Screwed up burials. Re-used old coffins (honestly once you were past 100 years dead your coffin was fair game. Suck it). Weâve even got cases where a coffin had been made for the matriarch of the family, and then her teenage son dies before her. Because wood was expensive, and coffins took a long time to make, the family went âok niankhamun is going in nesmutâs coffinâ and buried him that way.Â
Then we get to the Late Period archaising and oh boy do we have some fun. Due to the Egyptian habit of being nostalgic for what they considered better periods of their history (oh wait where have I heard that before?) they tended to try to copy âstylesâ of art from other periods without knowing the full decorum. So, as is the case with the Late Period, itâd become a mish mash of âok so this is Amarna style paunch art, but weâre using the feminine coffin pose from the New Kingdom, and our art grid is off by one so everyone looks elongatedâ. They literally write about themselves being proud of copying these older art styles.Â
I know this site likes to think in black and white terms, with a heavy amount of anti-intellectual bias, but reality is more complicated than youâd like, as is history. Knowing the full cultural context for why historical people did what they did is vital, because otherwise we assume they thought the same way we do about topics such as this, and thatâs where you fall into the âbiasâ trap. If you donât look at something in Ancient Egypt and say âwell what do the Egyptians themselves tell us about thisâ and just immediately head to âwell itâs this way now so archaeologists must have missed something what idiotsâ then youâre doing a bad job of working with the material presented to you.Â
As for Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep, well this site likes to twist their narrative pretty hard, as you can see from the above. Yeah, theyâre mlm couple. Thatâs been the accepted narrative (bar a few outliers) for about 40 years, and it was even suggested way before that. Idk, might be a good idea to read something written after 1970 if youâre trying to get current thinking on the subject. Or you know, stuff published this century. Basing your ideas of what archaeologists think currently on publications from the 60s is as bad as assuming that scientists now have the same ideas about disease as they did in the 60s. Things move on.Â
Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep are not depicted as different sizes, thus making one more âfeminineâ. Theyâre depicted as the same size, because itâs not just your gender in Egyptian art decorum that determines your size but also your rank and power. Look:
Here they are embracing, in what is a depiction of a kiss. Theyâre the same size.Â
Here they are at the entrance. Same size.Â
Here they are kissing again. Same size.Â
One last time. Same size.Â
(Iâve been to this tomb. Seen it in person. Itâs very gay)
There are also loads of examples where women are not depicted as âsmallâ, in fact that statement in and of itself is rather a generalisation than the actual rule. Hereâs Menna and his wife:
Hereâs Inherkhau and his wife and children:
And because Iâm feeling petty, have one more. Hereâs Irynefer and his wife:
Idk about you guys, but doesnât seem right does it? Really, size in these tomb paintings is all about the importance of the figure, in this case the deceased, rather than their gender. The only reason they would be not of the same size in the tomb is when one is as an Osiris. When that happens the figure who is larger, and yeah itâs usually the man because you rarely get womenâs tombs because theyâre buried with their husbands, is representative of the deceased being âhonouredâ as an âOsirisâ (you become an Osiris after death in Egypt). The size of the person depicts their importance as the revered deceased and not because one is a woman. Take here for example the tomb of Sennefer:
You can see Sennefer as the revered dead on the right, being offered a lotus (Iâll get onto that in a sec) by his wife. Sheâs offering him rebirth. It is only this scene in which she is depicted smaller, because on the left (at an angle) you can see them bothâŠ.portrayed as the same size. Hereâs another image of them together:
It is only when she is offering to him as a revered, and more important, deceased person that she is smaller. Decorum dictates that the more important you are the larger you are, so the tomb owner will always be depicted as larger than pretty much everyone else. If Khnumhotep is offering a lotus flower to Niankhkhnum, it is because Niankhkhnum at that point is the revered dead. It has nothing to do with Khnumhotep being âfeminineâ. The narrative that one of them must be taking the âfeminineâ role seems kindaâŠ.not good? Â
As for the symbol of a lotus flower? Thatâs nothing to do with âfemininityâ. At all. In Egyptian culture, the lotus flower symbolised power and rebirth, as in one creation myth, the mound grew from the waters of Nun, and from this mound grew a lotus flower. When this lotus flower opened it provided the first âmanâ and thatâs how mankind came into existence. This is why we have a statue of Tutankhamun emerging from a Lotus flower.Â
Khnumhotep offering this flower to Niankhkhnum is not symbolising his âfemininityâ itâs offering him rebirth into the afterlife. A symbol that was extremely important in Ancient Egypt.Â
Oh and finally, Archaeologists from 1964, and up until the early 80s, thought they were brothers because thatâs literally what they refer to each other as. They call each other âsn=iâ âmy brotherâ. Yeah it seems obvious now that theyâre not, but when you start translating something youâre not looking at anything deeper. If it says they were brothers, and they themselves have said this, why would we think differently? It was not until the mid 70s when we worked out that Middle Egyptian Hieroglyphs (though theyâre using Old Egyptian, but the flaw is the same) has limited words for family. We only have words for: father, mother, brother, sister, son, daughter, husband, and wife. There are no words for âuncleâ or âcousinâ or ânephewâ. So we ended up having to go back and reassess some stuff, and it turned out where someone had said âso and so is my fatherâ theyâre actually saying âso and so is my grandfather or uncleâ and the same goes for âson/nephewâ, cousins are brothers and sisters. Yes, there was some absolute homophobia going on when it was first suggested that they might not actually be brothers, but lovers. There are some that still think this way. But the vast majority no longer hold this view, and havenât since the 1980s.Â
Here is a link to everything we currently know about the presence of LGBT individuals in Ancient Egypt. Itâs written by an excellent Egyptologist (Deborah Sweeney), and has an extensive bibliography on everything written so far about LGBT individuals in Ancient Egypt often by LGBT Egyptologist and Archaeologists themselves. The PDF is free to read, and was published in 2011.
Please stop believing that the homophobia of 1920s, or even 1970s, scholars is still the most current and widely held belief in Egyptology. By perpetuating this view, you harm those scholars, many of whom are LGBT themselves, who are trying to get out there and make themselves heard on this topic. Theyâre working tirelessly to change this perception and the narrative Tumblr likes to push is actively harming their work.Â
