For example, researchers have identified ten basic emotions which exist in humans, one of which is disgust. Similarly, emotions are particularly hard to reconstruct from the ancient record, they leave no physical trace and their interpretation varies wildly, even in modern languages and cultures.
Parkinson’s ‘A Little Gay History’ prefers the term same-sex desire for having fewer modern overtones than homosexual or gay, and so we will follow his convention here. It is often the case that ancient cultures simply did not have analogous terminologies to modern categories of gay, straight, queer etc., and so recognising and separating our own personal and modern classifications of relationships and sexual desire from the ancient evidence is necessary. We interpret these artefacts within the framework of our reconstructed view of the past using modern language which is often problematic. It requires us to look into the minds of long-dead ancient peoples using artefacts left behind to archaeology. Accession Number: C.69.92Īs with any form of social history, understanding and interpreting ancient relationships is often difficult and nuanced. A small penis was considered ideal in ancient Greek culture.
A fragment of a Greek red-figure vessel showing the legs and genitals of a naked man.
