4,000-YEAR-OLD EROTICA DEPICTS

A STRIKINGLY RACY ANCIENT

SEXUALITY
Clay plaques at The Israel Museum, made 1,500 years
before the Kama Sutra, display graphically that Old
Babylonian culture held an exalted view of sex

Sexual intercourse between a woman and a man on a terra cotta plaque from
Mesopotamia, early 2nd millennium BCE (photo credit: The Israel Museum)

useums are often misconstrued as dusty and lifeless the least

likely place to find something hot and steamy. But the Ancient Near
East section in The Israel Museums Archaeology Wing features rare
erotic art from the land between the rivers (Tigris and Euphrates),
which predates Indias Kama Sutra by over 1,500 years. Such astonishingly
intimate works reveal a side to the ancient Near East that contrasts sharply
with the modesty prevalent in the modern Middle East.
Two clay plaques, small enough to hold in your palm, depict couples copulating
in remarkable detail. Dating from the early second millennium BCE, the Old

Babylonian period, they come from a 300-year window when mass-produced

terra cotta plaques were popular, including those that exhibit sexual acts.
Mesopotamian erotica was really something racy, Laura A. Peri, curator of
Western Asiatic Antiquities, said when we met in the labyrinthine bowels of the
museum. Its not all, you know, missionary and thats it.
The first plaque shows a man penetrating a woman from behind, while
standing. The second, slightly smaller one, depicts a man and woman in a
similar position, with the woman drinking beer through a straw from a jug.
According to Dr. Julia Assante, a Near Eastern social historian, the woman
drinking beer from a straw was not just a reflection of lifelike sexual
encounters, but was undoubtedly a [visual pun]. The straw in the womans
mouth and the man raising a cup of wine to his lips were symbolic of
performing oral sex on their respective partners. The Babylonians, Assante
writes, held an exalted cultural view of sex as inducing an altered state of
wonder.

An Old Babylonian clay plaque on display at The

Israel Museum depicts a couple having sex. (photo
credit: The Israel Museum)

The terra cotta plaques from Mesopotamia yield numerous different sexual
positions, but one of the most popular was whats referred to technically by the
Latin: coitus a tergo from behind. While erotic Mesopotamian art doesnt

detail a specific means of entry, anal sex was deemed a popular means of
contraception by ancient couples before the invention of prophylactics. The
depiction of couples engaging in rear entry may be indicative of that practice.
Other plaques show partners side-by-side, standing up (aka llevme) and plain
old missionary; some depict women with legs spread, squatting over a
comically large phallus.
That the erotic clay plaques were found in temples, graves and private homes
makes it difficult to generalize about their intended use, but is testament to
their popularity. That excavators found the erotic artwork in high-traffic rooms
of homes leads Assante to infer that they were accessible to men, women and
children.
Its a kind of pop art, because its very cheap material and easy to make,
curator Peri said. She explained that sexuality was very prominent in ancient
Sumerian and Babylonian art and literature, particularly in the late-third and
early-second millennia. Cylinder seals small cylinder-shaped stones etched
with figures and cuneiform used as a signet occasionally featured men and
women in erotic poses. Peri, an expert in understanding the symbolism of the
seals, noted that erotic scenes usually werent the central image, nor did those
seals belong to the king or officials.
Ancient Mesopotamian texts were so graphic in their detailing of the erotic arts
that you can really reenact the actions what they did between the sheets
according to the descriptions, Peri explained when we met at her office in The
Israel Museum.
The Epic of Gilgamesh, Mesopotamias great literary work, lauds sex as one of
the carnal pleasures humans ought to indulge in during our brief tenure on this
planet. Siduri, a divine alewife, tells the eponymous king of Uruk to let your
belly be full, your clothes clean, your body and head washed; enjoy yourself
day and night, dance, sing and have fun; look upon the child who holds your
hand, and let your wife delight in your lap! This is the destiny of mortals.
And let your wife delight in your lap
Peri explained that delight in your lap was a common euphemism for sex in
ancient Akkadian, the language in which Gilgamesh was written.
The Gilgamesh epic also describes sexuality as a potent force that
distinguishes humans from beasts. Enkidu, the wild man who becomes
Gilgameshs comrade-in-arms, is tamed by a temple prostitute who ensnares
him with her sexual wiles: She was not restrained, but took his energy. / She
spread out her robe and he lay upon her, / She performed for the primitive the
task of womankind.
Israelite and Canaanite artwork, by comparison, typically had very little overt
sexuality, only nude female figures that disappeared after the
institutionalization of early Judaism in the eighth century BCE. A mid-second
millennium BCE Canaanite scarab seal found at Tel el-Fara near the junction
of the Israeli border with Egypt and the Gaza Strip shows the figures of a
man and woman in a standing posture similar to the clay plaque at The Israel

Museum. Both figures are fully clothed, however, and there is no latent
intercourse, only the suggestion of it.

Sketching of Canaanite scarab

from Tel el-Fara shows a man
approaching
a
woman
from
behind. (photo credit: Courtesy of
Dr. Daphna Ben Tor, curator of
Egyptian Archaeology at The
Israel Museum)

Siduris
advice
finds its way into
the
biblical
literature,
appearing in a
toned-down
version
in Ecclesiastes

9:7-9. Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry
heart, Kohelet says among his many iterations of under the sun. But
whereas the Mesopotamians spoke of enjoying sex, the Bible enjoins man to
Enjoy life with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity.
The similarity between the two passages comes as little surprise. Ancient Israel
was the land bridge connecting the two major civilizations of the ancient Near
East, Egypt and Mesopotamia, and its culture was influenced heavily by both. A
stark difference, however, was the difference in ancient Babylonian and
Israelite perspectives on male homosexuality. The Babylonians, writes
Prof. Karen Rhea Nemet-Nejat in her book Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia,
didnt condemn this practice and observed a live-and-let-live attitude in
regard to male-male sex. The Book of Leviticus, on the other hand, bans lying
with mankind, as with womankind as an abomination.
Artifacts from ancient Babylon exhibit latent even shockingly graphic
sexuality, but the exact purpose of the plaques remains unclear. Dr. Ilan Peled
of The Hebrew University said theres a scholarly debate over what purpose the
erotic art served, with some contending they were votive objects for the
veneration of Ishtar, the love goddess. Assante argues they were apotropaic,
like other terra cotta amulets from the era, meant to keep away evil
spirits. Others say that the clay plaques portrayed prostitution, sexual
relations conducted within a tavern, or sexual intercourse between a husband
and wife, with no particular context.
It is possible that we merely face here a very early version of Playboy, MiddleEastern style, Peled said.

By Ilan Ben Zion, 2014