Painted Pottery depiction of an erotic scene.

Contemporary writers sometimes deny the existence of sexual images in ancient Egyptian art, insisting that erotica offended Egyptian religious sensibilities. The objects here demonstrate the fallacy of those dams Nonetheless, what may appear to us as pure obscenity was not necessarily seen as such by the Egyptians. Humour was surely intended by some sexually laden images. and other meanings were sometimes present as well.

The large group composition here has significant religious connotations such as fertility and re-generation, and a famous graffito near the funerary temple of Hatshepsut in Thebes that shows the woman pharaoh copulating with one of her officials is both satirical and political as well as scatological. Beginning in 18th Dynasty, sex and music were intimately connected in Egyptian art, no doubt because they were both associated with the goddess Hathor. Female musicians and dancers were often shown naked or wearing transparent garments. Occasionally they were depicted as being ravished by sexually frenzied men.

In the Late and Ptolemaic Periods, small compositions with musical themes and sexual imagery became popular. All these works feature a man wit an enormous phallus, sometimes with a harp on top.