The Egyptian Dionysus: Osiris and the Development of Theater in Ancient Egypt

CAMNESCenterforAncientMediterraneanandNearEasternStudies

Proceedings of the XI International Congress of Egyptologists

Florence Egyptian Museum Florence, 23-30 August 2015

edited by

Gloria Rosati and Maria Cristina Guidotti

Archaeopress Egyptology 19

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Contents

XI International Congress of Egyptologists �� x

Preface �� xiii

Papers

Development of Old Kingdom pottery: three cases studies (‘Cemetery of the Workers’, Heit el-Ghurab and the Khentkawes Town)��1Sherif M. Abdelmoniem

Of Min and moon – cosmological concepts in the Temple of Athribis (Upper Egypt) ��7Victoria Altmann-Wendling

Les relations entre l’horloge stellaire diagonale et le corpus des Textes des Sarcophages dans le sarcophage intérieur de Mésehti : le temps et les décans ��14Bernard Arquier

The Qubbet el-Hawa casting moulds – Late Period bronze working at the First Cataract ��19Johannes Auenmüller

Overlapping and contradictory narratives in Ancient Egyptian visual programs ��26Jennifer Miyuki Babcock

s d se se es d ��29Susanne Beck

The pyramid as a journey – cultic encounters between father and son in the Pyramid of Pepy I ��35Nils Billing

The Ancient Egyptian dialects in light of the Greek transcriptions of Egyptian anthroponyms ��41Ana Isabel Blasco Torres

Dalla sabbia alla teca: esempi di interventi conservativi eseguiti su alcuni papiri del Museo Egizio di Firenze ��46Paola Boffula Alimeni

New evidence on the king’s son Intefmose from Dra Abu el-Naga: a preliminary report ��53Francisco L. Borrego Gallardo

The Merenptah Sarcophagi restoration project ��59Edwin C. Brock and Lyla Pinch Brock

Egyptian names and networks in Trismegistos (800 BC – AD 800) ��64Yanne Broux

The Ptolemaic dedication of Archepolis in the Bibliotheca Alexandrina: materiality and text ��69Patricia A. Butz

Bernard V� Bothmer and Ptolemaic sculpture: papers on Ptolemaic art from his archives held at the Università degli Studi di Milano ��75Giorgia Cafici

The Tell el-Maskhuta Project ��81Giuseppina Capriotti Vittozzi and Andrea Angelini

Silence in the Tale of the Eloquent Peasant: themes and problems ��87Ilaria Cariddi

Progetto Butehamon� Prospettive e ricerche nella necropoli tebana ��92Giacomo Cavillier

Notes on the inscribed Old and Middle Kingdom coffins in the Egyptian Turin Museum �� 103Emanuele M. Ciampini

ii

Rethinking Egyptian animal worship (c. 3000 BC – c. 300 AD): towards a historical-religious perspective �� 107Angelo Colonna

Before and after the Temple: the long-lived necropolis in the area of the Temple of Millions of Years of Amenhotep II – Western Thebes ��112Anna Consonni, Tommaso Quirino and Angelo Sesana

Papyri with the Ritual of the Opening of the Mouth in the Egyptian Museum in Turin �� 120Federico Contardi

Notes for a building history of the temple of Ramesses II at Antinoe� The architectural investigation �� 124Michele Coppola

Animal mummies in South African collections ��131Izak Cornelius, Salima Ikram, Ruhan Slabbert, Liani C. Swanepoel, Frank Teichert and Tiffany van Zyl

Nouvelle lecture d’une scène de la théogamie d’Hatshepsout ��137Alice Coyette

Worship and places of worship in the Greco-Roman town at Marina El-Alamein �� 140Grażyna Bąkowska-Czerner and Rafał Czerner

Middle Kingdom coffin of Khnum from the National Museum of Warsaw �� 148Dorota Czerwik

Non-destructive analysis on 11 Egyptian blue faience tiles from the 2nd and 3rd Dynasties �� 154Joseph Davidovits and Frédéric Davidovits

Scenes from the Amduat on the funerary coffins and sarcophagi of the 21st Dynasty �� 159Cássio de Araújo Duarte

Votive pottery deposits found by the Spanish Mission at Dra Abu el-Naga �� 166Elena de Gregorio

The building activity of Pinudjem I at Thebes ��172Gabriella Dembitz

The ‘Book of Going Forth by Day’ in the funerary chamber of Djehuty (TT 11): past, present, and future �� 177Lucía Díaz-Iglesias Llanos

The pre-Egyptological concept of Egypt as a challenge for Egyptology and the efforts to establish a research community ��184Florian Ebeling

The Gebelein Archaeological Project, 2013–2016 ��188Wojciech Ejsmond

Trois nouvelles harpes découvertes à Thèbes ouest: Quel apport pour l’égyptologie ? �� 192Sibylle Emerit

The ‘pantheistic’ deities� Report from research on iconography and role of polymorphic deities �� 198Grzegorz First

Études sur le cadre de vie d’une association religieuse dans l’Égypte gréco-romaine : l’exemple de Touna el-Gebel �� 203Mélanie C. Flossmann-Schütze

Forme di imitazione egizia nella decorazione architettonica di Nea Paphos �� 209Leonardo Fuduli

Ahmose-Sapair in Dra Abu el-Naga: old and new evidence ��215José M. Galán

The Moon god Iah in ancient Egyptian religion ��222Gudelia García-Fernández

Expression of loyalty to the king – A socio-cultural analysis of basilophoric personal names dating to the Old and Middle Kingdoms ��228Christina Geisen

iii

Love and gold in cross-cultural discourse in the Amarna letters �� 233Graciela Gestoso Singer

Some unpublished inscriptions from Quarry P at Hatnub ��237Yannis Gourdon and Roland Enmarch

Names of eye parts in different text genres: a contribution to technical language in ancient Egypt �� 242Nadine Gräßler

The transformation of Theban Tomb 39 (TT39)� A contribution from a conservation viewpoint in terms of its history after dynastic occupation ��247Dulce María Grimaldi and Patricia Meehan

The complete corpus of viticulture and winemaking scenes from the ancient Egyptian private tombs �� 254Maria Rosa Guasch-Jané, Sofia Fonseca and Mahmoud Ibrahim

Des étoiles et des hommes : peurs, désirs, offrandes et prières �� 260Nadine Guilhou

Cracking a code: deciphering the marks of the royal necropolis workmen of the New Kingdom �� 266Ben Haring

The Egyptian Dionysus: Osiris and the development of theater in Ancient Egypt �� 271Allison Hedges

The Abydos Dynasty: an osteoarchaeological examination of human remains from the SIP royal cemetery �� 276Jane A. Hill, Maria A. Rosado and Joseph Wegner

You up – I down: orientational metaphors concerning ancient Egyptian Kingship in royal iconography and inscriptions ��283Shih-Wei Hsu

Image processing� Elaboration and manipulation of the human figure in the Pyramid Texts ................................................ 287Francesca Iannarilli

Hieroglyphic inscriptions on precious objects: some notes on the correlation between text and support �� 291Agnese Iob

Predynastic precursors to the Festival of Drunkenness: beer, climate change, cow-goddesses, and the ideology of kingship ��296Victoria Jensen

Crowdsourcing in Egyptology – images and annotations of Middle Kingdom private tombs �� 303Peter Kalchgruber and Lubica Hudáková

‘To build a temple in the beautiful white stone of Anu’. The use of Tura limestone in Theban architecture �� 308Christina Karlshausen and Thierry De Putter

The motif of the kiosk during the first half of the 18th dynasty �� 313Edyta Kopp

A heritage in peril: the threat to Egypt’s urban archaeological sites �� 318Peter Lacovara

Le sḏm.f circonstanciel� Une forme verbale rare en néo-égyptien littéraire �� 320Vincent Pierre-Michel Laisney

Amduat type papyri in the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow �� 325Nika Lavrentyeva

Carving out identities in the Egyptian desert: self-presentation styles adopted by the ancient travelers of Kharga Oasis ��328Nikolaos Lazaridis

Ya-t-il une « fabrique d’albâtre » et un atelier de tissage au Ramesseum ? �� 333Guy Lecuyot

iv

e elles e d s es d es de l e le d e er �� 339Nicolas Leroux

Scenes representing temple rituals on some 21st Dynasty coffins �� 345Éva Liptay

Building B, a domestic construction at Tell el-Ghaba, North Sinai �� 351Silvia Lupo, Eduardo Crivelli Montero, Claudia Kohen and Eva Calomino

The Montecelio Obelisk in Rome ��357Lise Manniche

The role of e-learning in Egyptology: ‘Hieroglyphs: Step-by-Step’ website as a case study �� 362Ahmed Mansour and Azza Ezzat

The function and importance of some special categories of stars in the Ancient Egyptian funerary texts, 1: AxAx- and iAd-stars ��368Alicia Maravelia

Chapel of the tomb belonging to Amenhotep III’s Vizier, Amenhotep Huy� Asasif Tomb No� 28, Luxor-West Bank� Excavation results: ‘Vizier Amenhotep Huy Project’ (2009–2014) �� 377Francisco J. Martín-Valentín and Teresa Bedman

Objets découverts dans des tombes thébaines situées sous le Temple de Millions d’Années de Thoutmosis III à l’ouest de Louxor ��384Javier Martínez Babón

Fish offerings found in Area 32 of the archaeological site of Oxyrhynchus (El-Bahnasa, Egypt) �� 389Maite Mascort Roca and Esther Pons Mellado

The Akh-menu of Thutmosis III at Karnak� The Sokarian Rooms �� 394Julie Masquelier-Loorius

The 13th Dynasty at Abydos: a royal tomb and its context ��399Dawn McCormack

The transmission of the Book of the Twelve Caverns ��405Daniel M. Méndez Rodríguez

A new reading of Problem No� 53 in the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus� The limits of proportionality �� 410Marianne Michel

The ang-morphs in Coptic and their grammaticalization in Later Egyptian �� 416So Miyagawa

‘Augmented Reality’ technology and the dissemination of historical graffiti in the Temple of Debod �� 422Miguel Ángel Molinero Polo, Alfonso Martín Flores, Jorge Martín Gutiérrez, Cristóbal Ruiz Medina, Lucía Díaz-Iglesias Llanos, Fernando Guerra-Librero Fernández, Daniel Miguel Méndez Rodríguez,

Luis Navarrete Ruiz, Manuel Rivas Fernández and Ovidia Soto Martín

The Min Project. First working seasons on the unpublished Tomb of Min (TT109) and Tomb Kampp -327-: the Tomb of May and a replica of the Tomb of Osiris ��427Irene Morfini and Milagros Álvarez Sosa

Figurative vase painting from the First Intermediate Period through to the Fatimid Dynasty: a continuity? �� 433Maya Müller

Basic considerations on the construction of pyramids in the Old Kingdom �� 437Frank Müller-Römer

Die Verwendung von Münzen in pharaonischer Zeit ��441Renate Müller-Wollermann

In the footsteps of Ricardo Caminos: rediscovering the ‘Speos of Gebel el Silsila’ �� 445Maria Nilsson and Philippe Martinez

The folding cubit rod of Kha in Museo Egizio di Torino, S�8391 �� 450Naoko Nishimoto

v

The mystery of the ‘high place’ from the Abbott Papyrus revealed? The results of the works of the Polish Cliff Mission at Deir el-Bahari 1999–2014 ��457Andrzej Niwiński

The mummies of the ‘Three Sisters’ in the Museo Egizio: a case study� Conservation and studies of textiles and bandages ��462Cinzia Oliva and Matilde Borla

Technical aspects of faience from Hierakonpolis, Egypt – a preliminary report �� 468Marina Panagiotaki, Elizabeth Walters, Yannis Maniatis and Anna Tsoupra

Horus Seneferou ka-s : quand le dernier souverain de la Ire dynastie devint la première femme pharaon de l’Histoire à porter un nom d’Horus ��472Jean-Pierre Pätznick

The Herakleopolis Magna Project: seasons 2012–2015��480M. Carmen Pérez-Die

The Stelae Ridge cairns: a reassessment of the archaeological evidence �� 485Hannah Pethen

The Italian-Egyptian Mission at the Monastery of Abba Nefer at Manqabad: results of the first four seasons’ work ��491Rosanna Pirelli, Ilaria Incordino, Paola Buzi and Anna Salsano

Wedjat-eyes as a dating criterion for false doors and stelae to the early Middle Kingdom�� 499Melanie Pitkin

La collection égyptienne du Musée Sandelin à Saint-Omer (France) �� 506Jean-Louis Podvin

Some remarks on the Egyptian reception of foreign military technology during the 18th Dynasty: a brief survey of the armour ��513Alberto Maria Pollastrini

Medical re-enactments: Ancient Egyptian prescriptions from an emic viewpoint �� 519Tanja Pommerening

Textual layers in Coffin Texts spells 154–160 ��527Gyula Priskin

The cat mummies of the Società Africana d’Italia: an archaeological, cultural and religious perspective �� 532Maria Diletta Pubblico

Khnum the Creator: a puzzling case of the transfer of an iconographic motif �� 538Maarten J. Raven

Temple ranks in the Fayyum during the Ptolemaic and Roman Periods: documentary sources and archaeological data ��543Ilaria Rossetti

Le musée de Mallawi: état des lieux après les destructions et projets pour l’avenir �� 549Ashraf Alexandre Sadek

A new light on Coptic afterlife (O�4550 from the Coptic Museum in Cairo) �� 553Hind Salah El-Din Somida Awad

The lost chapels of Elephantine� Preliminary results of a reconstruction study through archival documents �� 556Daniele Salvoldi and Simon Delvaux

Doors to the past� Rediscovering fragments in the new blockyard at Medinet Habu �� 563Julia Schmied

Les dépôts de fondation de la Vallée des Rois : nouvelles perspectives de recherche sur l’histoire de la nécropole royale du Nouvel Empire ��568François C. A. Schmitt

vi

Economic mentalities and Ancient Egyptian legal documents ��576Alexander Schütze

Excavations in the ‘Temple of Millions of Years’ of Thutmosis III �� 581Myriam Seco Álvarez

Rituels funéraires au temps de Hatchepsout : le sanctuaire de la tombe de Djehouty et ses parallèles �� 587José M. Serrano

The so-called Book of Two Ways on a Middle Kingdom religious leather roll �� 594Wael Sherbiny

Ibyc� PMGF 287 and Ancient Egyptian love songs ��597Anna Sofia

The Physiologus in Egypt ��603Marco Stroppa

A survey of astronomical tables on Middle Kingdom coffin lids �� 608Sarah L. Symons

Blue painted pottery from a mid-18th Dynasty royal mud-brick structure in northwest Saqqara �� 613Kazumitsu Takahashi

Studies on BD 17 vignettes: iconographic typology of Rw.tj-scene (New Kingdom – Third Intermediate Period) �� 619Mykola Tarasenko

Were components of Amarna composite statues made in separate workshops? �� 626Kristin Thompson

Research on Old Kingdom ‘dissimilation graphique’� World-view and categorization �� 633Simon Thuault

La funzione del tempio tolemaico di Deir el-Medina alla luce dell’archeologia �� 638Claudia Tirel Cena

The ‘geography’ of the hierogrammateis: the religious topography of the Western Harpoon (7th Nome of Lower Egypt) ��644Elena Tiribilli

The Ancient Egyptian shabtis discovered in the regions of Roman Illyricum (Dalmatia, Pannonia) and Istria: provenance, collections, typological study and dating ��650Mladen Tomorad

From Egypt to the Holy Land: first issues on the Egyptian collection in the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, Jerusalem ��656Benedetta Torrini

Tradition and innovation within the decoration program of the temple of Ramesses II at Gerf Hussein �� 661Martina Ullmann

The Egyptian Execration Statuettes (EES) Project ��667Athena Van der Perre

A new long-term digital project on Hieratic and cursive hieroglyphs �� 671Ursula Verhoeven and Svenja A. Gülden

Hierakonpolis Faience, 2005–2013, with context and accompanying finds – a quest for chronology and possible use ��676Elizabeth J. Walters, Amr El Gohary, Shelton S. Alexander, Richard R. Parizek, David P. Gold, Recep Cakir, Marina Panagiotaki, Yannis Maniatis and Anna Tsoupra

The Berlin Plans from the New Kingdom Period ��680Yoshifumi Yasuoka

The career of Nakhtmin (TT 87) as revealed by his funerary cones �� 686Kento Zenihiro

vii

Object biographies and political expectations: Egyptian artefacts, Welsh Heritage and the regional community museum ��693Katharina Zinn

Who am I - and if so, how many? Some remarks on the ‘j-augment’ and language change �� 701Monika Zöller-Engelhardt

Poster presentations

Vocabulaire de l’Égyptien Ancien (VÉgA)� Plateforme numérique de recherche lexicographique �� 709A. Almásy, Ch. Cassier, J. Chun-Hung-Kee, F. Contardi, M. Massiera, A. Nespoulous-Phalippou and Fr. Rouffet

Pottery from the early Roman rubbish dumps in Berenike harbour�� 711Agnieszka Dzwonek

A sequence of five 13th Dynasty structures at Memphis ��714Rabee Eissa

Funerary culture of the Memphite region during the Early Dynastic Period �� 717Barbora Janulíková

3D-Reconstructions of Late Roman fortresses in Egypt ��718Dmitry Karelin, Maria Karelina and Tatiana Zhitpeleva

The Roman Imperial cult temple at Luxor: its architecture and possible connection between Roman and Egyptian cultures ��720Irina Kulikova and Dmitry Karelin

One of the earliest discovered houses at Memphis ��722Hanan Mahmoud Mohamed

Reden und Rufe, are they kingly patterns? A first step towards an explanation of the origin(s) of speech captions in ‘daily life’ scenes in private tombs ��724Aurore Motte

Étude pluridisciplinaire de têtes de momies (Lyon) ��725Annie Perraud, Matthieu Ménager, Pascale Richardin and Catherine Vieillescazes

Progetto Osiris: valorizzazione delle piccole collezioni egizie ��727Massimiliana Pozzi Battaglia e Federica Scatena

Study and restoration of two mummies from the Moulins Museum �� 729Noëlle Timbart

List of papers presented at ICE XI ��731Massimiliano Franci

271ICE XI (2017): 271–275

The Egyptian Dionysus: Osiris and the development of theater in Ancient Egypt

Allison HedgesUniversity of Maryland

AbstractUpholding Classical Greek drama as the benchmark for ancient theater, scholars have historically disregarded the notion of a native Egyptian dramatic tradition, due to the religious and ritualistic nature of the limited evidence available. Yet Greek tragedy began as a featured compe-tition of the Great Dionysia, the most important festival of the god Dionysus in Athens. Traced to the 6th century BC, the religious roots of the Great Dionysia and the dramatic rituals surrounding it reflect those found in Egypt more than one thousand years earlier, in celebration of the Osirian Khoiak Festival. Herodotus first observed the link between Dionysus and Osiris in the mid-5th century BC – a connection the Ptolemies promoted heavily during their reign, essentially presenting Dionysus and Osiris as Greek and Egyptian counterparts of the same deity. In their respective cultures, both gods represented kingship, agriculture and the harvest, human fertility, death and resurrection. Both cults heavily featured dramatic elements in their worship as well. This paper examines the Osirian mysteries and related dramas celebrated during the Khoiak Festival, and illustrates their potential significance in the development of an ancient Egyptian dramatic tradition that pre-dates the advent of theater in ancient Greece.

KeywordsDionysus; Osiris; Khoiak; drama; theater; ritual

Introduction

The Western world universally attributes the foundation of theater to ancient Greece. The Greeks were not only masterful playwrights, crafting dialogue and elaborate stage directions, they documented their performances: when and where they took place, who attended, and how they were received. We do not have circumstantial evidence like this to corroborate dramatic performances in ancient Egypt, with the possible exception of some which took place in Greek-dominated cities during the Ptolemaic period (c. 305–30 BC). This has given rise to speculation that theater in ancient Egypt materialized only with the arrival and influence of Greek culture. Egyptologists have historically disregarded the notion of a native Egyptian dramatic tradition because there is simply no way to prove the occurrence of public performances in Egypt outside of the religious sphere. Any records we have of dramatic material prior to the Hellenistic period are scant and invariably come from a ritualistic context. Thus, while Classicists have widely studied and extensively documented the rich cultural tradition of theater in ancient Greece, the subject remains one of the most enigmatic in Egyptology. Did a dramatic tradition even exist in ancient Egypt?

It is by no means a new question. For decades, ancient Egyptian theater has been a highly subjective and somewhat controversial topic. As Herbert Walter Fairman wrote: ‘The problem whether there was drama in Egypt is notoriously difficult to solve and views for and against have been put forward and contested with equal vigour and dogmatism’ (1974: 1). One such argument, made by Rolf Gundlach in 1987, concluded that Egyptian performative texts and dramatic iconography were not used for theatrical purposes but for ritualistic ones. They were meant to establish and validate their reality, not to create an alternate reality for entertainment (Gundlach 1987: 72–3).

The crux of the matter lies in two simple truths: 1) the lack of evidence makes it extremely difficult to answer the question definitively; and 2) if we look for direct correlations to our modern Western theater, in a culture that is neither modern nor Western, our search will inevitably come up short. Instead,

we must let go of our preconceived notions of cultural norms and re-examine these questions from a different perspective, while admitting that at times in order to do so, we must look at our own culture through a different lens as well.

The Egyptian Dionysus

Here is another proposal: if the only records we have of drama in ancient Egypt are within a religious context, therein lies the tradition. We know that religious devotion infused every aspect of ancient Egyptian life. As Barry Kemp explains in Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization, ‘Religion was the language in which weighty and important matters were couched’ (2006: 254).

This examination will center on one aspect of Egyptian religion that pervades the available evidence of dramatic activity in ancient Egypt – the cult of Osiris. The known Egyptian dramatic texts – those texts which exhibit classic Western features of dramatic literature such as dialogue and stage directions – all, in some way, honor the god Osiris. We can perhaps infer from this that the ancient Egyptian concept of dramatic performance was strongly associated with his cult, just as the Greeks associated theater with Dionysiac worship. This strong connection between Osiris and Dionysus warrants a closer look.

Classical Greek drama originated as a featured competition of the Great Dionysia, the largest festival of the god Dionysus in Athens. The religious roots of the Dionysia and the dramatic rituals surrounding it actually reflect those found in Egypt more than one thousand years earlier in celebration of the mysteries of Osiris – also known as the Khoiak Festival. The known Egyptian dramatic texts as well as royal and private funerary stelae point to the Khoiak Festival as an important focus for public performance-related activities in Egypt as far back as the early 2nd millennium BC. Thus, the term ‘Egyptian Dionysus’ (or ‘Greek Osiris’ depending on one’s perspective) demonstrates a correlation that signifies the development of a native dramatic or theatrical tradition in ancient Egypt.

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Allison Hedges

International Congress of Egyptologists XI

‘The God Who Died’

In The Origins of Osiris and his Cult, John Gwyn Griffiths called him ‘the god who died’ (1980: 22). Egyptologists are familiar with the tragedy and triumph of Osiris, the god and king: his betrayal and murder at the hands of his brother Seth, the dismemberment of his body, and Isis’ relentless search to collect his scattered parts to refashion and make him whole again, so she might resurrect his body to conceive their child Horus. References to Osiris and his fate appear in the earliest known Egyptian religious texts – the Pyramid Texts of the 5th and 6th Dynasties (c. 2500–2179 BC), ‘consisting of mortuary rituals which had developed over a period of centuries...[for] the burial and rebirth of the deceased king’ (Tobin 2003: 247):

The Great One has fallen upon his side,He who is of Nedit trembled;But his head has been raised up by Re...You will not tread upon the decay of Osiris.1

Just as the figures and events of the Trojan War inspired many Greek tragedies that arose in 5th-century Athens, the chronicle of Osiris became a cornerstone of dramatic ritual and reenactment throughout Egyptian history. According to Egyptologist Louis B. Mikhail, ‘Osiris was a god who had more human characteristics than other gods. He was involved in a fight against evil represented in Seth. He was supported by a faithful wife and striving son. These elements constituted a hero and a plot which continued even after the collapse of ancient Egyptian culture’ (1984: 29).

Classicist Philip Vellacott wrote of Greek tragedy, ‘The traditional tragic pattern showed an heroic figure in a position of greatness, an act of pride arising from weakness or excess, a catastrophe, and death’ (1972: 16). The story of Osiris fits this ‘tragic pattern’ in the following way: Osiris is in a position of great power as king, but his fatal weakness, perhaps, is his unquestioning faith in his brother’s love and loyalty. This Egyptian conflict between the divine brothers also fits neatly into certain basic components for Greek tragedy as outlined by Aristotle in the mid-4th century BC. In Poetics, he defined πάθος, or suffering, as a ‘destructive or painful act’ (Else 1967: 37; Poet. 1452b10) and an essential element of the tragic plot: ‘…when the tragic acts come within the limits of close blood relationship, as when brother kills or intends to kill brother or do something else of that kind to him, or son to father, or mother to son, or son to mother – those are the situations one should look for’ (Else 1967: 41; Poet. 53b19–20). As the Ptolemies looked for ways to secure and legitimize their hold on Egypt, these two cultural influences were easily combined in order to appeal to the diverse religious needs of Egypt’s population.

The Greek Osiris

At first glance, Osiris – god of the dead and the iconic mummy of Egyptian mythology – might seem a strange match for convivial Dionysus, the Greek god of wine. Among the Classical sources, Herodotus made the first direct connection between these two gods in the mid-5th century BC (Histories 2.144–5). Remarking on the genealogy of the high priests of Thebes, he wrote, ‘…before their time Egypt was, indeed, ruled by gods,

1 Utterance 412: A Spell for Resurrection, lines 721–2. Translated by V. A. Tobin (2003: 252–3).

who lived on Earth amongst men…The last of them was Horus the son of Osiris,’ and by way of explaining this reference to his countrymen, ‘Horus is the Apollo, Osiris the Dionysus, of the Greeks’ (de Sélincourt 1954: 187).

The name of Dionysus often conjures up images of inebriation and hedonism, a symbol of raw, visceral life as opposed to death and the spiritual afterlife. But for the Greeks, Dionysus was a far more complex figure. He was also a conqueror and a king. As the son of Zeus and his mortal lover Seméle, he was part human and part divine. He experienced a mortal death at the hands of the Titans, who tore him to pieces and devoured him. But with mysterious regenerative power he resurrected himself to live again. He ruled a plane of existence somewhere between death and life – a spiritual enlightenment honored by the casting off of one’s earthly burdens to embrace an alternate reality. Through this aspect, he became the patron deity of theater.

Lengthy discussions of a vegetation god or ‘year-god’ pervade early studies of the ritual origins of drama. In the early 20th century, Classical scholars and ‘Cambridge Ritualists’ (as they were later known) Gilbert Murray and Francis Cornford ascribed the characteristics of this year-god to Dionysus, and suggested that all Greek drama, in some form or another, represents and reenacts the same ritual myth (Murray 1912; Cornford 1914). Classicist Rainer Friedrich shares this ritual myth in the following ‘life-story’ of the so-called ‘year-god’:

He is involved in a combat (agōn) with an adversary symbolizing Winter or Death or some other destructive evil force. In this agōn he is slain and suffers dismemberment (sparagmos). At the report of his death there is universal mourning. His limbs are discovered, gathered, and put together: he is then reborn and restored to youth. There is an emotional peripety from sorrow to joy. [His] resurrection is followed by the sacred marriage with Mother Earth (hieros gamos) celebrated with songs of victory and jubilation, while the god’s adversary, the force of evil and the foe to life, is expelled (Friedrich 1983: 164).2

Egyptologists would recognize this year-god as none other than Osiris. Indeed, Friedrich observes this connection as well:

[The] seasonal ritual, focusing as it does on the dying year and its rebirth as the New Year, had to pass through some stages. First, the year was personified as the year god; in other cultural contexts it is the divine king or divine hero. At the next stage the year god…obtains a name: Dionysus in Greece, Osiris in Egypt….It was this fusion of ritual with myth that made the ritual into the antecedent of drama… (1983: 164)

The Great Dionysia

Dionysus’ association with drama and performance goes back to the 6th century BC and the διθύραμβος: dithyramb. The dithyramb was a choral hymn sung in honor of Dionysus, one of many performance-related rites of Dionysiac worship such as dancing, music, and the donning of elaborate costumes and masks in a jubilant procession. In Athens, the Festival of Dionysus was a grand celebration that involved the entire

2 This quote was previously attributed to Gilbert Murray himself, perhaps in error. It actually appears to be Friedrich’s own summary of the Murray-Cornford mythical pattern.

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community, and even drew a large crowd from outside of the city. It took place annually in early spring, over the course of nine days.

Louise Bruit Zaidman and Pauline Schmitt Pantel give a detailed account of the Great Dionysia (also called City Dionysia) in their book, Religion in the Ancient Greek City (1992: 108-9). Competitions were held in dithyramb, poetry, satyr play (the precursor to comedy) and tragedy. The festivities began and ended with the ritual sacrifice of an animal to purify the space, the performers, and the audience. The Χόροι (Choroi) of Dionysus, as the dramatic competitions were called, took place within the sanctuary, beside the temple. The audience included the priests of Dionysus, the sponsors and high-ranking officials who ultimately judged the competition, and the general public. A seat of honor was reserved for the god himself, whose statue presided over the festivities from the orchestra, where the chorus and dancers performed.

Dionysus himself rarely appeared as a character in the plays, a fact that classicist Barbara Kowalzig suggests might have encouraged the scholarly separation of traditional drama from religious ceremony (2007: 222). However, the Greeks believed that invocation of the god rested in the performance itself, not necessarily the content of the plays. According to Bruno Hugo Stricker, who wrote about the origins of the Greek theatrical space, ‘The theatre was a sacred place, the actors were sacred persons, their action was sacred action, and it was performed at a sacred time. Therefore the theatrical institution was a part of divine worship. It was liturgy and it had the function of liturgy’ (1955: 36). Still, in Athens the majority of tragedies shared a common theme: heroic tales of legendary figures. Prizes were not awarded to the best actors, but to the best playwrights. Ultimately, with the rise of democracy and the establishment of the Greek city state, playwrights like Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides seized the opportunity to express ideas and opinions through their plays, using the heroic tales of the Trojan War and mythology to draw parallels to the political climate of their time.

An important ceremony of the Great Dionysia was the appearance and arrival of the god’s statue, accompanied by ‘processions with hymns and sacrifices triumphantly escorting Dionysus’ cult image from outside the city into his sanctuary at the heart of the polis, where it would sit at the edge of the theater’s orchestra’ (Kowalzig 2007: 222), and preside over the Choroi.

Perhaps the largest and most famous example of such a ritual in Hellenistic Egypt was the Grand Procession of Ptolemy Philadelphus as recorded by Kallixeinos of Rhodes in approximately 270 BC. The procession was comparable in size and scale to a modern-day circus, but far more opulent, with royal pageantry and fanfare. An important feature of the Dionysian procession was the vignettes mounted on moving carts that recreated key stories in Dionysian myth. Each display exhibited another statue of Dionysus adorned appropriately to the theme of the vignette, and always accompanied by an entourage of crowned satyrs, nymphs and silenoi, his mythical revelers, and an endless parade of exotic and domestic animals, large and small. Kallixeinos gave the following account (translated by E. E. Rice):

On another four-wheeled cart...an 18-foot statue of Dionysus, having a purple cloak and a golden crown of ivy and vine, lay upon an elephant. He held in his hands a golden thyrsus- lance, and his feet were shod with felt slippers embroidered with gold. (1983:17)

This procession had a clear precedent in 5th-century Greece, but the opulence with which these Dionysus statues were dressed calls to mind an ancient Egyptian precedent more than one thousand years earlier: the Khoiak Festival in Abydos.

The Khoiak Festival

In the 1980s, Louis B. Mikhail published a comprehensive study of the dramatic aspects of the Osirian Khoiak Festival. In it he states, ‘the festival was based on a rich myth which could have been the starting point for the emergence of drama in Egypt’ (1984: 29). Like the Dionysia, the annual Khoiak Festival was not a single event, but a series of ceremonies that took place over time, in this case an entire month. The month of Khoiak was the fourth and last month of the Inundation season, and it was during the Khoiak Festival that the ‘passion’ of Osiris – his life, death, and resurrection – was remembered and reenacted in the sacred spaces and causeways of his temples, and in boats on the sacred lake. The practice can be traced to the Middle Kingdom (c. 1700–2000 BC) and its origin to the Osirian cult center of Abydos.

Through the mysteries, the Egyptians relived Osiris’ journey, honoring his memory, his sacrifice, and his legacy to Horus. They reenacted Osiris’ struggle with Seth, Isis and Nephthys’ mourning of Osiris, their protection of his body from Seth’s retaliation, and the ultimate conflict between Horus and Seth, ending with Horus’ triumph. The Egyptians performed these rites to ultimately attain Osiris’ reward: his rebirth and divine status in the afterlife. These reenactments were essentially theatrical performances, taking place at different points throughout the month, and formed the basis over time for the dramatic texts we know today as the Lamentations of Isis and Nephthys, The Conflict of Horus and Seth, and The Triumph of Horus, among others. According to Mikhail:

These mythical performed texts of the festival show that there was a necessity to go beyond narration and step forward to dramatization. The Osirian myth which is based mainly on the life and death of Osiris demanded a kind of ‘action’ for it to be convincing as there is a great difference between narrating a myth and acting it. The ancient Egyptians experienced the myth through acting it in their own way. (1984: 30–1)

The dramatic texts and performances associated with the Khoiak Festival survived through the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. The Recitation of Glorifications Which the Two Sisters Performed is a later version (dated to the 4th century BC) of the Lamentations of Isis and Nephthys, both addressed to Osiris. Two women were chosen to play the parts of Isis and Nephthys in the reenactment of their mourning for Osiris and their protection of his corpse – perhaps silently while priests read the lines aloud for them, according to Egyptologist Mark Smith, who translated the text:

Thus Isis has spoken, saying: ‘…Come to your house. Your enemies do not exist. O fair sistrum player, come to your house that you might see me. I am your sister whom you

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love. You will not be separated from me. O fair youth, come to your house. Such a long time without seeing you! My heart pines for you.’ (Smith 2009: 129)

It is important to note that the aforementioned reenactments were performed with no actor in the role of Osiris. Instead, Osiris was represented by a hand-made mummiform figure, or statue, while the other roles were taken by actors, primarily priests. The building and fashioning of the figure of Osiris was in itself an important ritual of the festival, undertaken with great care by the priests behind closed doors. The presentation of the figure to the public, its emergence from the temple and journey along the causeway, was accompanied by a grand procession that included choral songs, drums, and other musical instruments. Pictorial and textual evidence from the Temple of Osiris at Dendera suggest that the figure of Osiris may have been fashioned with movable joints, likening it to a puppet or marionette (Mikhail 1984: 37).

The practice and significance of these rituals, as performed during the Middle Kingdom at Abydos, are attested in two notable stelae: that of Ikhernofret and Neferhotep. The first is a stela from Abydos belonging to Ikhernofret, who served Senwosret III of the 12th dynasty (c. 1870–1831 BC) in a position of some importance. According to the stela, one of his duties was to organize the festivities surrounding the ceremonial procession of the Osiris figure for Khoiak, and to take part in the ritual reenactment of combat between the forces of Horus and the forces of Seth. Miriam Lichtheim’s translation of lines 15–18 is as follows:

I decked the breast of the lord of Abydos with lapis lazuli and turquoise, fine gold, and all costly stones which are the ornaments of a god’s body.I clothed the god with his regalia in my rank of master of secrets, in my function of stolist. I was pure of hand in decking the god, a priest whose fingers are clean.I conducted the Procession of Wep-waut, when he goes forth to champion his father. I repulsed the attackers of the neshmet-bark, I felled the foes of Osiris. (1973: 124)

The royal stela of Neferhotep I of the 13th dynasty (c. 1741–1730 BC) attests to the pharaoh’s role as Horus in the Khoiak Festival, in which he took great pride. According to Egyptologist William Kelly Simpson, ‘The king, apparently in the north at his residence, desires to fashion or refashion an image of Osiris for use in the religious drama enacted each year at Abydos’ (2003: 339). Simpson’s translation is as follows:

I am his son, his protector. He gives me the inheritance of one upon the earth. I am a king, great of strength, effective of utterance. He who defiles me shall not live. My opponent shall not draw breath. (2003: 344)

Ronald Leprohon also takes an in-depth look at the Khoiak Festival, the related dramatic texts, and other potentially theatrical Osirian festivals in his essay, ‘Ritual drama in ancient Egypt’. While he refrains from answering the question of Egyptian drama definitively, he does concede that ‘with their elaborate musical accompaniment and pageantry and with story lines sometimes based on mythological events, [the religious festivals] certainly come closer to what might be considered the genesis of true dramatic performances’ (2007: 285).

Recent Scholarship: Arguments for the Tradition

There is no question that the ancient Egyptian dramatic tradition was inherently religious – even ritualistic – in content, form, and expression. This should come as no surprise from an ancient society that was, as Herodotus put it, ‘religious to excess, beyond any other nation in the world’ (Histories 2.37; de Sélincourt 1954: 14). Surely the religious nature of Egyptian performance says more about ancient Egyptian culture itself than it does about the artistic merits of such a tradition. Compared with the Greeks, the Egyptians may have left us far fewer lines to read, but there is much to be learned if we can read between them – a realm of cultural possibility that has recently been more seriously considered.

In 2005, Robyn Gillam published Performance and Drama in Ancient Egypt, a comprehensive account of all dramatic forms that appear in the evidence from each period in ancient Egyptian history. At York University in Toronto, Gillam staged a production of The Triumph of Horus, based on Harold Fairman’s published translation, demonstrating the full dramatic potential of the text, not just as an ancient Egyptian play, but as one that could still be performed and appreciated in modern times.

François Gaudard from the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, recently published his translation and detailed study of Papyrus Berlin 8278 and its fragments, entitled The Demotic Drama of Horus and Seth. The papyrus dates to the Ptolemaic period. Gaudard’s is perhaps the most compelling argument for the existence of an ancient Egyptian dramatic tradition. He asserts that The Demotic Drama of Horus and Seth is not only a dramatic text, but a full drama – an ancient Egyptian play – and he does not attribute this form in any way to the Greeks:

It would even be erroneous to attribute the presence of choruses to a Greek influence. There is, indeed, clear evidence of their existence already in earlier Egyptian drama…The participation of choruses in later texts, such as The Triumph of Horus at Edfu…only confirms the survival of this Egyptian tradition. From all this it can be deduced that there are no signs of Hellenization in the present drama. (2005: 123)

A theater historian’s view

Our discussion concludes with a few comments on the current scholarship in theatre history. In the 21st century, the ritual origins of drama that precede the ancient Greeks have reached textbook status. More specifically, the theory linking these ritual origins to the worship and celebration of a ‘year-god’ has firmly taken hold. A brief example from Oscar G. Brockett and Franklin J. Hildy’s History of the Theatre demonstrates this. The first chapter of this veritable bible of theatre history is devoted to ‘The Origins of Theatre’ in which they give special attention to Egypt and the Pyramid Texts which may – or may not, as they are careful to point out – contain our first evidence of performative or dramatic literature:

Many of these hieroglyphic scenes depict the trials through which the spirit must pass before being admitted to an honorable place in the afterlife. Some scholars have argued that these texts are dramas and were enacted by priests at regular intervals to ensure the well-being of the dead pharaoh and to show the continuity of life and power. (2008: 6)

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Brockett and Hildy are clear that the question of whether these ritual origins were simply that – origins – and not in fact full-blown theater as we know it is still hotly debated and requires further study. Yet, in the second chapter devoted to ‘Theatre and Drama in Ancient Greece,’ they suggest that the ‘worship of Dionysus probably originated in the Near East and was only later imported into Greece’ (2008: 16). Is it possible, then, that the theatre world is on to something that Egyptologists are not?

As German Classicist Walter Burkert suggests, ‘to what extent this myth and indeed the very cult of chthonic Dionysos and the beliefs in blessedness and punishments in the nether world are dependent on the Egyptian Osiris cult from the start remains at least a question that must be seriously asked’ (1985: 298). What is becoming increasingly clear is a trend – a movement, even – toward a greater multicultural, multi-religious view of the fundamental ritual origins of theatre as we know it today, and ancient Egypt and the cult of Osiris are moving ever closer to the forefront of that movement.

Acknowledgments

This paper is based on an excerpt from my Master’s thesis of the same title, submitted to the University of Pennsylvania in 2012 in fulfillment of the requirement for the Master of Liberal Arts degree in Ancient Studies. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my reading committee and advisors on this project, Dr Jennifer Houser Wegner from the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Penn, and Dr Caitlín Barrett from the Department of Classical Studies at Cornell University. Their generous support and expert guidance significantly informed and strengthened this work.

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The Egyptian Dionysus: Osiris and the Development of Theater in Ancient Egypt

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