Egypt & Sexuality

In Ingres’ depiction of Oedipus and the Sphinx which hung over Freud’s couch, the Sphinx is represented in all her feminine sensuality. This depiction speaks to the strong association in Freud’s mind between Egypt and the feminine. In his Leonardo essay he writes about Mut the vulture Goddess. The hieroglyph of the vulture stands for the word “mother” and Freud points out the similarity between Mut and the German word for “ mother” – Mutter. In this same essay Freud makes the claim that the vulture-headed mother goddess Mut “was usually represented by the Egyptians with a phallus”. Freud’s fascination with Mut is emblematic of his wider interest in mythology which he read as an analogy to Amulet of Mut Amenophis I and Ahmose- the development of infantile sexuality. For Freud, Late Period Nofretiri. New KingdomEgyptian mythology was tied up with the enigma of female desire whose evasive solution Freud compared to the decipherment of hieroglyphs: “Throughout history people have knocked their heads against the riddle of the nature of femininity – Häupter in Hieroglyphenmützen [heads in hieroglyphic bonnets]”.