The artist meant this piece too as satire, Ancient Peoples alleges. On the right side of the papyrus (above) animals perform various human tasks as musicians, soldiers, and artisans. Egyptologists have known of the larger scroll, technically called “Papyrus Turin 55001” since the 1820s. In fact the erotic portion of the papyrus was only made public in the 1970’s. Apart from its obvious fertility symbols, writes archaeology blog Ancient Peoples, the papyrus also has a “humorous and/or satirical” purpose, and probably a male audience-evidenced, perhaps, by its resemblance to 70’s porn: “the men are mostly unkept, unshaven, and balding, whereas the women are the ideal of beauty in Egypt.” The number of sexual positions the papyrus illustrates-twelve in all-“fall somewhere between impressively acrobatic and unnervingly ambitious,” one even involving a chariot. Painted sometime in the Ramesside Period (1292-1075 B.C.E.), the fragments above-called the “Turin Erotic Papyrus” because of their “discovery” in the Egyptian Museum of Turin, Italy-only hint at the frank versions of ancient sex they depict (see a graphic partial reconstruction at the bottom of the post-probably NSFW). It is in a very poor fragmented state.With the old joke about every generation thinking they invented sex, Listverse brings us the papyrus above, the oldest depiction of sex on record. The papyrus is currently housed in the Museo Egizio in Turin, Italy. In other words, it was one of the first examples of pornography. The meaning of this section has been widely debated, but the most common consensus is that it was solely for amusement and titillation. The 8.5 feet long papyrus begins with a satirical section, depicting animals performing human activities, such as playing musical instruments, climbing trees to pick fruit, quarrelling and driving chariots. When the papyrus was first discovered in the 1820s, it caused such a scandal that the Musuem of Turin hid it for 150 years. Recreated scenes from the Turin Erotic Papyrus. In the margin above the image, is scribbled: “come behind me with your love, Oh! Sun, you have found out my heart, it is agreeable work.” For instance, in one scene the girl is bent over and the man takes her from behind. Some of the imagery are accompanied by comments that seem to express enjoyment and delight. The papyrus also contain images of objects from traditional erotic iconography, such as convolvulus leaves and, in some scenes, they are holding items traditionally associated with Hathor, the goddess of love, such as lotus flowers, monkeys, and sistra, a musical instrument devoted to Hathor. The men in the illustrations are “scruffy, balding, short, and paunchy” with exaggeratedly large genitalia, while the women are nubile. The papyrus scroll depicts a sequence of twelve couples in various sexual positions. The Turin Erotic Papyrus is believed to be created during the time of Ramesses III (roughly 1184-1153 BCE), which makes it about a thousand years older than the Kamasutra, the only other great treatise on sex from the ancient world. The Turin Erotic Papyrus is an ancient Egyptian papyrus scroll-painting that has long been a subject of intense interest among Egyptologists, because it deals with the subject of sex rather graphically.
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