"Traveling the marshes" = the newest (and probably one of the oldest) euphemisms for sexual intercourse.
Archeologists appear to have excavated evidence amid the ruins of a Temple in Luxor of an annual rite that featured anonymous, orgiastic sex, drugs, barrels of booze, and what must have been the ancient Egyptian equivalent of rock and roll. This "festival of drunkenness" celebrated the salvation of humanity (a noble cause) with the ruins dating as far back as 1470 BCE.
Betsy Bryan, an archeologist from John's Hopkins University has been spearheading an excavation of the "Temple of Mut" since 2001 and presented her findings during the New Horizons in Science briefing, presented by the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing.
"We are talking about a festival in which people come together in a community to get drunk. Not high, not socially fun, but drunk knee-walking, absolutely passed-out drunk."
According to
this article, the excavations date back to the reign of Hatshepsut, the only female pharoah known to have held power in ancient Egypt. These celebrations were held in the first month of the Egyptian calendar, after the first annual flooding of the Nile.
It makes sense to me that they found a woman running things during these rites. Rather difficult to imagine a man in such a patriarchal society encouraging his subjects to throw down, chug down, and boogie down to celebrate the yearly escape from drought, hunger, poverty, and destitution. A woman, on the other hand, has a deep intuition for what it takes to keep her people happy...
Some of the inscriptions that were uncovered at the temple link the drunkenness festival with "travelling through the marshes", which Bryan said was an ancient Egyptian euphemism for having sex. The sexual connection is reinforced by graffiti depicting men and women in positions that might draw some tut-tutting today.
There are some of us, collectors and connoisseurs of such things, who wouldn't mind seeing some ancient Egyptian porn. I'd compare it to the samples of ancient Greek and Roman smut I've got, noting stylistic similarities and disparities and wondering what they used for lube...
In any event, it appears we moderns didn't invent designated drivers, either. The rules for the "festival of drunkenness" called for a few folks to volunteer to stay sober while everyone else got hammered and thoroughly laid.
Is there a downside? Apparently so. After participating in this ritual (and likely nursing an ungodly hangover) you got to wake up to musicians walking around, banging drums loudly. Presumably this was to drive you off so you could go suffer in the privacy of your home.
I think I much prefer the way we tend to do such things up here (though this has definitely given me some inspiration for future party themes) -- much less drinking and no obnoxious drummers courting mass murder the next day. As for the sex, well... there's variety in the world for a reason. Some folks like drunken, anonymous orgiastic sex -- I much prefer being able to remember it the next day. ;)
