These remarkable images show some of the earliest known examples of what we these days might dub pornography.
The Kangjiashimenji Petroglyphs, in Xinjiang, north-west China, depict an intense fertility ritual the likes of which is almost unique in the ancient world.
That’s because while most prehistoric art presents images that are abstract and disembodied, this tableau appears to explicitly present our sex-crazed ancestors in the midst of a wild orgy.
The petroglyphs – thought to date back to the second millennium BC, although their exact age is difficult to determine – were discovered in the late Eighties by Chinese archaeologist Wang Binghua.
Jeannine Davis-Kimball, an expert on Eurasian nomads, was the first Westerner to see them and detail them in scientific journals. Nevertheless they remain little known. One of her descriptions of the tableau is featured on the website of the Center for the Study of Eurasian Nomads, where she is currently executive director.

The Kangjiashimenji Petroglyphs are carved in bas-relief in a sheltered grotto, at the base of a massive red-basalt outcrop in Tien Shan, about 45 miles west of Urumchi, the capital of Xinjiang province.
The cast of about 100 figures, which range in size from more than nine feet tall to just a few inches, are taking part in what is obviously a fertility ritual.
Almost all are depicted in the same ceremonial pose, in which their arms are held out and bent at the elbows with one hand pointing up and the other pointing down.
‘In addition, human figures, floating heads, meandering dogs, static felines, and heraldic animals fill voids,’ Dr Davis-Kimball writes.

‘To the ancients each image most surely represented some aspect of the ritual.’
It is believed that the larger-than-life hourglass figures that begin the tableau represent females, with their stylised triangular torsos, and shapely hips and legs.
These figures wear conical headdresses with wispy decorations. Males, on the other hand, are depicted as smaller triangles with spindly stick legs, bare heads and mainly erect penises – dubbed ‘ithyphallic’ in archaeology speak.
Many of the figures appear to depict transexuals combining both male and female features. Ithyphallic but wearing female headgear and chest decorations, they sometimes also wear masks and may depict shamans.
‘In general, the figures are represented in a dance so intense that some have fallen into a trance or state of ecstasy,’ writes Dr Davis-Kimball.
‘Others are about to engage in sexual intercourse with the obvious intent of procreation as small embryonic images evoking chorus lines emphasise the significance of this act.
‘The various animals add notes of ambiguity, yet provide additional clues to place the tableau in time and space and provide some historical basis.’
She distinguishes eight separate scenes in the tableau, four of which are fully formed and the remainder of which appear to be sketches.
The first scene shows nine massive females, each about two metres high, dancing arond in a circle, while a second transexual figure on the left is partially reclining as if about to fall into a trance.
It is the only scene withoug ithyphallic men, although the transexual featured does have an erect penis.
‘It wears a female headdress with antenna and a “bra” …’ writes Dr Davis-Kimball. ‘Although its torso and legs are stylized as the male and it is ithyphallic.
‘Both arms, raised over its shoulders, have deviated from the normal dancing position.
‘To complete the scene a single human head and two pairs of heraldic animals, probably goats — one pair markedly ithyphallic — are interspaced between the female dancers.’
It is the second scene identified by Dr Davis-Kimball that appears to show the wildest orgy of all. In it sixteen figures – 10 female and six male – look set to begin having sex, with one particularly unusual one on the left wearing a monkey mask and probably representing a shaman.
‘As it is ithyphallic it is also a bi-sexual representation and it appears that it about to copulate with a small female with splayed legs whose vulva is explicit,’ she writes. Next to it is a headless male who looks like he’s trying to have sex with another transexual figure.
At the centre of the scene is another prominent transexual figure who appears about to have sex with a smaller female with splayed legs, whose private parts are quite explicitly rendered.

source: dailymail.co.uk