Scholars are translating an 1,800-year-old Egyptian papyrus describing what scholars call an “erotic binding spell,” in which a woman named Taromeway tries to attract a man named Kephalas.
On the papyrus, a drawing shows the Egyptian jackal-headed god Anubis shooting an arrow into Kephalas, who is depicted nude. The arrow Anubis shoots is intended to inflame Kephalas’ lust for Taromeway, researchers say.
The spell is written in Demotic, an Egyptian script, and calls upon a ghost —the “noble spirit of the man of the necropolis” — to find Kephalas and “give to him anxiety at midday, evening, and at all time” until Kephalas seeks Taromeway in lustful desire with “his male organs pursuing her female organs.“
“His emphasized penis and scrotum surely are intentional as the ‘male organs’ she specifically wants to pursue her,” said Robert Ritner, an Egyptology professor at the University of Chicago who is translating the spell. Read more.
Roman Egypt is fucking wild
She want that D52 wmt…thicc
Since I’m unable to let the Romans be the sole arbiters of ‘love charms’ in Ancient Egypt (though literally every other one than the one I’m about to write is Roman Egyptian, and therefore has no real reflection on Pharaonic Egypt. We shouldn’t treat them as a cultural monolith) here’s the only example of a love charm we have surviving from Pharaonic Ancient Egypt (i.e. pre Third Intermediate Period):
O.DeM 1057 - Ostracon from Deir el Medina
Hail to you, Re-Horakhty, father of the Gods! Hail to you, Seven Hathors, who are adorned with bands of red linen! Hail to you, Gods, lords of Heaven and Earth! Come, <make> X (fem.) born of X come after me like a cow after fodder; like a servant after her children; like a herdsman (after) his herd. If they do not cause her to come after me, I will set <fire to> Busiris and burn up <Osiris>.
(Seven Hathors are protectors of birth. The threats may seem blasphemous to our ears, but this is a common way of addressing the gods when invoking them for their powers in things such as this)
Translation: Smither, P. 1941. ‘A Ramesside Love Charm’ in Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, vol 27; cf. McDowell, A.G, 1999, Village Life in Ancient Egypt - Laundry Lists and Love Songs, Oxford, OUP. 32-33