Lecture notes Sexuality in the Ancient World (AC241)
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Course
Sexuality in the Ancient World (AC241)
Institution
Stellenbosch University (SUN)
Lecture notes, summaries, and presentation content, as well as explanations of core concepts in the lectures of AC241 in 2022.
The notes describe sexuality in the Ancient Near East (focusing on the Epic of Gilgamesh and Mesopotamia, the Laws of Ancient Southwest Asia (i.e., Hittite law), and An...
WEEK ONE
Lecture 1 : Introduction
Lecture 2 : Sexuality in the Epic of Gilgamesh
Lecture 3 : Sexuality in Mesopotamian Religion and Mythology
WEEK TWO
Lecture 4 : Sexuality and the Laws of Ancient Southwest Asia
Lecture 5 : Egyptian sexuality from creation to the afterlife
Lecture 6 : Egyptian sexuality- love, eroticism, and the sexual self
TA Jansen AC Notes: Week 1 & 2| 1
,Week 1: Lecture 2
“Sexuality in the Epic of Gilgamesh” by Dr Renate Marian van Djik-Coombes
A Chronological Recap:
Early Dynastic III (2500-2350 BC) = Pharoah god list of Southern Mesopotamia
Kassite Period (1595-1155 BC) = Gilgamesh compiled during this time
REMEMBER! Modern theory isn’t always good for looking at the Ancient environment and its cultures
Talking about sex and gender (using gender binary):
Sex : biological/ physical characteristics (also chromosomes and hormones)
ASSIGNED AT BIRTH
Gender : socially constructed norms & roles (some behaviors influenced by culture and biology)
EXPRESSION OF SEX
Sexuality : who you are attracted to
* gender binary is a social system that only sees 2 genders ie. male and female
Ancient sources
• Gender binary applied to Mesopotamia (boy= warrior, strong hero; girl= good housewife, attractive)
EG. Girls given spindle and boys given wooden sword
BRONZE BANDS ON BALAWAT GATES: gender normativity= concerned with interactions between men & women
(includes sexual relations)
WE USE QUEER THEORY TO LOOK AT ANCIENT SOURCES HERE BUT ALSO IS NOT ADVISED
(seems counterproductive but that’s literally what she said)
Some sexualities: asexuality vs. allosexual/zsexual, heterosexual, homosexual, bi/bisexual, pansexual,
demis/demisexual
Concepts to be aware of:
Heterosexism: assumption that all people are heterosexual
Monosexism: assumption that all people are attracted to only one other sex or gender
>uses queer theory to look at ancient sources<
Eg. Ishtar’s list of lovers: Dumuzi, speckled allulu-bird, lion, horse, shepherd, Isullanu (Gilgamesh 5.43-78)
Gilgamesh and Enkidu:
Prophetic dream that likens Enkidu to an axe that Gilgie “loved like a wife… [Ninsun] you made it my equal”]
Gilgamesh as the stereotypical “Hero” during that Mesopotamian [ie. Kassite] Period
TA Jansen AC Notes: Week 1 & 2| 2
,* if modern terms were applied to Gilgie and Enkidu’s relationship, they’d most likely be bi (because both had women
on the side)
Bull= symbol of male virility
If Gilgie & Enki were in same-sex relationship it would be considered incest as they were ‘brothers’:
Sedgwick’s theory of “homosocial continuum”
Sedgwick’s (1985) also argues that female-female relations range “from the erotic through the affectionate to the
political, while male-male relations are insistently and often violently categorized as either ‘gay’ or ‘straight’” (Helle
2016:24).
Middle Assyrian Laws
- If a man sodomizes his comrade and they prove the charges against him and find him
guilty, they shall sodomize him and they shall turn him into a eunuch.
- If a man spreads rumors about his comrade or in public says: "Everyone sodomizes you,"
but is unable to prove the charges, they shall strike that man 50 blows with rods; he shall
perform the king' s service for one full month; they shall cut off his hair; moreover, he
shall pay 3,600 shekels of lead.
Paraphrased from Roth 1995 (further paraphrased by me)
Šamḫat in the Epic of Gilgamesh
Seduces Enkidu and “civilizes” him
In the Sumerian myth Inanna and Enki, “sexual intercourse, kissing, prostitution” are included among the me, the
foundations of civilization
EG. “she treated the man to the work of a woman”
➢ harimtu: (m. prostitute) OR (m. independent woman)
Helle’s translation: “she showed the wild man what women can do” (implies agency)
TA Jansen AC Notes: Week 1 & 2| 3
,Week 1: Lecture 3
SEXUALITY IN MESOPOTAMIAN RELIGION AND MYTHOLOGY
• Male sexuality considered societal norm (male supposed to be “active” participant in sex)
Progenesis: virility and strength
• Female sexuality more documented (“passive” participant in sex)
MOST SEXUAL ADVENTURES OF MALE DEITIES ARE DIRECTED AT SECURING OFFSPRING, FEMALE
DEITIES STRESS SEXUAL PLEASURE
Enki and Male Sexuality
(Enki and the world order, lines 250-262 (ETCSL 1.1.3.)
Enki and Ninmah, line 134 (ETCSL 1.1.2.)
The Warka Vase: might be women
priestess of Inanna
[only 2 Warka vases exist]
REPRESENTS THE SACRED
MARRIAGE
Divine marriage: between god and goddess
Sacred marriage: between king and vessel of goddess (ie. priestess)
Sacred Marriage ties in with the idea of Sacred Prostitution
Sacred prostitution has 2 aspects: the performance of sexual acts
a. as part of the cult by temple personnel
b. by temple personnel/others hired by members of public where proceeds OR part thereof going to the temple.
TA Jansen AC Notes: Week 1 & 2| 4
, Ḫ arimtu – from the Sumerian karkid, both still in the dictionaries as ‘prostitute’
Kezertu – woman with curled hair
Šamḫatu – voluptuous woman
NB! the terms may just refer to women who weren’t under the authority of men.
Also ASINNU (might mean male prostitute) [ie. Aṣušunamir, the asinnu]
- BUT evidence for sacred prostitution is very much debatable and debated (little evidence for it, because
transactions would not have been written down)
Early seal impressions from Ur
Evidence in Mesopotamian bordellos
- Erotic terracotta (non-elite residences eg. windowsills, threshholds)
- NOT prostitutes
The Divine Marriage (recorded as early as 3rd mil. BC):
Some of the couples whose marriages were celebrated in Assyria and Babylonia during the first millennium BCE:
- Assur and Mullissu
- Marduk and Zarpanitu
- Nabû and Tašmetu/Nanaya
- Šamaš and Aya
MOST FAMOUS! Inanna (goddess of Uruk) and Dumuzi
Enmerkar and En-suh̬gir-ana: “flowery bed” “glistening plants” = euphemism
Enmerkar was king of uruk => Lugulbanda was Enmerkar’s successor => Gilgamesh is Lugulbanda’s son
!!! Enmerkar was NOT Lugulbanda’s father
Innana Ishtar the goddess
• A pārum (a type of Akkadian-language poem) to Ištar describes how she has sex with 120 men:
The young men are exhausted, but Ištar is not exhausted
(so she says) “Put it to the pretty vulva, young men!”
TA Jansen AC Notes: Week 1 & 2| 5
, Lines 17-18, Hurrowitz 1995:547
• Ishtar was used on royal inscriptions to solidify king’s rule (ie. “chosen by the goddess Inanna”)
• When Ishtar goes to the Netherworld and fertility goes with her. [sister is Ereshkigal]
Sex in the Netherworld: Everybody becomes a ghost but ghosts were appeased through regular offerings (familial
duty) = ancestor veneration
Theogony of Dunnu
• Sakkan kills father (Ha’in) and marries his mother (Earth)
and elder sister (Sea)
• Lahar kills father (Sakkan) and marries his mother (Sea) and
sister (River)
• Sea murders her mother (Earth)
• [x] kills father (Lahar) and his mother (Sea) and marries his
sister (River)
• [y] marries sister (Ga’um)
• Etc.
Rape Narratives
There are three Sumerian mythological narratives which deal with rape:
Enki and Ninḫursaĝa (ETCSL 1.1.1) Enlil and Ninlil (ETCSL 1.2.1) Inana and Šukaletuda (ETCSL 1.3.3)
TA Jansen AC Notes: Week 1 & 2| 6
, Week 2: Lecture 4
SEXUALITY AND THE LAWS OF ANCIENT SOUTHWEST ASIA
In Laws: it tells us a lot about society at the time
For example: Mesopotamian values – “a house without a lord is like a woman without a husband”
Hittites
FUN FACT! The Hittites were an enemy of Egypt (ref. Ramesses II)
Cross reference: uses context of scripture (because Biblical times) for a more accurate understanding of the time
• “No Sex Please, we’re Hittite”
= treaty with vassal states (sub-kingdoms in a kingdom eg. duchy)
• Barbaric only means you don’t speak Greek
• Egypt= north and Hittite= south: Battle of Kadesh/Qadesh
The Battle of Kadesh or Battle of Qadesh took place between the forces of the New Kingdom of Egypt under Ramesses II and the Hittite Empire
under Muwatalli II at the city of Kadesh on the Orontes River, just upstream of Lake Homs near the modern Lebanon–Syria border
Famous Hittite Kings:
• Khattushili I = 1650 BC (first recorded king)
• Murshili I = 1595 BC (to Babylon)
• Shuppilulima I = 1380 BC (Mitani wars & Egyptian Tutenkhamen)
Hittite Laws (Ur clay tablets)
If a man has a wife and the man dies, the wife must marry his brother. (If the brother dies), his father must marry
her. (When the father dies), the father’s brother must marry her = COS (Context of Scripture) 2.19.13
189: if man sleeps with mother
If man sleeps with daughter
If man sleeps with son
= UNPERMITTED SEXUAL PAIRING
190: If they appear (?) with the dead it is not an offence
If man has sexual relations with step-mother =it is PERMITTED unless father is alive then =UNPERMITTED
SEXUAL PAIRING
191: if free man sleeps with free sisters who have same mother (and mother is in a different country) =it is
PERMITTED unless man knows all of them are related and they’re all in the same place =UNPERMITTED
SEXUAL PAIRING
TA Jansen AC Notes: Week 1 & 2| 7
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