4,000 Year Old Porn Shows Kinky Side Of Ancient People
In the traditionally conservative middle east, there is a new exhibit at the Israel Museum that sheds some light on the kinky ways of the ancient middle east. The display, housed in the museum’s archaeology wing, have some 4,000 year old erotic tablets that show a wide variety of kinky sex positions that the ancient world marveled in. The tablets are from ancient Mesopotamia.
Two of the clay ancient porn tablets show couples having ancient sex in various different kinky positions. They are made from a form of Terra Cotta that was mass produced in the area during what is known as the Old Babylonian period.
Laura A. Peri, curator of Western Asiatic Antiquities, told the Times of Israel:
“Mesopotamian erotica was really something racy. It’s not all, you know, missionary and that’s it.”
The plaques show men and women taking each other from behind while swilling beer through a straw. Historians say this was very common at the time and the drinking from the straws was meant to be a form visual representation of oral sex. The tablets show numerous forms of anal sex, which at the time was very popular as it was a way that the ancient mesopotamians practiced birth control.
The tablets were found amongst the ruins of temples, homes and libraries which is a testament to their popularity. Sexuality was very popular among men, women and even children of the period. Peri referred to the pieces as ancient “pop art” instead of ancient porn.
That the erotic clay plaques were found in temples, graves and private homes makes it difficult to generalize about their intended use, but is testament to their popularity. That excavators found the erotic artwork in high-traffic rooms of homes leads Assante to infer that they were accessible to men, women and children.
The exhibit also shows various forms of Caananite art in order to show the drastic reduction in sexuality in the area when Judaism was institutionalized in the 8th century BCE.
Do you want to go visit an exhibit which depicts ancient porn?
