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Lot Essay
Although erotic figures with exaggerated male genitalia are not uncommon in Egyptian contexts, representations of actual intercourse are rare. This glossy faience group, with details rendered in black, depicts a young man wearing the sidelock of youth penetrating a prone woman whose legs rest over his shoulders. She wears a heavy wig and lies on a braided mat or mattress. Young males with similar sidelocks – evocative of Harpocrates, the child form of Horus – are well attested in faience, terracotta, and limestone. Because many examples are fragmentary and early excavators and museums often avoided publishing explicit pieces, the type remains understudied. One exception is the corpus from the Greek colony of Naukratis, which has been examined in depth by scholars from the British Museum (see R. Thomas, “Naukratis: Egyptian Late Period Figures in Terracotta and Limestone,” in A. Villing, et al., eds., Naukratis: Greeks in Egypt, online publication).
A well-known limestone Ptolemaic symplegma, or erotic group, in Brooklyn has received substantial interpretation: the six male figures in attendance have been read by R.S. Bianchi as sem-priests, while the female participant is linked to Isis (see Cleopatra’s Egypt: Age of the Ptolemies, pp. 241-242). The religious tenor of that piece is heightened by two of the males holding a bound oryx, perhaps symbolizing the binding of Seth.
The present faience group is less clear in meaning, though it shows stylistic continuity with the “happy maternity” faience figures of the Third Intermediate to Late Periods analyzed by J. Bulté (Talismans égyptiens d’heureuse maternité: ‘Faïence’ bleu-vert à pois foncés). A date prior to the Roman era is supported by the woman’s hairstyle (compare the example at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. no. 17.194.2459, p. 43 in Bulté, op. cit.).
An alternative interpretation may connect the imagery to the “Myth of the Wandering Goddess,” in which a fierce feline goddess – often Tefnut, Bastet, or Sekhmet – wanders from Egypt into Nubia and is enticed home. Her return, celebrated with music, drunkenness, and revelry culminating in sexual union, provides a compelling conceptual frame in which to view this object. M. Hill has explored a broad range of faience objects in relation to this myth, and this group may likewise celebrate the joyous climax of that ritual cycle (see "Tribal Dynamics, Child Gods, and the Faraway Goddess: Mingling in the Egyptian Delta in the Third Intermediate Period,” in J. Aruz and M. Seymour, eds., Assyria to Iberia: Art and Culture in the Iron Age, pp. 154-167).
A well-known limestone Ptolemaic symplegma, or erotic group, in Brooklyn has received substantial interpretation: the six male figures in attendance have been read by R.S. Bianchi as sem-priests, while the female participant is linked to Isis (see Cleopatra’s Egypt: Age of the Ptolemies, pp. 241-242). The religious tenor of that piece is heightened by two of the males holding a bound oryx, perhaps symbolizing the binding of Seth.
The present faience group is less clear in meaning, though it shows stylistic continuity with the “happy maternity” faience figures of the Third Intermediate to Late Periods analyzed by J. Bulté (Talismans égyptiens d’heureuse maternité: ‘Faïence’ bleu-vert à pois foncés). A date prior to the Roman era is supported by the woman’s hairstyle (compare the example at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. no. 17.194.2459, p. 43 in Bulté, op. cit.).
An alternative interpretation may connect the imagery to the “Myth of the Wandering Goddess,” in which a fierce feline goddess – often Tefnut, Bastet, or Sekhmet – wanders from Egypt into Nubia and is enticed home. Her return, celebrated with music, drunkenness, and revelry culminating in sexual union, provides a compelling conceptual frame in which to view this object. M. Hill has explored a broad range of faience objects in relation to this myth, and this group may likewise celebrate the joyous climax of that ritual cycle (see "Tribal Dynamics, Child Gods, and the Faraway Goddess: Mingling in the Egyptian Delta in the Third Intermediate Period,” in J. Aruz and M. Seymour, eds., Assyria to Iberia: Art and Culture in the Iron Age, pp. 154-167).