22/08/2021
An example of erotic depictions that occasionally could be found among the items in a tomb. This piece is now in the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, Cairo, Egypt. Photo: Jürgen Liepe.
"Owing to the doubtful statistical value of the very limited evidence, it is hardly possible to form any definite general conclusions as to the habits of the ancient Egyptians when performing [sexual] in*******se. There are, however, certain indications as to what the Egyptians considered the normal position.
In a text to the glorification of Osiris, written in the [26th] dynasty, it is said: 'I am thy sister Isis. There is no other god or goddess who has done what I have done. I have played the part of a man though I am a woman, in order to make thy name live on earth, since thy divine seed was in my body'. This clearly refers to the union of Isis with her husband after the death of the latter. His body was cut to pieces and scattered all over Egypt, but Isis managed to assemble it... Osiris, however, was not able to proceed in the usual way, and it was Isis herself 'who revived what was faint for the Weary One (Osiris), who took in his seed and provided an heir'.
How she did this is not infrequently represented in a symbolic manner: Isis rests on the abdomen of Osiris in the shape of a bird with outstretched wings or, more clearly - the Osiris-legend being transferred to private persons - as a woman. Already in the Pyramid Texts it is said: 'You (Osiris) have placed her (Isis) on your phallus and your seed goes into her', so that from earliest times this was the way in which it was imagined that Isis and Osiris united to create Horus. When the later text has Isis say: 'I have played the part of a man', it can only be understood that it was the opposite position that was usual, i.e. with the man on top of the woman, both of them lying down face-to-face..."
― Manniche, Lise, "Some Aspects of Ancient Egyptian Sexual Life," Acta Orientalia, Vol. 38, pp. 11-23, 1977.
