Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep: Throwback Thursday Goes Back. Way Back. Way WAAYYY Back!

Yer boy Hank here is usually giving you Throwback Thursdays going back a few years, maybe even a few decades, to show where, in porn at least, we get today's trends from yesteryear. Or maybe it's just an awesome scene we pull from the dustbin of our collective conscience. Sometimes I give you a bit of history, a brief biography of a famous gay person, or a brief history lesson about an event you should know about. This time around, though, we're going back to ancient Eqypt for what is now reported to be the oldest depiction of gay romance...ever! Maybe.

Jamie Valentino writing on the Gay Cities website informs us that in 1964, Chief Inspector of Lower Egypt Mounir Basta led an expedition that may have discovered in the depths of the 5th Dynasty tomb of Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep the earliest depiction of gay...something. Love? Romance Sex? From a time distance of more than two thousand years, debates abound as to the true nature of their relationship.

Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep are described as being, essentially, manicurists and personal grooming attendants to King Nyuserre Ini who reigned around the second half of the 25th century BCE. So...yeah. That stereotype is literally sealed in stone as it were.

While depictions in the tomb show they had wives and children, some scholars explain this as being a necessity ordered by the ruler for the further growth of his kingdom. What's unique about several elements of the tomb is what some historians and archeologists claim are indications that their relationship was more than simply work-related and just friendly.

 

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The entrance to the tomb is adorned with the words “JOINED IN LIFE AND JOINED IN DEATH.” Quite the telling pronouncement, and one which some say proves the acceptance with which their ruler favored their relationship, whatever it was. According to The Legacy Project, one thing is certain: “Two men of equal social standing being buried together in the same tomb – in spite of the fact that they were undoubtedly married to women – was unique.”

There are depictions of the two in intimate poses, such as Khnumhotep smelling a lotus flower (apparently a womanly act, or maybe super gay?), and most of which is the image of them touching noses, a move found almost exclusively between husbands and wives. But as Valentino writes in his piece regarding the conclusions of French archaeologist Nadine Sherpion, who studied "intimate portraits of heterosexual husbands and wives in tombs in Egypt’s fourth, fifth, and sixth dynasties to determine the iconographic trends and rules followed to portray a conjugal relationship," the two were indeed intimate.

The tomb itself, Valentino reports, is of a resounding splendor and opulence, which would "suggest that the pharaoh accepted them and held them and their relationship in high esteem despite the rarity of their iconography. " Allyship!

Of course, depending on the era and the person arguing, explanations have ranged from "just friends" to conjoined twins. Valentino brings up the importance of recognizing gay erasure throughout history, but it's also a mistake to view this from a purely contemporary lens using terms like "gay" or "homosexual" for which a historical definition applied to ancient cultures may not apply. personally, I'm going with the "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...it's a gay duck."

The importance of recognizing ourselves in ancient cultures can be a significant step to acceptance today. As Tamar Atkinson wrote on the University of Liverpool website:

"The possibilities of same-sex attraction being shown within historical evidence, and the clear differences in intimacy and types of relationships that can be seen compared to our contemporary Western society, may help society to be more open-minded to relationships in the present."

 

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