Desire, love, identity: LGBTQ+ histories trail

This discus thrower, discobolus in Latin, is one of the most familiar and popular ancient Roman sculptures in the British Museum. It was made in the 2nd century AD and is a Roman copy of a much earlier Greek sculpture that no longer survives. It was found at Tivoli in the villa of the emperor Hadrian (see stop 10 below.)

The Romans greatly admired the culture of ancient Greece and it exerted a powerful influence over their own. Ancient Greek artists often depicted their gods, heroes and men nude. A beautiful body was regarded as a sign of virtue and excellent moral condition. This was something new in the ancient world, where adult nakedness had often been associated with the defeated, enslaved or humiliated.

Sexual desire and love between men was an accepted part of life in ancient Greece and Rome, within certain boundaries. In Greek mythology, although the gods were immortal with divine powers, they experienced the same passions and desires as the people whose lives they governed. Apollo had many male lovers, including the beautiful youth Hyacinth.

The Discus Thrower stands in the oldest surviving part of the British Museum. The current displays recall the Museum as it once was during the 18th century. In this period museums provided one of the few places where members of the public could openly and respectably gaze at paintings or sculptures of naked bodies. One male 19th–century museum visitor wrote that: 'I revelled in the sight of pictures and statues of male form and could not keep from kissing them.'

Maori people of high status kept treasure boxes containing prized possessions, such as greenstone ornaments and feathers to wear in their hair. This example was designed to be suspended, not stored on the ground, and so these striking images are best seen at eye level. The boxes and their contents were passed down through families or exchanged as important gifts between chiefs. 

Every surface of this box has been covered with intricately carved male and female figures intertwined in various types of sexual union. Maori carvings often include representations of sexual intercourse, as an evocation of fertility and the continuity of life, but this example is unusual. The face at the centre of the front panel is shown with a stylised penis in its mouth, while its tongue reaches out to what appears to be the vagina of the female figure next to it. The blurring of sexual boundaries and gendered roles is rarely shown on objects from the Pacific. 

In the late 1700s early European explorers did record sexual practices between males in the eastern Pacific region. European missionaries and colonial officials in the following centuries strongly discouraged such activities. Today in parts of modern Polynesia, non-Western models of gender identity remain an accepted part of life.

This Roman sculpture, almost 2,000 years old, shows the beautiful Trojan youth Ganymede, naked except for a cap and a shawl draped over one shoulder, leaning on a tree stump, looking up towards an eagle. In mythology Jupiter (or Jove), overcome with lust, took the form of an eagle and abducted Ganymede to satisfy his desire. Ganymede became the god's cupbearer, something the god's wife Juno resented. In ancient Greek art beautiful youths are frequently shown serving wine to male guests at drinking parties, or symposia. In Greek mythology the gods were subject to the same desires as humans. 

Ancient Greece exerted a heavy influence over Rome, including an acceptance of sexual relationships between men, within certain boundaries. The adoption of Christianity within the Roman Empire – and its subsequent dominance – resulted in a significant change in attitudes. Medieval images of Ganymede tend to show him fully clothed and looking rather unhappy at his abduction, unlike this statue. The Renaissance (from around 1400 to 1600) led to a renewed interest in classical mythology, including erotically charged subjects that offered a legitimate way to depict sexual stories that otherwise would have been forbidden. Statues such as this one were popular with wealthy European collectors during the 1700s and 1800s, the Age of Enlightenment. As pieces of classical art from antiquity, they made the subject of male same-sex desire culturally acceptable. Displays of classical statues in public museums offered a rare opportunity for people to gaze respectably at representations of the naked human body. 

Objects from other cultures were sometimes misinterpreted when first encountered by European explorers and scholars.  This enormous plaster cast was taken from a Maya stela from the Great Plaza at Copan in Honduras at some point between 1881 and 1894. The original was carved in AD 730.

The figure depicted on this monument is wearing a netted jade skirt, usually worn by elite women in Maya imagery, and early researchers therefore assumed this figure was a royal Maya woman. But from the inscriptions, and a better understanding of Maya myths, the figure has now been identified as the male ruler Waxaklajuun Ub'aah K'awiil. He is dressed as the youthful maize god, a divine figure combining both male and female genders connected to agricultural fertility, renewal of life and creation. This gender duality may reflect their power as a ruler, both in his duty to perform successful fertility rituals to nurture his people, and in his ability to communicate with divine beings. 

When gender is being read cross-culturally, there is always scope for confusion or misunderstandings. There are many instances of European explorers, researchers and collectors initially being unable, or perhaps unwilling, to make sense of values that differed from their own.

Masquerade is an art of transformation. Masquerades often occur at rites of passage, such as initiation. They often maintain and express the secret knowledge of insider groups and only certain persons may be permitted to see them. With a few exceptions, the actual performing is a male activity, and masks representing women (for example) are worn by men. 

This mask, made by Bamana people from Mali in the early 20th century, was used in N'domo (or Ntomo) society ceremonies associated with the progression of young boys into adulthood. Children are believed to be born androgynous. It is only when these ceremonies and rituals are complete that boys can attain their full male status. The N'domo society masks are used in dance performances during initiation ceremonies. The number of horns indicating male (three or six) or female (four or eight) gender or androgyny (two, five or seven) horns. 

Anthropological and historical evidence shows that a variety of gender configurations (and same-sex practises) were known in Africa before the arrival of Europeans. These practices and beliefs were often prohibited by colonial administrators from the 19th century onwards, and have sometimes been forgotten, creating the impression that they never existed. Partly as a result of this history – and the introduction of Christianity – 'homosexuality' was made illegal in many African countries. In 2012 South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu commented: 'I have no doubt in the future, the laws that criminalise so many forms of love and human commitment will look the way apartheid laws do to us now – so obviously wrong'.

This baked clay panel is almost 4,000 years old. It shows a nude female figure wearing a headdress usually associated with Mesopotamian deities. She has the wings and talons of a bird of prey and holds a rod and ring of justice, symbols of her divinity. Research suggests she may be an embodiment of Ishtar, a goddess of sexual attraction and war. Ishtar had the power to 'change a man into woman and woman into man'.

Ishtar was at the centre of a cult in ancient Mesopotamia, whose followers included a group of men called kurgarrus. In one epic poem they are described as people: 'Whose masculinity Ishtar has turned into femininity to make the people reverend, The carriers of dagger, razor, scalpel and flint blades, Who regularly do [forbidden things] to delight the heart of Ishtar'. Although their gender identity was regarded as in some way irregular, they were part of a divinely ordained world order of Mesopotamian state religion. 

Gender roles can vary widely between different societies and cultures. In some, for example, a third sex is recognised, along with an acceptance of diversity or fluidity. Ishtar was believed to have the power to change or assign gender. There are numerous examples of gods and goddesses in other cultures who challenge the idea that gender is fixed, or who combine gender attributes. Ishtar is a fascinating deity who collapses boundaries and celebrates the ambiguous territory between genders.  

Ancient Mesopotamia's highly developed literature and learning are reflected in clay tablets from the library of the Assyrian King Ashurbanipal at Nineveh, northern Iraq, written in cuneiform script. Some of the tablets from this library now in the British Museum collection record part of the Epic of Gilgamesh, a famous poem sometimes regarded as the earliest surviving great work of world literature. At its heart, is the story of the love between two men. 

The Epic of Gilgamesh tells the story of a semi-historical king. The poem tells us about a relationship between King Gilgamesh and a wild man called Enkidu. Before they meet, Gilgamesh has a dream that is interpreted to mean: 'A strong partner will come to you, One who can save the life of a friend...You will love him as a wife, you will dote on him.' 

The two men have various heroic adventures, including killing a demon called Huwawa. This small clay object represents the face of Huwawa as if formed by the intestines of a sheep examined for divination, the use of omens to predict the future. Later in the Epic, a key moment occurs when Gilgamesh and Enkidu kill the Bull of Heaven which the goddess Ishtar has sent to punish Gilgamesh for rejecting her advances. 

Displayed next to the clay mask depicted here, is a small carved cylinder – used to seal clay documents – showing the killing of the Bull while Ishtar tries to stop the two men. The god demands punishment and Enkidu dies. Gilgamesh spends the rest of the poem grieving for his 'friend whom I love so much, who experienced every hardship with me'. These words imply a sincere closeness in the relationship between the two men. Such intimacy does not necessarily involve sexual desire, but some historians have debated whether the text could be understood sexually. 

Does the poem celebrate a 'homosexual' relationship, or a 'homosocial' one, a close nonsexual friendship between the men? While there is no clear sexual encounter between Gilgamesh and Enkidu in the texts, the relationship is described in erotic terms and theirs is a story of profound and powerful love.

The damaged funerary inscription on this stela is dedicated to two officials Hor and Suty, who were architects on the temple of Amun at Luxor. A scholar has suggested that Hor and Suty were a male couple and that the inscription was deliberately damaged after their deaths by their outraged wives and children. In the inscription here the men refer to one another as: 'My brother, like myself, whose ways pleased me, For he had come from the womb With me on the same day'. This is usually interpreted as meaning that Hor and Suty were twins. 

An earlier Old Kingdom tomb at Saqqara from about 2450 BC is also dedicated to two men, the courtiers Ni-ankh-khnum and Khnum-hotep. Scenes of the two men embracing have been considered by some historians to be the 'first recorded gay kiss'. But as is the case here, the two men are also almost certainly twins. 

It is often difficult to look back at the distant past – into ancient cultures very different to our own – and to find definitive insights into personal and individual realities of love and desire. Written evidence tells us that the ancient Egyptians recognised the existence of same-sex desire. One narrative poem, for example, refers to a scandal caused by an affair between King Pepy II and his general. Most of the references that have survived are at best slightly negative and all represent society as seen by the elite. 

Richard Parkinson, author of A Little Gay History states: 'All of the evidence we have suggests that Egyptian society was very heteronormative. But in literary texts, which are fictional, we get accounts of more diverse experiences. We have adultery, and we also have possibly the first recorded chat-up line in human history, which is between two male deities. In one myth the god Seth tries to seduce Horus with the line... 'what a lovely backside you have' and it is clear that the god is driven by desire...'

The Warren cup is a luxury Roman drinking vessel that belongs to the sphere of elite dining and entertaining some 2,000 years ago. Wine accompanied the meal throughout. Silver cups like this were intended to display the wealth, status and culture of their owners to their guests. 

The bowl of the cup is decorated with two scenes of a man and a youth having sex. The detailed relief scenes are depicted with great naturalism, requiring extraordinary skill on the part of the maker. On one side, a younger male lowers himself down onto the lap of his older, bearded partner who wears a wreath in his hair. To the right a young boy, perhaps a servant, peers in towards them through a partially opened door. On the other side, two young males are engaged in sex. The rooms are well appointed with drapery and the musical instruments suggest a sophisticated and leisured setting. 

The same-sex scenes on the Warren Cup reflect a Roman representation of the Greek past, where a mature male lover (erastes) would often form a relationship with a younger partner (eromenos). Although male same-sex relationships were also an accepted part of life in the Roman world, this more formalised Greek type of relationship did not exist. A Roman man was free to choose sexual partners of either gender. Male same-sex relationships were not unusual. But for Romans it was important that men were dominant both socially and sexually. 

The cup was bought by the American art collector Edward Perry Warren, who lived in the south of England at Lewes. In the decades after Warren's death, at a time when homosexuality was still illegal in the UK, it was impossible to find a buyer for the cup. In 1953 the cup was sent to New York in an attempt to sell it there, but it was refused entry by US Customs and sent back to England. In 1999 the British Museum took up a second opportunity to acquire the Warren Cup and it has been on public display ever since.

The bust of the bearded man is the emperor Hadrian whose reign was marked by military campaigns and building projects, including the famous wall across the north of England built in AD 122. The beautiful, clean-shaven youth alongside Hadrian is Antinous. The emperor was in his late 40s when he met Antinous, a Greek youth from Bithynia, now in modern Turkey. Antinous became the emperor's lover. But this was much more than just a sexual relationship. They seem to have been inseparable. Hadrian was accompanied by his lover at royal ceremonies and imperial tours. 

During an imperial tour of Egypt together in AD 130, Antinous drowned in the Nile. Hadrian's outpouring of grief was unprecedented. According to one famous later description: 'When he was sailing on the Nile he lost his Antinous, for whom he wept like a woman'. Hadrian founded a city named Antinoopolis at the place where his lover died and made him into a god, an honour usually reserved for the emperor's family. The emperor publicly commemorated Antinous in statues, portraits and coins across the Roman empire, an almost unparalleled public memorial to a lost love. 

Roman concepts of sexuality were very different from those of modern, western societies. There is no word in Latin for the modern term 'homosexuality' and a Roman man was free to choose sexual partners of either gender, but he was expected to get married and establish a family. The idea that men should be dominant socially and sexually was central. As long as a man remained the active partner in sexual encounters his masculinity was not questioned. 

These vessels, a wine cup and amphora (or jar), were made in Athens over 2,500 years ago. They would have been used at all-male drinking parties known as symposia. The exterior of the wine cup illustrates a symposium scene. Men recline on couches and are served wine by naked youths. In this all-male gathering the atmosphere could become charged with desire. The amphora, a vessel for holding wine, is decorated with a scene of aroused men courting younger, naked men and having sex between their thighs. The bearded men carry animals as gifts. 

Close, intimate relationships between men and youths were culturally approved in some city-states in ancient Greece. Sexual relationships between males were most famously celebrated in Athens between the 6th and 4th centuries BC. These relationships were expected to respect accepted boundaries and were normally structured by age. 

Ancient Greek and Roman attitudes to sex and sexuality were very different to modern attitudes. Life spans were shorter, and people were sexually active – and girls married – at an earlier age. Although sexual relationships between males were accepted, the modern term homosexual had no Greek or Latin equivalent.  

Evidence of actual female experiences and sexuality is difficult to find in ancient Greek and Roman objects, which predominantly reflects male perspectives. Sex between women was taboo in ancient Greece. Erotic acts between women were rarely depicted or discussed, probably because they challenged male ideas about status, gender and sexuality. 

This ancient Greek water jar has been painted with four female figures, red against a black background. These show a seated woman and three female attendants. The woman in the chair bends forward and is a looking at an open scroll. If you look closely you'll be able to see dots that represent sixteen lines of writing. The other three women look towards her. This same scene is depicted on another jar, now in a museum in Athens. There the seated figure has been inscribed in Greek characters with Sappho's name. This makes it likely that the woman depicted on the British Museum's jar is also Sappho, the poet. 

There are many images of Sappho in the British Museum collection but this is one of the earliest. Sappho's name has resonated throughout history, but given her fame, surprisingly little is known for certain about her life. Sappho is said to have lived around 630–570 BC in the town of Mytilene on the island of Lesbos, in the Aegean Sea. She was famed for her poetry in antiquity. And through her poetry, in a society that was otherwise dominated by men, she gave a voice to female love and desire – writing love poems to both men and women. 

The emphasis on female intimacy in her poetry has contributed to the widely held idea that Sappho was a lesbian, but history has given us many different Sapphos. During the Renaissance she was used as a symbol of classical erudition or learning. In the 19th century she was often depicted with a sexual allure intended to appeal to men. By the late 19th century her poetry had made the word for an inhabitant of Lesbos into a word for a woman who loves women. 

The historical Sappho remains enigmatic and elusive. But the brilliance of Sappho's poetry and its expression of female love and desire continue to inspire readers over two and half thousand years after her death.

Saint Sebastian is believed to have been martyred around AD 288, during a period of Roman persecution of Christians. This print (and woodblock) shows him tied to a tree, his body pierced by five arrows, with archers standing on either side. Although he recovered from this particular ordeal, he was subsequently clubbed to death and his body thrown in a sewer. Artists preferred to depict him tree-bound, usually stripped of armour and shot with arrows as in this 19th-century print taken from this 15th-century woodblock. 

From the 15th century onwards St Sebastian was increasingly and frequently depicted as a paragon of male beauty with a toned body, often oblivious to the pain caused by his martyrdom. St Sebastian was the patron saint of plague victims. His idealised, nearly nude, healthy body emphasised his role as protector against the plague, resisting the effects of pestilence symbolised by the arrows. 

The Italian artist and writer Giorgio Vasari recorded that images of Saint Sebastian provoked inappropriate thoughts among female churchgoers, but he could equally have said the same of men. In more recent times, St Sebastian has become a gay icon. The playwright Oscar Wilde owned a Guido Reni painting of Saint Sebastian. Wilde adopted Sebastian as his first name when he went into exile following his release from Reading jail, where he had served a sentence after a conviction for 'gross indecency'. St Sebastian features in Yukio Mishima's novel, Confessions of a Mask (1949). For Mishima, St Sebastian's martyrdom symbolised the erotic pleasure of pain. More recently St Sebastian inspired Derek Jarman's film Sebastiane (1976) which explored the relationship between sexual and spiritual ecstasy. 

The now famous imagery of the saint – stripped, tied and shot with arrows – that Wilde, Mishima, Jarman and many others have responded to, developed during the later medieval period and the Renaissance. 

There is nothing particularly striking about this pair of 18th-century, porcelain, chocolate cups. What is extraordinary are the two remarkable women who once owned them, Lady Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, known popularly as the Ladies of Llangollen. The cups are decorated with a view of a house on one side and their entwined heraldic emblems in lozenges on the other. The centre of each saucer is decorated with a monogram. 

Both Sarah and Eleanor's families lived in Ireland and it was here that the two women formed a strong emotional bond and attachment that would endure for the rest of their lives. Eleanor was sixteen years older than Sarah. In 1778, when Sarah was 23 and Eleanor 39, the two women secretly fled together, crossing the Irish Sea to set up home in North Wales, leaving their old lives behind them. It is their new home near Llangollen that is depicted on the cups. 

Sarah and Eleanor lived happily there for 50 years, living the life of their choice and challenging the conventions of their era. The public were captivated by their unconventional way of life. They received many distinguished visitors and acquired a celebrity-like status. 

This sculpture was found in the 1930s at a place called Ain Sakhri, near Bethlehem in Palestine. It was made around 11,000 years ago, when people in the western Middle East still lived by hunting gazelle and collecting plant foods, but were making the gradual transition to farming. There is no written evidence from this period. 

This remarkable object is the oldest known sculpture of a couple having sex anywhere in the world. Made of a single sparkling piece of calcite, it shows the lovers face to face. But their facial features are not depicted and the figures appear almost in low relief.  It is unique, and we can only speculate about who made it and why. It is usually considered to show a man and a woman, but should we assume this so readily? Can you identify the gender of the figures? 

One person has their arms around the shoulders of the other, whose legs are drawn up around the waist of the first. This tender sexual embrace is made more explicit because the sculpture is ingeniously phallic, whichever way you look at it. That the object is extremely phallic might suggest that it is concerned with masculinity and fertility. 

The sculpture's ambiguity is a reminder that we should not project our assumptions unthinkingly onto the past. We should not assume that 'heterosexuality' or the modern nuclear family as we know them are the default options for any society, ancient or otherwise. The everyday intimate histories that surround any object are always partly hidden, partly lost. Whether the sculpture represents a man and a woman, or two men, or two women is open to interpretation. All that remains is the reflection of their desire.

The bust of the bearded man is the emperor Hadrian whose reign was marked by military campaigns and building projects, including the famous wall across the north of England built in AD 122. The beautiful, clean-shaven youth alongside Hadrian is Antinous. The emperor was in his late 40s when he met Antinous, a Greek youth from Bithynia, now in modern Turkey. Antinous became the emperor's lover. But this was much more than just a sexual relationship. They seem to have been inseparable. Hadrian was accompanied by his lover at royal ceremonies and imperial tours. 

During an imperial tour of Egypt together in AD 130, Antinous drowned in the Nile. Hadrian's outpouring of grief was unprecedented. According to one famous later description: ‘When he was sailing on the Nile he lost his Antinous, for whom he wept like a woman’. Hadrian founded a city named Antinoopolis at the place where his lover died and made him into a god, an honour usually reserved for the emperor's family. The emperor publicly commemorated Antinous in statues, portraits and coins across the Roman empire, an almost unparalleled public memorial to a lost love. 

Roman concepts of sexuality were very different from those of modern, western societies. There is no word in Latin for the modern term 'homosexuality' and a Roman man was free to choose sexual partners of either gender, but he was expected to get married and establish a family. The idea that men should be dominant socially and sexually was central. As long as a man remained the active partner in sexual encounters his masculinity was not questioned. 

This baked clay panel is almost 4,000 years old. It shows a nude female figure wearing a headdress usually associated with Mesopotamian deities. She has the wings and talons of a bird of prey and holds a rod and ring of justice, symbols of her divinity. Research suggests she may be an embodiment of Ishtar, a goddess of sexual attraction and war. Ishtar had the power to 'change a man into woman and woman into man'.

Ishtar was at the centre of a cult in ancient Mesopotamia, whose followers included a group of men called kurgarrus. In one epic poem they are described as people: 'Whose masculinity Ishtar has turned into femininity to make the people reverend, The carriers of dagger, razor, scalpel and flint blades, Who regularly do [forbidden things] to delight the heart of Ishtar'. Although their gender identity was regarded as in some way irregular, they were part of a divinely ordained world order of Mesopotamian state religion. 

Gender roles can vary widely between different societies and cultures. In some, for example, a third sex is recognised, along with an acceptance of diversity or fluidity. Ishtar was believed to have the power to change or assign gender. There are numerous examples of gods and goddesses in other cultures who challenge the idea that gender is fixed, or who combine gender attributes. Ishtar is a fascinating deity who collapses boundaries and celebrates the ambiguous territory between genders. 

There is nothing particularly striking about this pair of 18th-century, porcelain, chocolate cups. What is extraordinary are the two remarkable women who once owned them, Lady Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, known popularly as the Ladies of Llangollen. The cups are decorated with a view of a house on one side and their entwined heraldic emblems in lozenges on the other. The centre of each saucer is decorated with a monogram. 

Both Sarah and Eleanor's families lived in Ireland and it was here that the two women formed a strong emotional bond and attachment that would endure for the rest of their lives. Eleanor was sixteen years older than Sarah. In 1778, when Sarah was 23 and Eleanor 39, the two women secretly fled together, crossing the Irish Sea to set up home in North Wales, leaving their old lives behind them. It is their new home near Llangollen that is depicted on the cups. 

Sarah and Eleanor lived happily there for 50 years, living the life of their choice and challenging the conventions of their era. The public were captivated by their unconventional way of life. They received many distinguished visitors and acquired a celebrity-like status.