Through the Eras

DanceFemale dancer. BROOKLYN MUSEUM OF ART, 07.447.505, CHARLESEDWIN WILBOUR FUND. REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION.The khener was a bureau within other institutions, includingthe royal palace, a temple, a town, or the householdor the tomb of a wealthy individual. Many earlierscholars confused the khener with a “harem,” the Turkishword for women’s quarters that housed wives andconcubines in a polygamous society. Because so many ofthe members of the khener were women who entertainedmen, these scholars assumed that khener members alsohad sexual relations with the head of the household ortomb owner. Current scholarship considers the membersof the khener to be professional musicians and dancerswho had no other intimate personal relationship withthe head of the household. According to ancient inscriptions,these musicians and dancers “refresh[ed] theheart” of their master. Many inscriptions make clear thatthis refreshment came only in the form of music anddance. There were many female overseers of the khenerrecorded in inscriptions, and they were often singers.One Amarna period relief sculpture in a tomb depictsthe women’s quarters where both musicians and dancersrehearse together, though admittedly this is a unique representation.Oddly enough, only a few male professionaldancers recorded inscriptions. They include Khnumhotep,who was also a priest of the king’s funerary cult, andHorihotep who served in the cult of Bastet. In at leastone case, the male dancers portrayed in a tomb were sonsof the deceased. The major evidence for the khenercomes from captions to tomb scenes. Egyptologists thusmake use of a passage in Papyrus Westcar to establish anunderstanding of the way the khener worked. The papyruscontains the story of Ruddedet, a woman who boretriplets destined to become kings. In the story, the midwivesare goddesses disguised as traveling musicians anddancers. The text specifically calls them a khener, whichsuggests that a khener of traveling musicians and dancerswas unremarkable, a good disguise. In the story they traveledfreely and received wages in grain for their services.There is no other evidence that musicians and dancersalso normally worked as midwives. However, the godBes was associated both with music and dance in the cultof Hathor and with protecting a mother in childbirth.It is hard to know if this story represents a broader reality,but the limited evidence available has encouragedEgyptologists to use this story to the greatest extent possible.FOREIGN DANCERS. Many scholars have identifieddancers in Egypt as foreigners, particularly in the NewKingdom, when Egypt had extended contact with neighboringregions. Scholars recognize these foreign dancersby their clothing and hairstyles and in some texts by theirnames. One Middle Kingdom papyrus from the reign ofSenwosret II (1844–1837 B.C.E.) contains a list of twelvesingers and dancers who performed at the king’s funerarytemple. Five of the dancers had Semitic names, whiletwo had Nubian names. One dancer definitely had anEgyptian name, but four other names are too damagedto read. Even if all of the damaged names were Egyptianin this case, only 41 percent of these musicians anddancers would be Egyptian. It is impossible to know howrepresentative these figures are for Egyptian dancers andmusicians in general, but it does seem significant thatforeign dancers and musicians could be incorporatedinto the khener of this important religious institution.This situation suggests that foreigners were certainly welcometo participate in this aspect of Egyptian society.On the other hand, some relief scenes in temples representonly Egyptian women of elite status performing inthe god’s cult.70 Arts and Humanities Through the Eras: Ancient Egypt (2675 B.C.E.–332 B.C.E.)