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The discipline of historical inquiry, now centuries old, has one consistent truth: how we go about it tells us as much about ourselves as it does the subjects at hand. Little wonder, then, that so much of our shared human story is subjected to intensive debate spanning years of argument and counterargument. Such is the case with the centerpiece of this post: an Egyptian tomb marker, discovered in the 1960s, honoring the resting place of two male manicurists.
But in the decades since, this site has become the center of an academic hurricane. Who were these two men, shown in remarkable intimacy with one another, and what was the nature of that relationship? “The Manicurists”, known in life as Nyankhkhnum and Khnumhotep, might have been shocked to learn that their tombs have catapulted them onto a far more expansive historical debate – that of “queering” history, how we conduct historical analysis through (perhaps despite?) a persistent heteronormative lens, and the wider challenge of interpreting identity and action from the most fragmentary evidence.
For those unfamiliar with the story of Nyankhkhnum and Khnumhotep, and their now famous tomb, I will provide a brief overview of its discovery and the history of the “Brothers vs. Lovers” debate which encircles them to this day. No – I will not come down firmly on one side or another of this ongoing discussion or conclusively expound on who I think is “right.” Rather, I hope to offer my own thoughts on why an analytically sound conversation around the manicurists is both possible and necessary – if only to broaden our approach to history in a way that allows for queer history to be given proper and just consideration.
A Strange Discovery
The “Manicurists Tomb” became its occupants final resting place around 2400 BCE, or about 4400 years ago. Its astounding age places it firmly within the Egyptian Old Kingdom, specifically the Fifth Dynasty, when the power of ancient Egypt was at one of its historical apogees.[1] The tomb is located in the Saqqara desert, south of the modern capital of Cairo and not far from much grander historical monuments from the same era.
The tomb was originally discovered in 1964, but not fully reconstructed until 1971 when its contents could be examined more fully by (soon to be perplexed) archaeologists.[2] At first, the tomb appeared to be a standard issue (although beautiful and elaborate) tomb of the era. It contained the expected images depicting ancient Egyptian courtly and familial life, the deceased and their relatives and even described their roles: “Overseer of the Manicurists of the Palace.” With such titles, the pair would have been highly ranking within the Egyptian royal household and likely enjoyed an unusual level of access to the ruling elites including the King (note that “Pharoah” was not used until much later in the New Kingdom period).
But something was off. First, as Sara Sioufi notes, shared tombs are unusual in of themselves for this time period in Egyptian history; for two men, they are nearly unheard of. Indeed, the two central characters appear together over and over again in intimate depictions throughout the tomb. Their wives and possible children are also included in some of the artwork, but suggestions of intimacy are almost exclusively shown between the two men, Nyankhkhnum and Khnumhotep.
In one especially strange pose, they are shown with their faces barely apart and seemingly as reflections of one another (a point that will come up again below). Sioufi writes, “[i]n the visual language of ancient Egyptian art, such poses are widely understood to signal intimacy and closeness, and are frequently seen in depictions of spouses.”[3] Notably, their own spouses are not depicted with their husbands in such a manner.
The tomb thus lends itself to an air of mystery: who were these men in relation to each other, why is their tomb so odd, and what can be said about either of them with any degree of certainty? The answer to the latter, unfortunately, is not much. Thomas Dowson writes, “[a]s all the Egyptologists writing on this tomb point out, nowhere are there any inscriptions which reveal the nature of the relationship” between the two men in question.[4]
Thus arose the tide of speculation.
Brotherly Love
The tomb almost immediately raised eyebrows as Egyptologists struggled to pose an acceptable interpretation of what they were seeing represented in paint and stone. For queer history researchers, the common joke of “they were really good friends” is unfortunately based in the reality of longstanding biases and preferences among researchers for whom consideration of non-heteronormative solutions was (for various reasons) impossible.
Unsurprisingly, the joke was all too real in this case as the Chief Inspector of Lower Egypt, Mounir Basta, published his own report in 1979 on the discovery. After suggesting they could have been brothers or father and son, the report surmises another possibility: “were they two officials in the King’s palace who had enjoyed a cordial friendship in life and wished to keep it after death in the netherworld?”[5]
The “close friends” explanation, although impossible to disprove, soon fell out of favor for a more compelling one: that Nyankhkhnum and Khnumhotep were actually twin brothers.
This slight variation on the simple fraternal bothers notion suggested in the late 1970s has considerable weight in its favor. Twin pregnancies were especially dangerous in the ancient world (though they remain so to a certain extent even today). A twin pregnancy today – especially in those cases where identical twins share, for example, a placenta – is automatically considered high risk and monitored with particular care. In the ancient world, then, the survival of both identical twins through pregnancy, birth and into adulthood would have been a rare feat.
This could explain, perhaps, why Nyankhkhnum and Khnumhotep shared a part of their name (khnum) if they were born at the same time as literal copies of each other. It may also explain why both had the same job, held that job simultaneously, and seemed to share the same life (again, noting the limited details about their lives which are available). Linda Evans and Alexandra Woods take this view, noting that the use of mirror-imaging of the tombs’ occupants and use of similar mirroring motifs throughout bolster the identical twin hypothesis.[6]
The First Gay Couple?
The “identical twin” theory, however, does not fully explain away the presentation of the central figures, leading other scholars to question the assumption of familial or friendly relationship. The theory that Nyankhkhnum and Khnumhotep might have instead been in an intimate relationship – emotionally, romantically, sexually or otherwise – was most famously posed by Greg Reeder. His own analyses, developed in the late 1990s, was published to a bout of controversy in 2000: “Same-sex desire, conjugal constructs, and the tomb of Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep.”
In that article, Reeder built upon earlier work from Nadine Cherpion, who had analyzed depictions of romantic/sexual partnership between heterosexual couples in similar tomb environments. He went on to suggest that the exceptional intimacy shown between the two men, and its marked similarity to that shown between partnered heterosexual couples, is a strong indication that something deeper than genetic relationship was likely at play.[7] It has been noted, for example, that in addition to their own positionings with each other reflect usual spousal presentation, their own wives (who any man of status would have had regardless of identities in the Old Kingdom) are often shown in a deliberately minimized way in comparison to the male pair.
A gay man himself, he posited that Nyankhkhnum and Khnumhotep could have been intimately involved with one another in some manner. His analysis, and the subsequent debate, has led to the popular notion that the men could have been “history’s first known gay couple.” Of course, Reeder’s hypothesis was introduced in a world far different from that of today; queer historical research was itself in a far different stage a quarter century ago, and the wider societal controversies over LGBT+ rights, identities and roles in the modern world (let alone notions of their historical presence) were the subject of intensive dialogue. The manicurists have remained lodged within this discourse, even as a firm conclusion will probably remain elusive.
Queer(ing) History
Thomas Dowson’s analysis, “Queering Sex and Gender in Ancient Egypt” traces the furor around the original tomb discovery through Reeder’s analysis and subsequent backlash. His analysis (one which I found invaluable to understand this controversy) offers incisive points on how the academic world reacted – and still reacts – to suggestions of queer identities, individuals and presence in pre-modern times.
Dowson highlights how Reeder, moreso than anyone offering a more “normal” and palatable view, was the subject of invective, accusation of bias and generally unfair analytical treatment for even asserting his theory. He notes how Reeder faced a much higher burden of proof than others proffering their own ideas on the tomb’s interpretation, how Reeder’s identity called his objectivity into question and his conclusion must therefore be part of a personal agenda, that his analysis was overly broad and unthorough (Dowson argues the opposite is true), and that his theory risked projecting present systems/worldviews into another time period (Dowson contests, rather, “the past has always been used in the present” by scholars of every stripe).
Dowson concludes by arguing that, rather than throw stones or bury heads in the sand lest we draw the wrong conclusions, modern scholars (and researchers like myself) can instead engage freely and fairly with possible examples of a queer past. We “can examine and theorize their relationship, free of heterosexist bias, in an attempt to better understand the heterogeneous nature of sexual identities past and present.”[8]
A Bigger Tent
Dowson’s thoughtful points, at least in my view, are a refreshing and necessary corrective to how we approach queer(ing) history.
His recommendations are especially valuable given the intense politicization of the present moment around queer discourse, as well as the leaps and bounds queer history has taken forward in popular awareness and imagination. It is to that expanded discourse and broadened horizon of “queerness” to which I now turn as I attempt to offer my own perspective on the manicurists and their place (or not) in our evolving canon.
As I review the history of the manicurists, and then the subsequent historical debate they provoked, it is striking to me how – dare I saw – binary the conversation seems to be. They were either lovers (gay, presumably) or “something else” which was most certainly not anything queer. Little wonder that the acrimony around their interpretation has likewise been boiled down to a game of historical team sports: my side versus yours, A versus Z, white versus black, yes versus no.
But in reality, queerness does not operate along these easy categorizations; after all, “non-binary” and “agender” are identities under the queer umbrella! The shades of gray are the lived reality of queer people of every marker and label, including those (aromantic and asexual) adopted by yours truly. Queerness not only exists but thrives along the margins, the intersections, the awkward “what is this, really?” in-betweens where simplistic tags just fall apart. This is foundational to how we allow, or perhaps liberate ourselves, to revisit history through a queer(ed) lens.
Back to the manicurists: if we set aside the (mostly speculative) idea that the men were brothers, then the “queer” interpretation has long assumed that these men must instead have been lovers – presumably in a romantic and/or sexual sense. After all, “gay” as a label is probably the easiest and most immediately understood of any under the LGBT+ umbrella. But romantic and sexual action is not itself inherent to queerness; neither is romantic or sexual feeling, attraction, or longing necessarily (although these often are correlated to various individuals’ queer experiences).
Perhaps the “really good friends” trope could be revamped to accommodate a more nuanced perspective: these manicurists may have been indeed devoted to one another, utterly committed and intimately connected, but that relationship may not have been something we would recognize as definitionally “gay” or romantic/sexual. Perhaps a profound platonic connection, not a fraternal or romantic one, is what was truly being memorialized in the Saqqara tomb – one which still challenged and upended the heterosexual norms of its day. Such a scenario would have been recognizable as “queer” in some capacities or interpretations, but not the sort which a quick and easy label can be wrapped around in a neat bow.
Put simply: it seems that the manicurists debate could be missing the point, or rather, missing important points of nuance lost over centuries. In a rush to either confirm or deny the central figures as being gay or just siblings, we ultimately compress the value of this artifact and rob ourselves of the possibility of complexity, the very complexity which is inherent to the human experience and definitely the queer one.
Together Forever
As I warned in the beginning, I will not take a firm stance in any direction on what I think the nature of the relationship was between Nyankhkhnum and Khnumhotep. Perhaps that is the cowardly posture, but I also think it the eminently reasonable one given the dearth of information available and the fundamentally speculative nature of this entire conversation. What, then, was the point of this queer (?) history discussion at all?
For myself, the manicurists represent far more than an intellectual bunny trail through an Old Kingdom tomb. They are an invitation to the endless work of the historical discipline: to constantly assess, then reassess, what sources are available through new and emerging lenses and not fear the uncomfortable, perhaps challenging conclusions we might be led to. They suggest that even the ancient world (maybe especially the ancient world) refuses to conform to modern binaries, parameters and paradigms, and that the most elusive answers might prove to be the most surprising ones. They are a reminder that history may not be so simple as “this or that” and that “queer” might look differently from how one imagined it.
Queering history is a fraught task, but history is a discipline for a reason; it demands rigor matched with imagination. Perhaps even worse, it forces us to confront when we could have been wrong, when we saw something that wasn’t there or conversely refused to see what we did not wish to. All of this runs against our innate tribalism, the quest for categorization that keeps our species safe and secure. To look at a millennia-old tomb of two men, so intimately posed together, and ask the hard questions robs all of us – whatever our interpretation – of the comfort of knowing that we are certainly in the right.
Whatever they were in life, Nyankhkhnum and Khnumhotep are eternally together. But ourselves? We are perhaps eternally stuck in shades of gray.
So when we spy the occasional rainbow peeking through in our glimpses of the past, we need neither fear it nor push it away.
[1] Sara Sioufi, “A Love Story Is Hidden Inside One of Egypt’s Most Ancient Tombs,” Fodor’s Travel, April 22, 2026, https://www.fodors.com/world/africa-and-middle-east/egypt/experiences/news/ancient-egyptian-tomb-may-reveal-historys-first-lgbtq-couple.
[2] Thomas Dowson, “Queering Sex and Gender in Ancient Egypt,” in Sex and Gender in Ancient Egypt: ‘Don Your Wig for a Joyful Hour‘, ed. Carolyn Graves-Brown (Classical Press of Wales, 2008), https://books.google.com/books?id=tP5ODgAAQBAJ&dq=homosexuality+in+ancient+egypt&lr=&source=gbs_navlinks_s.
[3] Sioufi, ibid.
[4] Dowson, pg. 35.
[5] Dowson, pg. 35.
[6] Linda Evans and Alexandra Woods, “FURTHER EVIDENCE THAT NIANKHKHNUM AND KHNUMHOTEP WERE TWINS,” The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 102 (2016): 55–72, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26379072.
[7] Greg Reeder, “Same-Sex Desire, Conjugal Constructs, and the Tomb of Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep,” World Archaeology 32 (2): 193–208. doi:10.1080/00438240050131180.
[8] Dowson, pgs. 42 – 43.