Ancient Egypt, one of the first civilizations established, is full of stories, architectural works and interesting rituals that we still cannot solve today. One of these rituals was the cutting of the genitals of slaves, enemies, and prisoners of war during the Old Kingdom.
How did this practice begin, and what were the reasons behind it before it was used as a method of humiliating slaves and captives? Let’s explore one of the events that make us grateful for the century we were born in.
How can we have an idea about the social habits of civilizations that lived thousands of years ago?
The answer, of course, is hidden in archaeological research. We can find this interesting and yet painful practice in Ancient Egyptian texts and works of art. For example, it is possible to see depictions of the practice on tomb walls and various artifacts dating from BC.
In fact, one of them, in the tomb of Ankhmahor in Saqqara, the largest of the pyramids in Giza, has a relief depicting the penises of two adult men being cut off.
Who first thought of doing this? In fact, there is a sacred story behind it.
The roots of this ritual, which was used as a method of humiliation or punishment during the Old Kingdom, go back to the story of the four brother gods in Ancient Egyptian Mythology. The basis of the practice of castration is hidden in the death story of Osiris, the god of the dead and rebirth, whose name is well known to mythology enthusiasts. On this story; Four important gods and goddesses, namely Goddess Isis, known for her beauty, Osiris, the god of the mortal world, Seth, the god of evil, and Nephtys, the goddess of wisdom, take part.
One of the gods, Osiris is married to the goddess Isis, and Seth is married to Nephtys. But like all other gods, the god Seth was impressed by her beauty and fell in love with Isis. The Evil God Seth, who wanted to marry Isis and was hostile to Osiris, took the opportunity to kill God Osiris when the Sun God Ra, the most powerful god, ascended to the sky. He cuts the body of the god he killed in 14 different places and begins to distribute it to the cities around the Nile River.
The shame of Osiris became the fate of thousands of slaves.
Isis, who was very upset when she learned this, set out as soon as possible and started looking for the pieces of her brother Nephtys and her beloved husband and brother Osiris. He finds pieces of Osiris one by one in different cities. The only missing piece is Osiris’ penis. On the site of each piece he found, large temples would be built by the Ancient Egyptians in the future, the ruins of which we can still find today.
After this, Isis used her divine power to combine Osiris’ body parts and resurrect her husband. When he is resurrected, Osiris will no longer be able to rule the mortal world because he does not have his entire body. In this way, Osiris goes to the world of the dead and begins to rule there. In ancient Egypt, with Osiris, penis cutting began to be seen as nobility, nobility, and attaining the status of god. However, in the following years, this situation changed and was reversed. Thousands of slaves and captives, considered to be the lower class of the population, were castrated.
Bonus: The ancestors of today’s circumcision tradition are the Ancient Egyptians.
The painful practice of the captives captured by the ancient Egyptians was not only very costly for that period, but also caused the death of many captives and made it difficult to sell them in the slave market.
To solve this problem, the Egyptians gradually changed the practice to simply cutting off the foreskin. While this change allowed captives to maintain their economic value as slaves, it also reminded them of the reality of being bought and sold as slaves for life.
In other words, the tradition of circumcision, which still exists in Islam and Judaism today, is an extension of Ancient Egyptian rituals. You can find our article on different ideas about circumcision here.
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