Eunuchism in Prehistory

[Beau Geste (imported)]

To my knowledge, generally accepted records indicate that there have been eunuchs in human populations ever since the beginning of recorded history, somewhere around 5500 years ago, or perhaps a little earlier than that. In fact, it appears that, until the Ottoman and Chinese empires came to an end in the second decade of the last century, throughout recorded history there were always societies in which eunuchs were recognized as members of those societies, and in which eunuchs had distinct roles. Of course, throughout the twentieth century and up to the present day, hijras have existed in India and have been identified as a distinct group--but they have been treated (at least until very recently) as outcasts. They also could be considered transgender individuals, rather than eunuchs per se.

But recorded history is only a very small percentage of the period in which human beings have been present on the earth. If you accept that all the hominids ancestral to modern man, can be considered humans; then the human race has existed for more than five million years--and recorded history represents only about a tenth of one percent of that time span. Even if a more restricted definition is used, and only the species homo sapiens is considered human (homo sapiens may have been the first creature in its genetic line that was not furry.), then recorded history is still less than three percent of the period during which human beings have existed, since homo sapiens sapiens appears to have originated something like two hundred thousand years ago.

And it seems reasonable to assume that eunuchs were a part of human populations through all of the time that can be considered prehistory, before the invention of writing. As is the situation today, a small percentage of individuals must have been born with a penis and scrotum, but no testes or non-functional testes--there must have been some congenital eunuchs. Besides that, the testes are a relatively vulnerable part of the body, and they would have been even more vulnerable before people started to wear clothing--something which may not have occurred before the species left Africa. And the lifestyle which people followed was somewhat more rugged than that followed by people since the Neolithic; so, for both those reasons, severe injury to the testes or traumatic loss of the organs was probably somewhat more common than it is today. In conflicts between people, the scrotum is easily grabbed, and could sometimes have been torn off. In a period before the legal order was established, men may have often severed the scrotums of their enemies for revenge, and women may have done something similar because of frustration or resentment. And, of course, since there appear to have been eunuchs who were intentionally castrated for various purposes, at or near the beginning of recorded history, the practice of removing the testes to make eunuchs may have begun in the late phases of prehistory. In addition to that, as members of this archive are aware, some individuals experience gender dysphoria, and some males in prehistory may have amputated their own organs, or had someone else amputate their gonads.

So if eunuchs were part of the human population throughout the period between the origin of homo sapiens, and the beginning of recorded history; then most of the time when eunuchs have lived as members of human groups or societies, must have been in prehistory. Of course, because no records were produced during that period (or, at least, none have survived) it's not possible to know much about the era. Except for a few fragmentary bits of information derived from archaeology or paleontology, we know very little about that very long expanse of time. For long stretches of perhistory, the only way we know that humans were living at those times, is the fact that human beings lived both before them and afterward.

Consequently, a lot of people might consider it useless to speculate about what the circumstances were in which eunuchs lived during prehistory, and what their influence, if any, on the development of the human race, might have been. But, in my view, the overwhelming length of the time period involved, in terms of the total chronology of the human experience, suggests that it is worthwhile to speculate about the role of eunuchs in prehistory, or at least to acknowledge that the period actually represents most of the time in which individuals who had male bodies, but who lacked functional gonads, existed.

In my view, it's an interesting and worthwhile question, whether it's likely that eunuchs were actually recognized to be different than uncastrated males, and whether they were accorded some specific role in society because of it. In an area before clothes were worn, or, perhaps, before clothing was worn all the time, it would have been easy for members of a group to identify that certain individuals lacked male gonads. Even after people began to wear clothing, it seems likely that people in any group easily became aware that certain individuals didn't have testes, or that their physical characteristics showed them to differ from men who had functional gonads.

Would this have made them outcasts? I doubt it. As far as we know, most groups of people were quite small through most of prehistory, and the larger the group, the more likely it was to survive, even if some members were unable to reproduce. I would suspect that those who didn't have functional male gonads, if they were considered to be a distinct social type, probably were considered worthwhile members of the group. They might not have been allowed to mate--but, then, most of them probably wouldn't want to. And perhaps, if their personalities were gentler than those of the men in the group, they might have been given responsibilities in child care, in preference to men.

I don't think there is any archaeological or paleontological information at all about eunuchism in prehistory, and perhaps anything said about it has to be speculation. But, as I've indicated, the fact that there must have been eunuchs in prehistory, and the long duration of that period, means that it should at least be noted that there must have been males without gonads in societies of that time. I can't think offhand how anything definitive about individuals who lacked gonads and lived before the beginning of historical records, could ever be learned.

[FianceeUvBigGuy (imported)]

Ummmmm...Right!

Signed,

Wilma Flintstone

President

Cavegirls Castration Coven

[JesusA (imported)]

I should just say, “Wait for my book,” but I won’t. I’ve been doing a lot of reading on the history of human castration and have finally started writing – though it’s very slow going.

While Beau Geste is correct that castration may have appeared very early in human history, it would have most likely been the result of accidental injury or isolated acts of violence. The origin of systematic animal castration comes as early as we have any written records. There are clear terms for the castrated versions of all of the large animals that were domesticated by Sumerian times. There does not seem to be a term for the human version, though.

It is not until about 4,000 years ago that we have the first record of a word for “eunuch.” Before that time, they were rare enough and/or inconsequential enough that there was no word needed to describe them. From that time forward they have been a continuous part of human history. I will argue (with lots of footnotes) in my book that systematic human castration, as opposed to accidental castration or isolated acts of violence, has but a single origin in human history. I can trace the spread of eunuchs from the single source.

The invention of systematic human castration in the Sumerian city of Lagash somewhere around 2100 BCE clearly proved to be successful. Among those cuneiform tablets surviving from that city is one that describes 267 castrated boys (still receiving children’s food rations) under the control of one set of weaving administrators. Another tablet describes 85 castrated men in one district of Lagash. There may even have been an export trade in eunuchs, as a third tablet indicates that 30 castrated boys were sent to Nippur.

Examination of documents, cuneiform tablets, from the ruins of the library of the ancient city of Lagash during the third dynasty of Ur (ca. 2112 to 2094 BCE) finds one class of humans referred to by the same term that had been used for centuries for castrated large animals, such as cattle and equids (donkeys and onagers).

Lagash was a large city situated to the northwest of the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and east of the important city of Uruk. It was situated midway between the modern cities of Basra and Baghdad. It was one of the oldest cities in Sumer, and one of the most important. Lagash may have been the largest city in the world by the end of the Third Dynasty, and continued to be so until passed by population growth in the city of Uruk some years later.

One of the major industries of the city of Lagash was the weaving of woolen cloth. All of the work seems to have been done by slave women, who were not allowed to marry, but who had many children that show up in the records of rations provided. Female children became weaving women like their mothers. Weaving was an exclusively female task, although there were male supervisors. Something else had to be found for the many male children who were born to these slave women.

In Sumerian culture of the time, it was expected that all boys would follow the occupation of their fathers. What to do when the father was unknown and the boy a slave?

We do not know exactly how the decision was made, but sometime during this period, it became the custom to castrate all sons of weaving women and set them to work at tasks such as sheep herding and boat hauling.

There is some, disputed, evidence that at least some of the praise singers to the Sumerian gods, the “gala,” were castrati. They were also slaves, and could well have been sons of weaving women who had been presented to the temples. One of my favorite Sumerologists, Kazuya Maekawa of Kyoto University in Japan, is currently doing research on the origin of the “gala” and trying to pin down evidence that some of them had been castrated as children.

By the time of the Assyrians, eunuchs had become common in the government bureaucracy. Grayson, one of the eminent Assyriologists, has noted that most, if not all, provincial governors were eunuchs by the time of the reign of the king Tiglath-pileser III (745 - 727 BC) and that the higher ranks of the Assyrian army were filled with those who had been castrated. There is even a word in the Assyrian language, “murruru”, which means ‘to check whether a person is castrated.’ There were at least two terms used for the castration itself, one for the cutting off of testicles (frequently for judicial reasons) and one for the crushing of the testicles of prepubescent boys. Since the corps of eunuchs was quite powerful in the Assyrian state, admission to it was quite attractive for both Assyrians and foreigners. “The latter came to Assyria as captives or hostages: they saw a chance to improve their condition. To Assyrians’ second or third sons it opened a brilliant career. So there was no lack of candidates.” (Deller 1996, 305–06)

Thoughtful readers should be reminded here of the situation in the court of King Nebuchadnezzar only a century and a half later, as described in the Old Testament Book of Daniel. Daniel and his companions were taken as hostages to Babylonia and prepared by the chief eunuch, Ashpenaz, for service in the court. As was true in the Assyrian court, “once these castrated boys were ready to enter the court service they were presented to the… palace overseer, for examination and inspection. Those who passed received a new name….” (Deller 1996, 306) Biblical scholars, of course, dispute whether or not Daniel and his three companions had been castrated, and even whether or not they ever actually existed. The story, as told in the Bible, does, however, fit perfectly with the recruitment, training, and eventual court positions that were normal for eunuchs of that time period. If he had been castrated as a young boy, Daniel was not alone as a eunuch prophet. Nehemiah also held a position in the court of Artaxerxes that was normally reserved for eunuchs.

After Babylon fell to the Persians, it was the turn of the Babylonians to provice eunuchs for court service. Their annual tribute to the court of Darius included 1,000 talents of silver and 500 castrated boys. (Herodotus, Book 3, chapter 92) At the end of the Persian Empire, when it fell to the armies of Alexander the Great, it is related that Alexander took on "Bagoas, a eunuch exceptional in beauty and in the very flower of boyhood, with whom Darius was intimate and with whom Alexander would later be intimate." (Quintus Curtius Rufus, VI.5.23). This Bagoas is the narrator of Alexander’s life in the novel, The Persian Boy, by Mary Renault. (1972) “Bagoas” is the Persian word for ‘eunuch’ and the name occurs several times in Persian history. This particular bagoas was influential in the spread of Greek culture to the east and Persian culture into the Greek realm.

[Footnotes and references available to anyone who requests them.]

[Beau Geste (imported)]

Jesus--

Not exactly on the topic I addressed in the post at the beginning of the thread, but your post is very interesting. Is it the outline of a chapter in your book?

I haven't done any research on the specific topic of the beginning of the making of eunuchs in Mesopotamia, so your post simply raises some questions, rather than asserting things I would dispute. Perhaps the questions I have would be raised by scholars in the fields of ancient economics and sociology.

In the first place, I'm simply curious as to whether there is general agreement about the translation of ancient cuneiform documents--that is to say, do a large majority of scholars agree that there are no words which might arguably refer to eunuchs? To my knowledge, Akkadian (or whatever the language or languages derived from it were called) was a dead language before 500 C.E., and the language must have evolved somewhat after 2100 B.C. That is to say, analysis of early forms of the language could be questionable. You mention that a class of people was later described by a word which had previously been used to refer to large castrated animals--is there definitive evidence that the word had not been used prior to 2100 BC in a similar context?

There also have to be questions about the assertion that a word with a specific meaning hasn't been identified, when a relatively small sampling of written texts from the period exists. My impression is (possibly wrong) that the bulk of cuneiform texts refer to commercial matters or to government records; and there might have been no reason to refer to eunuchs in texts of that kind.

The reference to the gala also calls to mind the historical records which describe the priests of Cybele as men who voluntarily had orchiectomies. The Cybele cult, of course, appears to have originated to the north, in Anatolia, and, as far as I know, the reference to castrated priests come from a millennium and a half later than the beginning of the period you write about. Still, there does seem to have been a connection between removal of the sex organs and religion in ancient times, and perhaps the matter of castration as a requirement for the priesthood may simply not have gotten into the records.

In this regard, the Osiris myth has (as I guess you know) caused some Egyptologists to suspect that priests of some gods in Egypt were castrated, and that the practice may have begun at an early date. As far as I can tell, this is mostly from inference. You're probably familiar with some of the articles about the matter, and the controversy about eunuchism in Pharaonic Egypt. There are really not all that many written records from Egypt at that time, except for those preserved in tombs, because the Egyptians wrote either on papyrus or on other perishable supports, and consequently most types of written texts haven't survived from ancient Egypt. This probably gives us a somewhat distorted view of early Egypt, but there was enough stuff and enough records in some tombs, to provide a general idea of how people lived.

I tend to think that you might be right in terms of having identified the beginning of the process of making involuntary eunuchs on what might be described as an industrial scale, or at least as a large-scale social custom. I would suggest, though, that actually proving that there was no systematic castration earlier, would be very difficult to do.

[Francis (imported)]

On the subject of the origin of castration, it is interesting to note that in the battles of the dominant males of many primates, gorillas and chimpanzees included, the winner will attack and destroy the testicles of the loser in many cases thus forever removing the individual as a breeding competitor.

Although it may be driven by a desire to incapacitate the other by attacking his most sensitive and vulnerable parts, I really think that,in the battle, they are smart enough to also consider the elimination the breeding competition. Of course many such fights are to the death so the breeding issue in these cases would appear to be moot, but it is nonetheless an interesting speculation on the primitive homo sapiens and perhaps demonstrates an innate primal desire for breeding supremacy in making eunuchs out of your enemies.:dong::dong:D

[Paolo]

Rather paradoxical, really, "eunuchs in prehistory".

If we do discover something older, then, doesn't it become "history", per say, as soon as we decipher it?

[Pair1981 (imported)]

Well...

I have a Catholic education. And I learned that eunuchs were quite influential in many of the communities they were found in.

Not just in prehistory, but through the Old Testament period into the early and middle ages of Christianity (in Europe). In Asia, e.g., China, they were influential in time beyond their European counterparts.

So, that's my two cents. Also, excellent article.

[nullorchis (imported)]

And today instead of being burdened with being the son of a weaver woman we need only concern ourselves about being the owner of a eunuch version of Windows Vista or XP. It works, eventually, but sometimes not. At least it doesn't reproduce itself.

[moi621 (imported)]

The film "Quest for Fire" 1981,

an academic effort to express, "cave man times".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quest_for_Fire_%28film%29

There is a scene where the hero is fighting with another tribe's main man and is loosing the fight. The other tribe's, Goliath, rather then finishing off his enemy, bites his enemy's genitals. While so involved the hero finds a rock and kills the genital biter.

I guess the anthropologist involved believed even pre-historic persons understood male genitels relating to the stopping of procreation of a competing tribe.

Moi

[devi (imported)]

How many times have I heard, "What is the matter with you? Don't you got any BALLS or what?" And so many times I wanted to respond to them somehow but just couldn't. Yes, I think primitive people did understand the relationship between the size of someone's balls and how "testy" and pushy they were. And if you have ever taken care of livestock before then the relationship is even all the more obvious.