Through the Eras

Theateredification and for education. This designation puts Egyptiantheater in contrast to more Western civilizations, suchas Greece which developed theater as an independent institutionfrom religion, education, or government, eventhough these institutions were still heavily influential indetermining dramatic content.NO ACTORS. Because theater was not separate fromthe institution of religion in Egypt, there were no professionalactors or acting troupes. Instead, it was thereligious class that performed all acting duties. Whilepriests and, on the rare occasion, priestesses were themain performers in theater rituals, statues also played alarge role in the dramatic telling of stories. The bestknownexample of how these actors and statues functionedin a theater production comes from a survivingOsirian drama most likely performed in the cult centerat Abydos. The statues used to represent gods were usuallymade of stone and thought to be small based on remainsthat have been found. For instance, the figures ofthe gods Henty-imentyu and Sokar were approximately22 inches tall. The coffin for the god Osiris used in thedrama was about the same length, suggesting that thefigure of Osiris used in the drama was also small. Lessergods, such as a small hippopotamus that was used to representthe god Seth in the Osiris play, were rendered notin stone, but in bread. Priests also represented gods inthis drama and they wore masks that allowed them toimpersonate the gods and provide a narrative by recitinga ritual. Priestesses mimed the parts of the goddessesIsis and Nephthys, who performed a mourning ritual.Some reliefs that allude to the Osiris drama indicate thatthe king, for whom all theater would be performed,would sometimes portray himself during performances.A variety of archaeological and textual materials haverevealed many of these details of the Osirian Khoiakfestival.NO STAGE. Since all theater was related to religiousrituals and festivals, Egyptian dramatic presentationstook place at various venues within a temple. Chapels atthe god Osiris’ temple in Abydos bore names related todifferent scenes in the drama and were perhaps thevenues for the performances of these different scenes. Thepriests, however, often presented other scenes on the templelake within the sanctuary, and at specific stations onthe processional way to different temple locations. Hence,there was no necessity for a central theater in ancientEgypt due to the fact that religious rites were mobile.NO ACTION. Based on the surviving texts thoughtto be dramatic in nature, action was most often reportedrather than performed. The characters were often statuesand thus could not be manipulated to perform actions.Furthermore, the course of the story was never a surpriseto the audience. The dramatic presentation was insteadthe reenactment of a ritual that was most likely performedyearly and would be familiar to all in attendance.While there was little action during Egyptian drama,there were various different elements during a performancethat told the story of a myth within the contextof a temple ritual. These included song, dance, instrumentalmusic, pantomime, and dialogue.EVALUATING PERFORMANCES. Though comparisonswith ancient Greek or with modern drama can clarifythe differences between modern expectations andEgyptian reality, those expectations cannot be used todefine or evaluate Egyptian theater. Since all of thestories were centered around the religious rituals whichwere taken from the myths surrounding the god Osiris,his wife Isis, their son Horus, and Osiris’ brother Seth,there was most likely very little originality in the performances.There would not have been one ritual thatwas more highly favored than any other due to the factthat each ritual honored a different god. Hence, unlikefestivals in other cultures where theater was judged andprizes awarded, the Egyptians saw theater more as anecessity and not worth the fanfare.SOURCESLouis B. Mikhail, Dramatic Aspects of the Osirian Khoiak Festival(Uppsala, Sweden: Institute of Egyptology, 1983).Paul O’Rourke, “Drama,” in Oxford Encyclopedia of AncientEgypt. Ed. Donald B. Redford (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 2001): 407–409.SPOKEN DRAMADETERMINING TEXTS. Though Egyptologists generallyagree that some Egyptian texts were dramatic, thereis little agreement on which texts fall into this category.The most commonly identified drama is the DramaticRamesseum Papyrus, but there are other texts thought bysome Egyptologists to constitute dramas, including theShabaka Stone, parts of the Coffin Texts, parts of the Bookof the Dead, the Metternich Stele, the Papyrus Bremner-Rhind, the Louvre Papyrus 3129, and the Horus Mythcarved on the walls of the Edfu temple. The lack of agreementon which texts constitute drama leads to difficultiesin studying drama as a distinct class of text. Thefollowing reviews the evidence that these texts representdialogue and stage directions for dramatic presentations.DRAMATIC RAMESSEUM PAPYRUS. The DramaticRamesseum Papyrus received its name from its first editor,Kurt Sethe, the distinguished German Egyptologist254 Arts and Humanities Through the Eras: Ancient Egypt (2675 B.C.E.–332 B.C.E.)