Robyn Gillam

A book with multiple personalities. The Introduction is one of the most appalling pieces of post-Modernism I’ve ever read. Consider, for example, the following sentence:


“Introduction into literate education initiates the subject into the hegemonic capitalist system, strategically institutionalized in written data and abstract thought in contrast with the tactical, oral world of practical everyday life.”


This goes on for pages, and I was getting increasing tempted to apply Dorothy Parker’s famous book review: “This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly. It should be hurled with great force.” However, in the main section, author Robyn Gillam settles down and discusses what’s known about her topic. There’s nothing from ancient Egypt (until the Greek and Roman periods) that corresponds to our modern definition of “theater”: a performance by “actors” playing “roles” for the entertainment of an “audience”. What does pass for “performance” in ancient Egypt falls into four main categories:


* Public or semipublic events relating to the Pharaoh or government, sometimes corresponding to what we might consider a “coronation” ceremony or a “jubilee”, or perhaps something like a national holiday parade;


* Private (in fact, sometimes secret) events connected with worship;


* Public religious ceremonies, more or less corresponding to things like the more elaborate holy days or saint’s days celebrated by some religions, and


* funerals.



In the first category are things like the Following of Horus, the Festival of Sokar, the Uniting of the Two Lands, the Circuit of the Walls, the Appearance of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, the Sed Festival, and the Running of the Apis Bull. Most of these are known from the name only, although it’s reasonably guessed that the “Appearance of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt” was some sort of coronation ceremony. The best documented is the Sed Festival (hb Sd), which seems to be some sort of rejuvenation ceremony for the Pharaoh (some older Egyptological works translate hb Sd as “jubilee”). This was usually celebrated in the thirtieth year of the Pharaoh’s reign, and then at three-year intervals afterward. The Pharaoh wore a special, archaic costume; ran a course around markers; sat on a special throne; and was presented with various gift. Gillam doesn’t mention it but it’s been theorized that the running event was designed to show that the king was still strong and virile and that, therefore, the land of Egypt would also continue to be fertile. Some speculate that in the original ceremony the king was killed. Gillam seems more interested in the way this event could be construed as “theater”, in particular the extent that the general public was allowed to participate. She theorizes (it’s interesting that “theory” and “theater” have the same Greek root) that the event was mostly witnessed by the elite class, although the general public may have used the hb sd as an excuse for general merrymaking.


The Egyptians apparently didn’t have public religious worship in the sense that modern religions do. Instead, the day-to-day interaction with the gods was a duty of the priests. The simplest rituals were the daily offering of food, clothing, anointment and other services to the statue of the god; there were also periodic rituals with a larger time interval. There are “scripts” for some of these rituals, but the public didn’t witness them or expect to.


There were, however, things that corresponded to public religious ceremonies. Gillam refers to a particular document called the Ramesseum Dramatic Papyrus (it was found in a tomb later covered by the Ramesseum and dates much earlier). This document is pretty interesting; it’s related to the story of Osiris, Set, and Horus. There are lines of “dialog”, set off by a special arrangement of hieroglyphics and which sometime appear to include a response by an “audience”; a list of “props” for each “scene” (separated from other “scenes” by vertical lines) appearing after the “dialog” and separated from the dialog by a horizontal line; and finally, a vignette at the bottom of each “scene” depicting the action, which seems more or less analogous to a modern storyboard. Gillam can’t decide whether an event like this was true theater or simply an elaborate religious ceremony; however, she points out that Greek theater was originally a religious event (“plays” were presented during a religious festival and were technically offerings to the gods). Another well-known ceremony was the Opet Festival, a week-long event in which a statue of Amun was placed on a “boat” and carried from his main temple at Karnak to a smaller temple and back. The inhabitants of modern Karnak have a festival honoring (supposedly) a Muslim holy man, in which they carry a small boat (no statue) four times around the mosque and back inside; this must be one of the oldest continuous religious festivals in the world.


Finally, funerals had a great deal of associated public and private ceremony. The body, and later the mummy, was carried around in a procession to various places with mourner, embalmers, pallbearers, and two women identified as “kites” (the bird kind), presumably intended to represent Isis and Nephthys. At the tomb the mummy was treated to a performance by exotic dancers, apparently intended to reawaken sexuality, and simulated combats, possibly to remind the mummy how to fight in case it was necessary during the passage to the afterlife. Some of the dancers are identified as “stars”, which may have had the same meaning in ancient Egypt as in modern English. (I think I want to see exotic dancers at my funeral. Wait; I take that back; I want to see exotic dancers at your funeral).



The last two chapters provide some food for thought. Gillam teaches a “comparative cultures” course at the University of York in Canada, and decided to require here students to perform various Egyptian religious rituals as a exercise. She compares this to military re-enactment and to various costumed presenters at historic sites. Both students and instructors found the experience generally rewarding, but there were some intriguing facets. Some of the students played against the script, acting as if their characters had different agendas than the rest. Gillam blames this on the popularity of “reality” TV shows. Unfortunately, she doesn’t detail what the contrarian characters did; I find the idea that students might have role-played enough to have their “characters” demonstrate internecine conflicts in the Egyptian priesthood - and there’s plenty of evidence that this actually occurred. Further, Gillam had her students use the same sort of public spaces the ancient Egyptians used for “performances”. For example, her funeral procession for the Apis bull (papier-mache; she says it obviously wasn’t possible to mummify a real bull) was routed through a local shopping mall. Lastly, she only comments briefly on how people with serious religious beliefs might find the recreation of ceremonies honoring ancient pagan gods a little questionable. As a nontheist, I’d certainly have no problem using an Egyptian ceremony as a teaching tool, especially considering the rave reviews it got from students, but what about having students explore different traditions by simulating a Eucharist, or an immersion baptism, or a Navajo healing chant? (Probably best to stay well away from Aztec and Thuggee ceremonies. And probably not a bris, either). One of my personal beliefs is that you can’t understand history until you understand the religious feelings of historical characters. I can see how (for example) exploring the mindset of the Middle Ages by having students role-play residents of a Medieval village might be really valuable, but I can also see how role-playing a daily Mass might be a really bad idea. Thoughts?


A pretty interesting book, especially after the poor start.… (més)