The Forum

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Disgusting

Your publications are fresh, inspiring, entertaining and informed. I may not agree with everything I read, but each article is stimulating—with one glaring exception. “Eros in Egypt,” AO 04:05, by David O’Connor, made me angry, ill and disgusted. Why would a very interesting publication like yours stoop to such brutish pornography?

Never do I want another copy of Archaeology Odyssey to enter my home.

Worldly Miasma

If you want to slide into the worldly miasma, that is your business. I don’t need this kind of “scholarship” in my home. Please cancel my subscription.

Pseudoscience

Re: “Eros in Egypt.” Why was it necessary to include such pictures (in the name of science) in this article? I do not wish to have reading material in my home not suitable for everyone.

The Text Is OK, But the Pictures Go Too Far!

I would have read “Eros in Egypt” without feeling obliged to write this letter had it not been for the photos of the pornographic papyrus accompanying the article. I was deeply and personally offended that you thought I’d be interested in reading about ancient pornography and, worse, in seeing graphic demonstrations of it.

Please promise me that material like this will never again appear in what is otherwise a very well-written magazine. If you cannot guarantee this, then I must ask you to cancel my subscription.

Appallingly Bad Judgment

I am disappointed in your egregious lapse of good taste and editorial judgment in showing the Turin Erotic Papyrus. The text was quite adequate to explain the content of the drawings; the pictures were not necessary. If I still had young children at home, I would not only be appalled, I would be furious.

An Egyptian’s Wishful Thinking

Please do not cancel my subscription. Just explain why you included the entire reconstruction drawing of the Turin Erotic Papyrus. A couple of thoughtfully selected scenes would have served quite well to illustrate Mr. O’Connor’s ideas. Including all the scenes added no new information, beyond proving that at least one ancient Egyptian indulged in wishful thinking.

It Took Courage

Thank you for showing the reconstruction drawing of the Turin Erotic 010Papyrus in your very daring article “Eros in Egypt.” None of the books I have on Egypt shows the papyrus, and it is very important to present the past as it actually was, without censorship.

Not Erotic at All

The supposedly “erotic” images of the Turin Papyrus are in fact simply grotesque—like a man with elephant ears, or a woman with a huge, bulbous nose. How on earth could anyone find these drawings of exaggerated phalli erotic, if Eros has anything to do with attraction and intimacy?

Boys Will Be Boys

“Eros in Egypt” shows that Egyptians were no different from us. Ancient Egyptian boys had an eye for the girls.

I expect you will get a lot of negative responses. But let’s face it, life is life, then as now. Otherwise you and I wouldn’t be here today.

Give the Man a Break

David O’Connor describes the male lover in the Turin Erotic Papyrus as “seedy and vulgar.” May I suggest middle-aged? This ardent Lothario is indeed familiar: He is one of those men who, after becoming prosperous enough to attract a young and beautiful consort, have lost their hair, waistline and svelte appearance.

Does this mean they are “seedy and vulgar”? Do I detect a hint of ageism? Let’s give this ancient man—long bereft of earthly desires—a break.

Why a Lotus Blossom?

“Eros in Egypt” brought to mind a question I have often pondered: What is the meaning of the lotus blossom in Egyptian art? All but one of the vignettes on the Turin papyrus show a lotus blossom above the head of the female. Was the flower an aphrodisiac? Or did it have other symbolic properties?

David O’Connor replies:

John Wagner is right that the lotus (actually, in Egypt, blue and white water lilies) had multiple meanings in ancient Egypt. Although both lilies were aromatic and beautiful, the blue lily is more often depicted in Egyptian art. Like a morning glory, it opens at dawn and closes by mid-morning—suggesting the creation of the world out of the primeval waters, as well as cycles of birth, death and rebirth. Moreover, because of the flower’s sky-blue petals and brilliant yellow calyx, the Egyptians associated it with the sun-god.

The blue lotus is also often found in depictions of banquets and funerary offerings, where it is either being wielded by participants or standing upon wine jars. According the American physician-Egyptologist W. Benson Harer, the essence of the blue lily was added to wine because of its mildly narcotic qualities 060(“Pharmacological and Biological Properties of the Egyptian Lotus,” Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 22 [1985]). Harer notes that the presence of the lily in the Turin Erotic Papyrus suggests that the young woman is under the flower’s narcotic influence, which would release sexual inhibitions.

Hot Air

“It was a cataclysm of immense proportions,” writes William H. Stiebing, Jr. (“When Civilization Collapsed,” AO 04:05): “Near the end of the 13th century B.C.E., the great Bronze Age civilizations of the Aegean and Near East suddenly collapsed.”

Are we to take this as simply a fact? Some scholars say that with the collapse of the Bronze Age Mycenaean civilization, Greece entered a centuries-long, illiterate Dark Age. It has long seemed strange to me how a writer like Homer (c. 800 B.C.E.) could have magically appeared out of hundreds of years of ignorance.

Why do words like “seems,” “likely” and “probably” appear so often in Stiebing’s article? “Crete seems to have suffered a major decline in population.” “The Peleset were likely the Philistines, and the Lukka were probably the ancestors of the Lycians.” At one point, Stiebing comes close to conceding that much of this scholarship is a house of cards: “Except for the Peleset/Philistines and Lukka/Lycians, in fact, all of these identifications are questionable. We really do not know exactly where most of the Sea Peoples came from.”

William H. Stiebing, Jr., replies:

Absolute certainty about the past is impossible. Obviously, more and better evidence exists for some periods and events than for others. For the end of the Bronze Age, we have much archaeological evidence and some textual evidence, but not nearly enough to eliminate all questions. Thus the frequent use of qualifiers such as “probably,” “likely” or “seems” is simply an honest admission of the state of our knowledge at present.

That said, the vast majority of historians and archaeologists specializing in ancient Aegean civilizations (not just some scholars) agree that Greece entered a “centuries-long, illiterate Dark Age” following the collapse of Mycenaean civilization.

But illiteracy and a low standard of material culture do not imply a lack of intelligence or creativity, as Mr. Hughes seems to assume. Oral epic poetry has flourished in illiterate or semi-literate societies, including the Balkans and Crete in relatively recent times. Scholars have noted in Homer’s epics the same techniques of oral composition, especially the use of memorized descriptions and catchwords (“bright-eyed Athena,” for example, or “rosy-fingered dawn”), as are used in oral poetry from more recent cultures. The production of exceptional poetry, even long epic poems like the Iliad and the Odyssey, does not assume the existence of literacy or advanced civilization. The appearance of Homer’s epics at the end of the Greek Dark Age is “magical” only in that one or more brilliant poets creatively used a variety of oral traditions and keen insight into human nature to produce classics of literature.

Moreover, uncertainty about the identification of the Sea Peoples (other than the Peleset and Lukka) should not be used to imply that most statements about the collapse of Bronze Age civilizations and the existence of the Greek Dark Age are equally doubtful. The destruction of the Mycenaean palaces and the subsequent decline of Greek Bronze Age civilization into a simpler Dark Age culture are clearly attested in the archaeological record. Although attempts have been made to eliminate this Dark Age by changing the archaeological chronology and the correlations between Greece and the Near East, they have all failed. (For a discussion of attempts to re-date the Palestinian Bronze and Early Iron 061Ages, see my Out of the Desert? Archaeology and the Exodus/Conquest Narratives [Prometheus Books, 1989].)

More Hot Air

Attempts to find simplistic explanations for the fall of Rome are legion (“What Felled Rome?” Field Notes, AO 04:05). If it’s not lead poisoning, then it’s malaria.

If archaeologists excavating a cemetery in Berlin from the early 1940s found that many people buried there died of pneumonia, would they immediately conclude that pneumonia was a major cause of the defeat of Nazi Germany? The mere fact that some ancient Romans caught malaria does not mean that the disease made the empire “susceptible to barbarian invasions.”

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Disgusting