The Life in Ancient Times: Discoveries of Pompeii, Ancient Greece, Babylon & Assyria. T. L. Haines
ballet, and the pirouette delighted an Egyptian party four thousand years ago.
The dresses of the female dancers were light, and of the finest texture, showing, by their transparent quality, the forms and movement of the limbs; they generally consisted of a loose flowing robe, reaching to the ankles, occasionally fastened tight at the waist; and round the hips was a small narrow girdle, adorned with beads, or ornaments of various colors. Sometimes the dancing figures appear to have been perfectly naked; but this is from the outline of the transparent robe having been effaced; and, like the Greeks, they represented the contour of the figure as if seen through the dress.
Slaves were taught dancing as well as music; and in the houses of the rich, besides their other occupations, that of dancing to entertain the family, or a party of friends, was required of them; and free Egyptians also gained a livelihood by their performances.
While the party was amused with music and dancing, and the late arrivals were successively announced, refreshments continued to be handed round, and every attention was shown to the assembled guests. Wine was offered to each new comer, and chaplets of flowers were brought by men servants to the gentlemen, and by women or white slaves to the ladies, as they took their seats. An upper servant, or slave, had the office of handing the wine, and a black woman sometimes followed, in an inferior capacity, to receive an empty cup when the wine had been poured into the goblet. The same black slave also carried the fruits and other refreshments; and the peculiar mode of holding a plate with the hand reversed, so generally adopted by women from Africa, is characteristically shown in the Theban paintings.
To each person after drinking a napkin was presented for wiping the mouth, answering to the mahrama of the modern Egyptians; and the bearer of it uttered a complimentary sentiment, when she offered it and received back the goblet: as, "May it benefit you!" and no oriental at the present day drinks water without receiving a similar wish. But it was not considered rude to refuse wine when offered, even though it had been poured out; and a teetotaller might continue smelling a lotus without any affront.
Men and women either sat together, or separately, in a different part of the room; but no rigid mistrust prevented strangers, as well as members of the family, being received into the same society; which shows how greatly the Egyptians were advanced in the habits of social life. In this they, like the Romans, differed widely from the Greeks, and might say with Cornelius Nepos, "Which of us is ashamed to bring his wife to an entertainment? and what mistress of a family can be shown who does not inhabit the chief and most frequented part of the house? Whereas in Greece she never appears at any entertainments, except those to which relations alone are invited, and constantly lives in the women's apartments at the upper part of the house, into which no man has admission, unless he be a near relation." Nor were married people afraid of sitting together, and no idea of their having had too much of each other's company made it necessary to divide them. In short, they were the most Darby and Joan people possible, and they shared the same chair at home, at a party, and even in their tomb, where sculpture grouped them together.
The master and mistress of the house accordingly sat side by side on a large fauteuil, and each guest as he arrived walked up to receive their welcome. The musicians and dancers hired for the occasion also did obeisance to them, before they began their part. To the leg of the fauteuil was tied a favorite monkey, a dog, a gazelle, or some other pet; and a young child was permitted to sit on the ground at the side of its mother, or on its father's knee.
In the meantime the conversation became animated, especially in those parts of the room where the ladies sat together, and the numerous subjects that occurred to them were fluently discussed. Among these the question of dress was not forgotten, and the patterns, or the value of trinkets, were examined with proportionate interest. The maker of an ear-ring, and the store where it was purchased, were anxiously inquired; each compared the workmanship, the style, and the materials of those she wore, coveted her neighbor's, or preferred her own; and women of every class vied with each other in the display of "jewels of silver and jewels of gold," in the texture of their "raiment," the neatness of their sandals, and the arrangement or beauty of their plaited hair.
It was considered a pretty compliment to offer each other a flower from their own bouquet, and all the vivacity of the Egyptians was called forth as they sat together. The hosts omitted nothing that could make their party pass off pleasantly, and keep up agreeable conversation, which was with them the great charm of accomplished society, as with the Greeks, who thought it "more requisite and becoming to gratify the company by cheerful conversation, than with variety of dishes." The guests, too, neglected no opportunity of showing how much they enjoyed themselves; and as they drew each other's attention to the many nick-nacks that adorned the rooms, paid a well-turned compliment to the taste of the owner of the house. They admired the vases, the carved boxes of wood or ivory, and the light tables on which many a curious trinket was displayed; and commended the elegance and comfort of the luxurious fauteuils, the rich cushions and coverings of the couches and ottomans, the carpets and the other furniture. Some, who were invited to see the sleeping apartments, found in the ornaments on the toilet-tables, and in the general arrangements, fresh subjects for admiration; and their return to the guest-chamber gave an opportunity of declaring that good taste prevailed throughout the whole house. On one occasion, while some of the delighted guests were in these raptures of admiration, and others were busied with the chitchat, perhaps the politics, or the scandal of the day, an awkward youth, either from inadvertence, or a little too much wine, reclined against a wooden column placed in the centre of the room to support some temporary ornament, and threw it down upon those who sat beneath it.20 The confusion was great: the women screamed; and some, with uplifted hands, endeavored to protect their heads and escape its fall. No one, however, seems to have been hurt; and the harmony of the party being restored, the incident afforded fresh matter for conversation; to be related in full detail to their friends, when they returned home.
The vases were very numerous, and varied in shape, size, and materials; being of hard stone, alabaster, glass, ivory, bone, porcelain, bronze, brass, silver, or gold; and those of the poorer classes were of glazed pottery, or common earthenware. Many of their ornamental vases, as well as those in ordinary use, were of the most elegant shape, which would do honor to the Greeks, the Egyptians frequently displaying in these objects of private luxe the taste of a highly refined people; and so strong a resemblance did they bear to the productions of the best epochs of ancient Greece, both in their shape and in the fancy devices upon them, that some might even suppose them borrowed from Greek patterns. But they were purely Egyptian, and had been universally adopted in the valley of the Nile, long before the graceful forms we admire were known in Greece; a fact invariably acknowledged by those who are acquainted with the remote age of Egyptian monuments, and of the paintings that represent them.
EGYPTIAN VASES.
For some of the most elegant date in the early age of the third Thothmes, who lived between 3,300 and 3,400 years before our time; and we not only admire their forms, but the richness of the materials of which they were made, their color, as well as the hieroglyphics, showing them to have been of gold and silver, or of this last, inlaid with the more precious metal.
Those of bronze, alabaster, glass, porcelain, and even of ordinary pottery, were also deserving of admiration, from the beauty of their shapes, the designs which ornamented them, and the superior quality of the material; and gold and silver cups were often beautifully engraved, and studded with precious stones. Among these we readily distinguish the green emerald, the purple amethyst, and other gems; and when an animal's head adorned their handles, the eyes were frequently composed of them, except when enamel, or some colored composition, was employed as a substitute.
While the guests were entertained with music and the dance dinner was prepared; but as it consisted of a considerable number of dishes, and the meat was killed for the occasion, as at the present day in Eastern and tropical climates, some time elapsed before it was put upon table. An ox, kid, wild goat, gazelle or an oryx, and a quantity of geese, ducks, teal, quails and other birds, were generally selected; but mutton was excluded from a Theban table. Plutarch even states that "no Egyptians