On lustful deities and the ontological turn in the archaeology of ancient Egypt

Abstract

Building on the ongoing debates surrounding the archaeological application of New Materialism, posthumanism, speculative realism, object-oriented ontology, and the anthropological ontological turn, this paper examines sexual interactions between deities and humans, as well as among deities represented as statues in ancient Egypt. Acknowledging the existence of such sexual encounters and providing detailed descriptions of the involved entities alone does not fully recognize the underlying gender and class structures. This paper argues that these analysed sexual encounters were shaped by gender and class-based power asymmetries, revealing that the ancient Egyptians and contemporary perspectives are not as distinct as they might seem.

Keywords

• ancient Egypt
• deities
• sex
• ontological turn