt. she's freshly in the new kingdom the 18th to the 19th ... mostegyptians shave their heads so they were as bold as getting rid of lies and that is suchhorrible obnoxious crueling things in your hair so they would wear this very elaboratewigs
other egyptian texts refer to hair one stage,put your wig on, and lets go to bed the idea was that the bigger and more elaborateyour wig, the sexier you were and in some of the and 19th century love poetry they doactually refer to women being so inamut with their loved one that they forget what they'redoing and they leave their hair half undone and its the equivalant of being caught nakedreally to have be coat with your wig only half prepared. our ideas of rock'n'roll hedonism also seemedto be present in the papyrus. young girls servicing aging men while high on drugs. we see images of young ladies involved insexual acts. on top of a heads depicted is
a lotus flower. now clearly they are wearingthis lotus flowers but the lotus flowers also symbols and what we learned from seeing thislotus flowers that these young women are under the influence of the narcotic that could beextracted from the lotus flower and so what we are to understand by that is that thesewomen are open to enjoying sexual acts. with evidence of drugs, alcohol, music andaging men, are we looking at an ancient brothel? i suspect this is a brothel. i mean theresa lot of sexual actions going on here and if they had imagine this was just a normal nightout, ___ interesting actually this is a brothel and the prostitutes of course couldn't beingpaid in money cause there wasn't cash so let them being paid for their services with somethinglike facial maybe a bristles of wig.
but what evidence is there a prostitute inancient egypt its very likely prostitutes existed as theysay its the oldest profession in the world. we do have snippets of information that couldsuggest prostitution existed one being the turin erotic papyrus which could be a storyof a new kingdom brothel in thebes. can we answer the burning questions, who wasthe papyrus made for? what was it for? there's a huge debate about what is the significanceof the turin erotic papyrus. we have 12 different positions of intercourse. some would liketo relate it to the world of the gods, others say that chief and priest having a night outin a brother or something like that but its very likely, it's either a piece of earlypornography peculiar is actually the text
that's written in between the figures becausethat gives scraps of the conversations that the parties are having. one image shows a woman herself on an ancientpot know as an amphora. she paints her lips as she does so.the text in this picture isstill visible. at first glance what you see is that she'sapplying lip stick, she's kind of japping his own long brush staring into the mirrorand that in itself was an erotic act in egypt cause mirrors often have handles in the shapeof a beautiful woman.. but then when your eye moves down you see it gets really quite pornographically_ actually this young girl is sitting her legs wide apart on top of an amphora whichis turned upside down so the point is inserted
inside her so she's obviously pleasuring herselfon this part and the expression on her face it working, its actually very interestin hereis that she's saying to this old man who's literally saying 'you give me nothing so igotta resort to this' to the vast to keep her orgasm and in just on here you can seeits very fragmentary, its very broken she's kind of saying 'come here big boy, dirty boyyou kind of sex criminal' and his obviously enjoying this moment because he's got hishuge engorged phallus which is resting just next to the amphora. ultimately the evidence suggest that turinerotic papyrus may be the world's oldest men's pornographic magazine.
the artist is representing sexual activitywith enormous enthusiasm and with lots of salacious details i think that he would bea bit like those characters you use to find in cairo in the old days who side up to youand say "hey, mister, you want to see dirty picture". i very much like the idea that thisis a kind of precursor of playboy. we may never determine who precisely createdthe turin erotic papyrus and for what purpose. what we do know is that 3000 years later,experts regard it as one of the most important artifact of antiquity. the priceless thing about his papyrus thatit allows you to decode real egyptian sexuality. i mean this is a way that you can understandhow the ancient egyptians had sex for they
enjoyed doing a what was just a little bitdangerous naughty. at the end of our journey, mystery still remainabout sex in ancient egypt. but by decoding
![sex with a women]()
their imagery we have pieced together a morecomplete picture. the turin erotic papyrus is a lens. it providesa stunning new view into the civilization that created it. shedding light on their beliefson the afterlife, rituals of fertility and attitudes towards erotica. an intimate viewof sex in the ancient world.
