Three Tales of Same-Sex Love in Ancient Egypt
By Dr Neel Burton — Psychiatrist, philosopher, and wine writer; Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford; author of over twenty books.
Essay substantially revised on 8 September 2026.
Ancient Egyptian sources are largely silent on the subject of same-sex love. Our insights into the matter come from just three areas:
- A myth about the gods Horus and Seth
- A historical tale about Pharaoh Neferkare and his general Sasenet, and
- The tomb of court officials Nyankhkhnum and Khnumhotep.
Horus and Seth
In the Contendings of Horus and Seth, a myth with several versions, Seth and his nephew Horus vie for the throne of Egypt. Seth keeps on trying to get the better of Horus. At last, uncle decides to subjugate nephew by inebriating, seducing, and inseminating him.
‘How beautiful are your buttocks, how vital!’ This line, used by Seth on his nephew, is without a doubt the oldest chat-up, gay or straight, in all of recorded history.
In the event, Horus is not all that drunk, and succeeds in catching Seth’s semen in his hand. The next day, he shows his manky hand to his mother Isis, before washing it in the Nile. Together, Horus and Isis plot their revenge over Seth…
Horus finds Seth’s lunch and masturbates into his lettuce. After enjoying his dressed salad, Seth puts his domination case before the tribunal of the gods—but, of course, Horus disputes his claim. When Thoth calls forth their semen, that of Seth rises from the Nile, while that of Horus pours out of Seth’s mouth.
The myth suggests that, in Ancient Egypt as in Ancient Rome, the sticking point, if you’ll forgive the pun, was not so much with same-sex love per se, as with a male playing a passive or receptive role.
In 46 BCE, Julius Cæsar was rumoured to have submitted to Nicomedes IV of Bithynia, and mocked as ‘Queen of Bithynia’. A popular quip ran: Gallias Cæsar subegit, Cæsarem Nicomedes (Cæsar subjugated Gaul, and Nicomedes Cæsar).
It is notable that Horus had no qualms about being seduced by Seth, or even with bedding him, but only with being penetrated or inseminated by him.
Pharaoh Neferkare and General Sasenet
From three extent fragments, it is possible to reconstruct the twenty-third century BCE story of Pharaoh Neferkare (the long-reigning Pepi II) and his secret nightly visits to General Sasenet.
One night, a spy observed Neferkare going, on his own, from the royal palace to Sasenet’s house. Having arrived at the house, Neferkare ‘threw a brick after stamping with his foot. Then a ladder was lowered to him (and) he climbed up.’ Neferkare spent four hours in the house with Sasenet, leaving only ‘after his majesty had done that which he had wanted to do with him’. One fragment specifies that there was no woman, or wife, in Sasenet’s house, and the same incomplete sentence also contains the word ‘love’. The story ends with the spy confirming to himself that ‘the rumours about [Neferkare] going out at night are true’.
Although the tale is censorious of Neferkare’s conduct, this is more because it does not befit a king and god than because it involves same-sex love.
Nyankhkhnum and Khnumhotep
In the twenty-fifth century BCE, Nyankhkhnum and Khnumhotep shared the title of ‘Overseer of the Manicurists’ at the court of Pharaoh Nyuserre Ini. As with the Gentleman of the Bedchamber at the royal court of England, the title was much more prestigious than it sounds, since the pair would have been granted the rare privilege of touching the person of the pharaoh and would have had unrivalled access to him.
When they died, Nyankhkhnum and Khnumhotep were buried together in a mastaba tomb. In this tomb, they are severally depicted embracing and, in one instance, even touching noses, which in Egyptian culture generally signified kissing.
That their wives and children also feature in the tomb has led some to conclude that they were brothers rather than lovers—but having a family of their own need not have precluded them from being lovers, and in the tomb they are represented in the same mode as husband and wife.
So far as the written record goes, Nyankhkhnum and Khnumhotep are, I think, the oldest gays in history.
Like other ancient peoples, the Egyptians valued fertility and dominance, and disapproved of men who played a passive role. But they did not have a rigid convention of sexuality as either heterosexual or homosexual, and, at least in certain periods, and in certain strata, may have tolerated and even celebrated same-sex love.
I was interviewed on ‘the oldest gays in history’ by PRIDE:
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