4,000 Year Old Gay Kiss

A series of paintings in an ancient Egyptian tomb showing two men in a warm embrace and other tender poses could be the first recorded depiction of an openly homosexual couple.

Egyptologists at an international conference at the University of Wales, Swansea, debated the significance of a 4,000-year-old tomb in the necropolis of Saqqara at Memphis that contains paintings of two men, Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep, in a clutch, The Sunday Times of London reported.

It is extremely rare to find two men of equal status in ancient Egypt buried together.

The men are depicted holding hands and shown with their noses touching. That is the most intimate embrace permitted in Egyptian art of the time, and is seen as a form of kissing, the newspaper said.

Though the hieroglyphs say nothing of the two men's relationship, Greg Reeder, an Egyptologist based in San Francisco, believes the wall paintings suggest homosexuality could be the answer.

Opponents say the paintings could indicate the men were blood relatives. Other Egyptologists follow the theory that Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep were twins, the Sundays Times wrote.