World’s Oldest Erotic Graffiti Is on Astypalaia, Greece

Astypalaia is home to the world’s first homosexual erotic art. Credit: Asiomou, CC BY-SA 4.0/Wikipedia The world’s oldest erotic graffiti was discovered in 2014 in Astypalaia, a remote Greek island of the Dodecanese. It dates from the early 6th and late 5th century B.C. One of the inscriptions depicts two phalluses, carved on the flat surface of a rock in the region of Vathy. Also carved on the side of the same rock, archeologists found the name “DION” (ΔΙΩΝ). There was another inscription which was found 52 meters above sea level. “Nikasitimos was here mounting Timiona” (Νικασίτιμος οἶφε Τιμίονα), noted the inscription. The world’s oldest erotic graffiti has been found in Greece and this is what it looks like: http://t.co/emoe73ldrQ pic.twitter.com/JNpMkIPTgD — Digg (@digg) July 7, 2014 Even though sexual relations between men were not taboo in ancient Greece, this specific inscription sheds some light on various other parts of the ancient Greeks’ “private lives.” The prominent position where the two ancient Greeks expressed their erotic passion and the amount of manmade infrastructures that were found around it, point towards the possibility of a building complex in the area, a fact that would, in part, justify the lovers’ literacy level....