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. The excavations of Pompeii reveal a thriving sex industry with prostitutes ranging from female slaves to male celebrities. Turin Erotic Papyrus.jpg 1,280 × 592 915 KB. Turin Erotic Papyrus Scene, white.jpg 1,280 × 558 326 KB. Turin Erotic Papyrus Scene, transparent.png 1,280 × 558 1.25 MB. It is now on display at Museo Egizio in Turin. An ancient Egyptian papyrus scroll-painting dating back to about 1150 BC, it was discovered at Deir el-Medina in the 19th century and was found to include various erotic vignettes which show sex positions. The men in the imagery are raggedy, going bald, small, and portly, with unnaturally huge genitalia, and do not meet Egyptian standards of beauty desirability. The following 3 files are in this category, out of 3 total. The Turin Erotic Papyrus has become famous due to its erotic content. Recreated scenes from the Turin Erotic Papyrus. This intriguing look at the sexual practices of ages past focuses on the infamous location of Pompeii, home to the oldest known brothel in the historical world. The Turin Erotic Papyrus is an Egyptian papyrus scroll unearthed at Deir el-Medina that has a sequence of twelve vignettes depicting men and women in different sexual situations. 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. On one side animals are shown wearing clothes. Both sides of the papyrus show typical Egyptian satiric subjects. 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. The so-called Turin Satirical-Erotic Papyrus.

Erotic papyrus