Inventory number

General description

The so-called "Satiric-Erotic Papyrus"

Cat. 2031 = CGT 55001 is a fragmentary papyrus with peculiar content that belonged to the villagers of the ancient Egyptian town of Deir el-Medina. The papyrus juxtaposes two seemingly unrelated topics, although both comical and satirical in character. The manuscript reads from right to left. The right side of the papyrus carries a topsy-turvy representation of a world where animals act like humans. Some animals wear clothes, other play musical instruments, and others still fight with weapons like bows and arrows. The roles of predator and prey are reversed: mice and birds have the upper hand against cats, and gazelles take lions prisoner with long sticks and ropes. On the left-hand side we have the erotic part, where young women, most probably all musicians, are having intercourse in a variety of agile positions with men whose absurdly large phalluses emerge from under their kilts. In contrast to the beautifully depicted women, most of the men  are shown as balding, and some with large bellies.

It is important to underline that this papyrus is not pornographic in nature, but rather comical and satirical. In ancient Egypt, caricatures involving animals and sexually explicit subjects were always considered worthy of a good laugh. In this regard, the mind of the ancient Egyptian who made this papyrus was not that far removed from our own modern mind.