Dancing in Old Egypt.. Quite Popular, Rarely Documented

Dancing was quite popular among old Egyptians.. Dances were in many occasions, royal, religious services and other celebrations of feasts and victories.

Writings and carvings on the walls of temples, tombs and potteries documented shots of dancing.

Speaking to “SEE”, Archaeologist Hussein Bassir asserted that old Egypt had lots of rich arts and literature, though the old sources of writings that talked about this are relatively rare. “Perhaps the old Egyptian found it unnecessarily to document something that is normal and quite known among the people,” he said.

There were many words on the old Egyptian language that has this connotation of dancing, especially “ib3”. Other concepts were there describing some moves and dances, but they were coming in rare contexts about dancing.

Some obstacles are there to find more about dancing and its occasions in old Egypt. Some two-dimensional drawings, on walls of tombs, temples or even papyrus and ostraca, were linked to traditions of old arts, and were not allowed through enough spaces on walls to reflect how exactly those dances were being done.

“Moreover, the drawings about the dances did not mean to document the moves themselves as they meant to reflect the services being carried out in religious occasions or death and burials,” Abdel Baseer explained.

He noted that the lengthy time of the old Egyptian civilization implied different changes for the dances, not mentioning that it was a conservative civilization.

The oldest drawings of dances were spotted on rocks and potteries which date back to the time before ruling families. Those reflected singers and dancers performing during burials.

During the middle state, the drawings reflected acrobatic moves rather than dances.

As for ‘gods’ during old Egyptian civilization, some of them were linked to dancing such as goddess ‘hat-hor” and her son “Horus” (ihy).

In the drawings, dancers were featured while carrying special and sacred instruments. In addition, god “bes” was linked to dancing, he was featured while dancing and playing musical instruments.

Female dancers were featured while putting on necklaces, pawns and earrings, but also eyes make up and looked professional.