In ancient Egypt the dead needed many faculties for restarting his new life in the Hereafter: breathing, seeing, walking…and virility.
Sex was an essential aspect for the resurrection in Ancient Egypt and in the funerary rites some ritual practices were full of sexual symbolism.
Ushabti of Pay and Repit. Lateral view with ba bird. Louvre Museum. XVIII Dynasty. Photo: Raven, M. J. The tombs of Pay and Raia at Saqqara. Leiden. 2005, plate 110.
In this line I would like to focus on the ushabti of Pay (from his tomb in Saqqara), dating from the XVIII Dynasty and exposed in the Louvre Museum (N2657).
It is a double-ushabti showing Pay and his wife Repyt both lying on the funerary bed. Man and woman were depicted in the typical posture for mummies in Ancient Egypt: with both arms crosses over the chests. However there is a great difference in the man’s image. He is being accompanied by a ba bird, with arms and face and whose hands touch the Pay’s body.
And this difference could have very deep sexual meaning….
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HAIR AND DEATH IN ANCIENT EGYPT 