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Ancient erotic art

Printed From: History Community ~ All Empires
Category: General History
Forum Name: Historical Arts and Architecture
Forum Discription: Discuss arts, literature, and architecture before the 19th century
URL: http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=16638
Printed Date: 23-May-2024 at 11:03
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Topic: Ancient erotic art
Posted By: Hellios
Subject: Ancient erotic art
Date Posted: 21-Dec-2006 at 23:11
Are we allowed posting & discussing examples of ancient (authentic) erotic art if it's not too explicit?
 



Replies:
Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 21-Dec-2006 at 23:27
Example:
 
These girls are visiting a brothel in the ancient city of Pompeii:
 
 
 
On the walls are frescoes like this:
 


Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 21-Dec-2006 at 23:52
Well photoraphy was a little underdevloped in 70 AD. So I seriusly doubt you'll have screen shots like, "Naughty from naples", "Busty Britannia", "Amazing Arabian".
 
 


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Posted By: Aelfgifu
Date Posted: 22-Dec-2006 at 04:53
Sparten, you'd be amazed by how explicit it gets. I've seen acient Greek vases in museums that can compete with the whole of the upper shelf magazine range. I could post you examples, but like Hellios I wonder if it would be allowed as it is very much not suitable for kids....
 
And not only the ancients had a dirty mind: there are also some pretty unbelievable things in stonework on a large number of medieval cathedrals in Europe....


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Women hold their councils of war in kitchens: the knives are there, and the cups of coffee, and the towels to dry the tears.


Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 22-Dec-2006 at 09:30

I am sure they had dirty minds, how else you could get them to repopulate the planet?Wink And I saw some stuff in Athen's musumes which well would certainly qualify as porno (now and then). My point was simply that the medium for captuting such images was a bit underdevloped. In other words, nom photography and realistic true to life images did not really come in any numbers till the 1500's.



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Posted By: Aelfgifu
Date Posted: 22-Dec-2006 at 10:52

Check this:

first sex movie ever... (don't worry suitable for minors too...funny, not shockingWink)
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWPpHNTOs7E - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWPpHNTOs7E


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Women hold their councils of war in kitchens: the knives are there, and the cups of coffee, and the towels to dry the tears.


Posted By: Decebal
Date Posted: 22-Dec-2006 at 11:49

I think that certainly Indian erotic art (a good example is Chola art from the 9th to the 12th centuries AD), deserves a mention. Mostly sculpture, but also painting, are explicit to say the least. However, they were not pornographic, but rather religious in nature, as they believed sex to be a way to celebrate nature and God.

Also, Japan has a long tradition of erotic art. Most of the erotic art we have is from the Edo period (1642-1859). It is also unique in depicting many scenes of rape.

Unfortunately, there are not too many Internet resources on this subject, as it is still rather taboo.



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What is history but a fable agreed upon?
Napoleon Bonaparte

Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.- Mohandas Gandhi



Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 24-Dec-2006 at 10:37
Silver coin from Thasos, Greece, circa 500-463 BC.  A man carries off a protesting woman, who wears a chiton.  Reverse: quadripartite incuse square.
 
 


Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 24-Dec-2006 at 11:34

Ah the good old days. When guys like me could actually get cooperation from the ladies.



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Posted By: xi_tujue
Date Posted: 24-Dec-2006 at 16:00
Originally posted by Aelfgifu

Check this:

first sex movie ever... (don't worry suitable for minors too...funny, not shockingWink)
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWPpHNTOs7E - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWPpHNTOs7E

Clap hehe I liked it verry funny (but i'm kinda bumed out didn't see all of the movieLOL)





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I rather be a nomadic barbarian than a sedentary savage


Posted By: Reginmund
Date Posted: 16-Jan-2007 at 17:07
You should check out the Greek vases that show pederasty (the custom of older men having sexual relationships with boys) in action. The usual motive is a big guy with a beard fondling the jewels of a beardless youth.

http://encyclopedia.quickseek.com/images/Cambridge_tondo.jpg - Example 1

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en-commons/thumb/c/cd/250px-Amphora_-seduction_scene-_for_Wiki.jpg - Example 2

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Posted By: Ikki
Date Posted: 16-Jan-2007 at 17:37
Originally posted by Reginmund

http://encyclopedia.quickseek.com/images/Cambridge_tondo.jpg - Example 1
http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en-commons/thumb/c/cd/250px-Amphora_-seduction_scene-_for_Wiki.jpg - Example 2  

wow shocking!! I knew about this about the ancient greeks and their artistic works but never ever saw it


Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 16-Jan-2007 at 19:21
Originally posted by Reginmund

You should check out the Greek vases that show pederasty (the custom of older men having sexual relationships with boys) in action. The usual motive is a big guy with a beard fondling the jewels of a beardless youth.
http://encyclopedia.quickseek.com/images/Cambridge_tondo.jpg - Example 1
http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en-commons/thumb/c/cd/250px-Amphora_-seduction_scene-_for_Wiki.jpg - Example 2  
Originally posted by Ikki

wow shocking!! I knew about this about the ancient greeks and their artistic works but never ever saw it
 
Adding to your ancient gay art Reginmund:
 
China: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/Beijing.jpg - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/Beijing.jpg
Egypt: http://www.nyu.edu/nyutoday/archives/19/11R/Images/Egyptian-pic2.jpg - http://www.nyu.edu/nyutoday/archives/19/11R/Images/Egyptian-pic2.jpg
Japan: http://www.degener.com/1371-6.jpg - http://www.degener.com/1371-6.jpg
Rome: http://www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/content/images/2006_2061.JPG - http://www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/content/images/2006_2061.JPG
 
I hope Ikki won't be too shocked.
 


Posted By: Aelfgifu
Date Posted: 17-Jan-2007 at 03:58
That Japanese one is not gay Hellios... Surely you can see the difference? Tongue

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Women hold their councils of war in kitchens: the knives are there, and the cups of coffee, and the towels to dry the tears.


Posted By: Yiannis
Date Posted: 17-Jan-2007 at 05:22
Originally posted by Reginmund

You should check out the Greek vases that show pederasty (the custom of older men having sexual relationships with boys) in action. The usual motive is a big guy with a beard fondling the jewels of a beardless youth.

 
This one is Zeus seducing Ganymedes. It's a mythological scene.


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The basis of a democratic state is liberty. Aristotle, Politics

Those that can give up essential liberty to obtain a temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin


Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 17-Jan-2007 at 05:45
Originally posted by Aelfgifu

That Japanese one is not gay Hellios... Surely you can see the difference? Tongue 
 
Isn't it 2 women?
 


Posted By: Aelfgifu
Date Posted: 17-Jan-2007 at 11:41
Hm, it might be... Hard to tell what the right one is... perhaps you are right. Wink

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Women hold their councils of war in kitchens: the knives are there, and the cups of coffee, and the towels to dry the tears.


Posted By: Reginmund
Date Posted: 17-Jan-2007 at 16:21
Two women, yes, you can tell it by the way their hair is done. As far as I know it has never been fashionable for Japanese men to wear their hair like that, so I think we're on safe ground.

As for the Egyptian one, I don't think it's explicit enough to be interepreted as homosexual; it merely shows two men facing each other.

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Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 17-Jan-2007 at 21:40
Originally posted by Reginmund

As for the Egyptian one, I don't think it's explicit enough to be interepreted as homosexual; it merely shows two men facing each other.
 
The right man's right arm is around the left man.  See the fingers over the left man's right shoulder.
The left man's left hand is holding the right man's left forearm.
The lips kinda close.  Noses touching I think, not sure, you might be right!
 


Posted By: Reginmund
Date Posted: 18-Jan-2007 at 13:00
Still, hugging and kissing is and has been considered an appropriate greeting gesture between males in many cultures. Not, however, in my own, nor in yours I expect, Hellios, so I think our cultural background more than anything else leads us to think of homosexuality.

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Posted By: Preobrazhenskoe
Date Posted: 23-Jan-2007 at 16:13

This is a cool thread, Hellios, I definitely approve! Lol.

 

Eric



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Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 23-Jan-2007 at 18:41
All cultures had art of a sexual nature, however not all of that art was meant in an erotic sense.  Much of it was ritual and figured into fertility rights.
 

Erotica may date back to Stone Age

Jennifer Viegas
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/news.html - Discovery News

Friday, 15 April 2005

Clay%20image

Clay images of bulls, like this one from South America, are used to symbolise fertility and luck. But humans may have been using sexual imagery since the Stone Age (Image: iStockphoto)

German archaeologists have found what they believe is Europe's earliest known clay figure of a male, along with a female figure that they think once was attached to the male in a sexual position.

Together, the two finds could represent the earliest 3D depiction of a copulating human couple, according to the archaeological team.

Clay is difficult to date accurately, the team indicate, but markings on the objects, their style and the place in which they were found suggest the figures date to 5200 BC.

"We don't really know what function sexual representations really had in those times," says Dr Harald Stäuble, a scientist with Germany's http://www.archsax.sachsen.de/ - National Office for Archaeology in Dresden, who led the excavation.

"But we know that they were colonising early farmers, and we expect that fertility rites must have had an overall importance."

The findings will be published in an upcoming issue of the German archaeological journal http://www.dainst.org/index.php?id=2868 - Germania .

Stäuble and his colleagues unearthed the artefacts while excavating a site called Zschernitz, just north of Leipzig.

The team is responsible for researching sites marked for pipeline and highway projects. Zschernitz was being prepared for the installation of a gas pipeline when the remains of the ancient figures were found.

Stäuble says two fragments make up the male figurine, which he has nicknamed Adonis, since early female figurines often are called "Venus."

He says the name suits the male figure "very well, looking at the explicit representation of the male gender".

Defined anatomy
The first fragment attributed to the male shows an enlarged, erect penis and the scrotum at the front, both of which are bent slightly forward. The back of this same object shows clearly defined buttocks.

"The butt cheeks are decorated by two rows of triangular motifs, which are typical for the Linearbandkeramic culture, which is the oldest Neolithic [late Stone Age] culture in central Europe and dates between 5500 and 4900 BC," Stäuble says.

The second fragment shows part of the male's shoulder and a section of his chest. The shoulder area indicates his now-missing head must have been bent backwards.

The second figurine, which was excavated nearby one month later, would have belonged to a 25 to 28-centimetre long statuette, as for the male.

Only the buttocks, legs and knees remain, all of which suggest that it was meant to represent a female.

Markings similar to those found on the male exist on the back of the legs, and the object's position suggests the female once could have been situated directly in front of the male.

"The [female] figure is much more bent forward, almost 90°, and could not stand by itself nor be seated," says Stäuble.

He theorised that the couple could have been performing a ritual dance, but that a sexual scene was much more likely.

"There will never be a positive proof for either of the two explanations, just arguments for and against," he explains. "But first of all, the penis is erected and secondly the figurines show different angles of bending forward."

It's not erotica
Emeritus Professor Jens Lüning from the http://www.uni-frankfurt.de/en/ - University of Frankfurt , who is an expert on prehistory, disagrees with this interpretation.

He believes Neolithic statuettes should be regarded as representing individuals, and not couples.

Most all other Neolithic figures, in fact, do clearly show separate men and women, often with exaggerated sexual characteristics, suggesting that the figures probably were related to fertility rituals.

Most of these objects were excavated in what are now Iraq, Turkey and Jordan.

Aside from the impressive age and rarity in Europe of the Zschernitz objects, Stäuble believes they are important because they "are not stylistic, but realistic".

In future, he hopes they will inspire historians and anthropologists to investigate how people in the Stone Age viewed sex. He suggests that sex in prehistoric times may not have been a taboo subject, as it is even today in many parts of the world.



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"Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces".
Unknown.


Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 23-Jan-2007 at 18:48
 
 
 
 
                          
 
                            Viking, undated
 
 
 
 
 
                             
 
                               Inca stirrup pot, date unavailable
 
 
Most cultures didn't view sex or the body in the same way that modern cultures do.


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"Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces".
Unknown.


Posted By: Batu
Date Posted: 04-Feb-2007 at 14:49
  This is from Anatolia,the god of fertility.

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A wizard is never late,nor he is early he arrives exactly when he means to :) ( Gandalf the White in the Third Age of History Empire Of Istari )


Posted By: Leonardo
Date Posted: 04-Feb-2007 at 15:00
 
 
 
Priapus


Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 04-Feb-2007 at 23:08
Originally posted by Batu

  This is from Anatolia,the god of fertility.
 
 
Or alot of wishful thinking on the part of an ordinary guy.Big%20smileLOLBig%20smile


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"Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces".
Unknown.


Posted By: Batu
Date Posted: 05-Feb-2007 at 11:28
hey Red Clay,dont mess with the god of fertility;he is naughty,horny,rutted.his revenge would be frightening but full of love Smile

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A wizard is never late,nor he is early he arrives exactly when he means to :) ( Gandalf the White in the Third Age of History Empire Of Istari )


Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 15-Mar-2007 at 09:51
There was no description with this.
 


Posted By: Dawn
Date Posted: 15-Mar-2007 at 23:46
Originally posted by Hellios

Are we allowed posting & discussing examples of ancient (authentic) erotic art if it's not too explicit?
 
 
I see nothing wrong with it . Not pornography - it's historical art. Go for it.


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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 18-Mar-2007 at 10:16
This is really interesting topic, and the Kajuraho Temples in India are a heritage site and the site is abound with foreign tourists, the reason is mindblowing sculptures of love, science and art .....just google it and your mind will blow away with the sort of images that your eyes you are goign to witness.....
The 9th to 12th century temples of Khajuraho is the evidences of the architectural geniuses during the times of Chandela dynasty. Situated in Madhya Pradesh, India, Khajuraho oozes with passion, eroticism, dance and music and other finesses of creative arts depicted in sculpture and images of the temples. The 85 temples were built in North Indian 'Nagara' style of architecture, though only 20 of them have survived the rough weather conditions over long years of time. The two richer distinctive groups of temples are the Western and Eastern group of temples.

http://imageshack.us">

http://imageshack.us">

http://imageshack.us">

  These are only just glimpses, all the fanatasies that a modern people have almost find their expressions in Kajuraho .
  Just google and you'll know Why I said that....
      It can be said that it is the capital and unreachable capital or ancient erotic art, with a philosophy of its existence..


Posted By: Tyranos
Date Posted: 04-Oct-2007 at 10:47
 I seen these over at Rotten.com:
 
 
Nostalgic Pan-Asian Kink
 

http://poetry.rotten.com/pan-asian-kink/ - http://poetry.rotten.com/pan-asian-kink/

 


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Posted By: Styrbiorn
Date Posted: 04-Oct-2007 at 13:18

Tanum rock carvings, 1800-500BC. Effectively destroying the ridiculous idea that humans procreated only doggy-style until recently.



Posted By: froid14
Date Posted: 28-May-2009 at 05:06
I saw a similar art in charlisangels adult sex resort during my last summer vacations in the Caribbean.


Posted By: opuslola
Date Posted: 06-Apr-2010 at 21:06
Actually, the above site, and subsequent posts, do not really do the subject matter justice!

Sex, and drugs, with no videotape, were "part an parcel" of most all religions! And, no one can really deny it!

It seems, that in religious literature, one either is blessed for doing it, or reads about doing it, or is defamed for doing it!

And "it" comes most naturally to most humans!

Therefore, there has existed a long list of phallic symbols in both the extreem past and also within the near past! And, as ying is to yang, there has also existed the same symbols of female genetalia!

Old Catholic churches, and other religious sites, are oft found to contain representations of both!

It is only within the last 300 years that certain things have become "verbotten!"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_Band_of_Thebes

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http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/history/


Posted By: Shield-of-Dardania
Date Posted: 12-Apr-2010 at 03:41
Seers burnt 'herbs' and inhaled the smoke, saw 'things', then spoke of what they saw as 'prophesy', and guys believed them.

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History makes everything. Everything is history in the making.


Posted By: opuslola
Date Posted: 16-Apr-2010 at 18:25
No one, it seems ever read the last site I provided above, I.e.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_Band_of_Thebes

Can anyone see any chance that this group might also represent that group we now call Spartans?

A little research by some of you might well reveal some weird connections?

Such as; "The Thebans of the Sacred Band held their ground and nearly all 300 fell where they stood beside their last commander, Theagenes. Plutarch records that Philip II, on encountering the corpses "heaped one upon another", understanding who they were, exclaimed,

'Perish any man who suspects that these men either did or suffered anything unseemly.'"

The number of the dead (close to 300) might well suggest a connection?
Regards,

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http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/history/


Posted By: Shield-of-Dardania
Date Posted: 14-May-2010 at 01:45
When the Jade Stem gets strong and fierce, it must have a Jade Orifice to give it some peace. When the Jade Orifice goes soft and anxious, it needs a Jade Stem to soothe the storms. So said an ancient sage.Approve
 
It's just the law of nature.
 
Thus man and woman flourished together, and their offspring grew into the multitudes.


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History makes everything. Everything is history in the making.


Posted By: DreamWeaver
Date Posted: 14-May-2010 at 09:24
Originally posted by opuslola

No one, it seems ever read the last site I provided above, I.e.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_Band_of_Thebes

Can anyone see any chance that this group might also represent that group we now call Spartans?

A little research by some of you might well reveal some weird connections?

Such as; "The Thebans of the Sacred Band held their ground and nearly all 300 fell where they stood beside their last commander, Theagenes. Plutarch records that Philip II, on encountering the corpses "heaped one upon another", understanding who they were, exclaimed,

'Perish any man who suspects that these men either did or suffered anything unseemly.'"

The number of the dead (close to 300) might well suggest a connection?
Regards,
 
 
 
 
Or it could just be a literary trope.


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Posted By: opuslola
Date Posted: 18-Aug-2010 at 16:51
How easily you dismiss some evidence and how smoothly you readily assimilate others!

But, perhaps one of the greatest collections of erotic art, has been mostly hidden in Italy for the last 100 or so years.

This is the erotic collection of the area destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius many years ago, the words "many years" is left to ones perception however!

This collection has recently (last few years) been released for general public viewing. There is no guess as to how much of it was destroyed!, on purpose!

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http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/history/


Posted By: marjorie100
Date Posted: 31-Oct-2011 at 09:50
Erotic art in Pompeii and Herculaneum was discovered in the ancient cities around the bay of Naples (particularly of Pompeii and Herculaneum) after extensive excavations began in the 18th century. The city was found to be full of erotic art and frescoes, symbols, and inscriptions regarded by its excavators as pornographic. Even many recovered household items had a sexual theme. The ubiquity of such imagery and items indicates that the sexual mores of the ancient Roman culture of the time were much more liberal than most present-day cultures, although much of what might seem to us to be erotic imagery (eg oversized phalluses) could arguably be fertility-imagery. This clash of cultures led to an unknown number of discoveries being hidden away again. For example, a wall fresco which depicted Priapus, the ancient god of sex and fertility, with his extremely enlarged penis, was covered with plaster (and, as Schefold explains (p. 134), even the older reproduction below was locked away "out of prudishness" and only opened on request) and only rediscovered in 1998 due to rainfal


Posted By: Nick1986
Date Posted: 31-Oct-2011 at 19:11

Erotica dates back to the Stone Age. Here is a carving of a fertility goddess


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Me Grimlock not nice Dino! Me bash brains!


Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 02-Nov-2011 at 00:52
Originally posted by Nick1986


Erotica dates back to the Stone Age. Here is a carving of a fertility goddess

I don't see as erotic art, but as a religious one - a statuette of a Mother Goddess, or a fertility goddess is a religious object, not an erotic one. For sure it didn't carry erotic meaning for the people who consider this a representation of a goddess, not more than a icon of Virgin Mary has an erotic meaning for a say, Catholic. Now for us being disconnected from the ancient way of thinking that produced it it may seem erotic because it represents a naked woman, but this would be taking it out of the context that provided for it's creation.


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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 02-Nov-2011 at 00:58
Ancient Pompeii "The Forbidden Room"
[TUBE]YW3NW_uZjx0[/TUBE]


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Posted By: TheAlaniDragonRising
Date Posted: 26-Jan-2012 at 16:26
Originally posted by Hellios

Are we allowed posting & discussing examples of ancient (authentic) erotic art if it's not too explicit?
 
How do we discern ancient sacred? I ask because I think it maybe possible that many things called ancient erotic could be sacred rather than erotic, and it is a modern eye with a modern perspective on modern sexuality which could be clouding people's judgements. 

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What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.


Posted By: opuslola
Date Posted: 12-Dec-2013 at 00:48
Yes marjorie100 , everything you posted is correct! Except maybe the dating's? Thus, I and most everyone in the Fomenko community considers this stuff belongs in the Middle Ages!

regards, Ron

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http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/history/



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