Sex and booze figured in Egyptian rites

New twists in an old tale
The discoveries at the Temple of Mut parallel historical references to drunken rituals during Egypt's Greco-Roman period. The writer Herodotus reported in 440 B.C. that such festivals drew as many as 700,000 people — with drunken women exposing themselves to onlookers. "More grape wine is consumed at this festival than in all the rest of the year besides," Herodotus wrote. The festival also turns up in chronicles from around A.D. 200.

The new twist in Bryan's work is that such rituals were found to have taken place during a much earlier time in Egyptian history, said Aidan Dodson, an Egyptologist at the University of Bristol. "She's actually found the first definite evidence," he told MSNBC.com.

Dodson agreed with Bryan that getting drunk was definitely part of the ritual. "Clearly the Egyptians enjoyed a drink or three," he said. What's more, the parallels to the Sekhmet myth provide a "good theological basis" for what otherwise might be considered bad behavior.

However, he's not so sure that the sex was a religious obligation. "It's more likely to be a natural result of the vast imbibing of the beer, rather than an integral part of the ritual itself," Dodson said.

Beer, made from fermented barley bread, was the drink of choice for the festival of drunkenness as celebrated at the Temple of Mut, Bryan said. Another ritual, celebrated several months later in the year and known as the "festival of the beautiful valley," called for the celebrants to get drunk on wine, laced with lotus flowers to promote sleepiness. The lotus could also induce vomiting — which is depicted in some Egyptian wall paintings, Bryan noted.

Bryan conceded that she didn't have solid answers for many of the questions surrounding the rituals. For example:

• Did the revelers use birth control? (The Egyptians were said to favor natural pastes and suppositories, or perhaps stone amulets that served as intrauterine devices.)
• How long did Hatshepsut's porch of drunkenness last, and why was it taken down? (Egyptologists say Hatshepsut's successor to the throne, Thutmose III, obliterated all references to the female king — and her name was a mystery until the damaged ruins were reconstructed.)

Courtesy Betsy Bryan / JHU An aerial photo shows the Temple of Mut excavation site with what appears to be a processional boulevard leading toward the nearby Temple of Karnak.

Bryan suspects that the festival of drunkenness fell out of favor soon after Hatshepsut left from the scene. By the time of Amenhotep III, less than a century later, references to the rite had faded away. "One can't help but wonder whether individual piety won out over this kind of communal drunk," she said.

But Dodson said the Egyptian rite must have survived in some form long after Hatshepsut. Otherwise, how could it resurface during the Greco-Roman period? "If something dies out, I'm always a bit nervous about the idea of it being resurrected in full form centuries later," he said.

In either case, the debate over sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll in ancient times has added a little spice to the sometimes-staid field of Egyptology. "It certainly seems to have gotten people interested," Bryan acknowledged.

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