Since the beginning of creation, the Egyptian people have been cheerful, humorous, even if the joke is on themselves. They always laughs at themselves.
The ancient Egyptian antiquities have preserved the oldest images of caricatures in the whole world that reflect the sense of humor the ancient Egyptians. They have been criticizing the surrounding conditions, whether political, economic or social.
The ancient Egyptian artist used the walls of the tombs and papyrus to record many silent caricature scenes, but they express whatever expression they wanted to convey to the viewer. For example, the very thin shepherd whose bones are seen beneath the skin grazing cow fat, that guard who was filmed asleep next to the door of the warehouse he was guarding! Or that monkey that attacks a little boy stole some fruit from the market vendor!
In addition to these scenes depicted on the walls of the tombs, workers and artists used their free time to write jokes and inscribing caricatures. The most remarkable piece of which was that of the well-dressed old mouse, sitting on a chair and a cat serving him a drink; because the mouse was rich, it had his favorite drink using a straw. Another caricature depicts a wolf grazing a flock of geese and another depicting a fat cat grazing a group of ducks.
Another caricature depicts a mouse, perhaps the one depicted before, but this time, in the form of a judge separating two adversaries. There is a high-quality caricature depicting a monkey standing under a tree holding a vase, while a servant climbed trees to throw fruit to the monkey. This shows an expression of the reversal of conditions in society and the change in the balance. Of course, most of the forms of humor and irony appeared in ancient Egyptian art and literature in periods of turmoil.
The joke was influential according to what we found in a letter in which an employee says that he lost his job after his boss caught him joking in an impolite way.
As I mentioned, this funny spirit continued to be passed on to Egyptians generation after generation and brought us geniuses in the art of humor. The most known of them were my late friends Ahmed Ragab in the art of humor and Mustafa Hussein in the art of caricature.
Rajab is a special case; he was talking to me as he writes his box "1/2 word". He was making jokes and making us laugh from our hearts. Omar Sharif and I were sitting with him and doing nothing but laughing. I was talking to him on the phone at five o'clock in the afternoon, and if I broke the appointment, and did not call him, it was harsh punishment not to talk to me.
I was invited to lunch at the house of Ms. Jehan Sadat. The number of attendees was so big, led by Ragab. I found my friend Ibrahim al-Moallem saying, "We read today that you were arrested in the Saqqara road" and Ragab`s 1/2 Word box was “Zahi Hawass was arrested on Saqqara road for kissing Queen Hatshepsut.”
I think that in the 100 million Egyptians no one is more humorous than the late Ragab; he was a legendary figure will not be repeated, and it is difficult to find someone who writes "1/2 word" box like him. It was a huge book of humor words and jokes, a 5,000-year-old Pharaonic legacy.
Contributed by Ahmad El-Assasy
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