The art of storytelling in Ancient Egypt
Get the News by email
English folk and fairy tales begin with the words, “Once upon a time…” In ancient Egypt, a phrase commonly used was “There was once a man…”
The reciters were professionals, whether these lector priests reciting liturgical texts or entertainers called in to perform at public festivals or private banquets. Presumably many of them were the celebrities of their day, and like actors in our time they knew how to pull a crowd.
When and where were these recitals performed, and who made up the audience? R. B. Parkinson conjours the scene in his erudite and entertaining book Reading Ancient Egyptian Poetry: Among Other Histories. Parkinson invites us to imagine a recital at the Middle Kingdom garrison town of Abu, on the edge of Lower Nubia, which is taking place at the palace of Sarenput, the mayor of the town and the “Confidant of the king”.
Parkinson describes the scene within the palace, where Sarenput is seated on a dais surrounded by elite guests and officials. The author speculates on how the performer might have vocalised the text.
Or perhaps the poems were sung? To what extent did the audience interact with the performer?
Parkinson takes us on a journey through the history and development of three Middle Kingdom poems: The Tale of Sinuhe, The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant, and The Dialogue of a Man and his Soul. He mentions the scribes who wrote the texts, and even the mistakes they made, washed out and rewrote. Parkinson examines the discovery of the 12th-Dynasty papyri in 1830, the condition they were in and how they were put together and deciphered. He continues with the rewriting of these and other poems as known through later manuscripts.
“And they all lived happily ever after,” goes the end to the English tale. The Egyptians ended on a more literary note: “So it ends, from start to finish, as found in writing.” The spoken word endured in the written word, and thank the gods it did.
Excerpted from an article by Jenny Jobbins for Al-Ahram
Related posts:
