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Wikimedia Commons · CC0 1.0 · Hover to magnify, click for fullscreen
Original fileThis papyrus fragment, heavily damaged and fragmented, features line drawings rendered in dark ink on a light brown support. The imagery consists of stylized human figures depicted in profile, captured mid-coitus. The figures appear to be nude or minimally clothed, with thin, linear limbs and black-inked hair styles typical of Egyptian art, interspersed with columns and rows of Hieratic script.
This work belongs to the Turin Erotic Papyrus (CGT 55001), a unique scroll from the New Kingdom (Ramesside period) that is the only known example of explicit erotic art in the Egyptian tradition, likely serving a satirical or apotropaic function rather than a pornographic one.
Multiple lines and columns of Hieratic script are visible above and around the figures, detailing captions or narrative context for the vignettes.
Translation
The text consists of short phrases describing the actions depicted or satirical commentary, though much of it remains heavily fragmentary and resistant to definitive translation due to the state of the papyrus.
Turin Erotic Papyrus
This image is a direct fragment of the aforementioned scroll, which contains both erotic imagery and satirical animal cartoons.
Object
Museo Egizio, Turin
Ink on papyrus
pen and ink
papyrus
New Kingdom
Egyptian
genre-scene
Digital Source
Wikimedia Commons · CC0 1.0
6699 × 1732 px
April 19, 2026
Linked Data
AI AI-cataloged fields generated by gemini-3.1-flash-lite-preview on April 19, 2026. Getty identifiers are AI-inferred and may require verification.