Master of Liberal Arts Program

Upholding Classical Greek drama as the benchmark for ancient theater, scholars have historically disregarded the notion of a native Egyptian dramatic tradition, due to the religious and ritualistic nature of the limited evidence available. Yet Greek tragedy began as a featured competition of the Great Dionysia, the most important festival of the god Dionysus in Athens. Traced to the sixth century BCE, the festival’s religious roots and the dramatic rituals surrounding it reflect those found in Egypt more than one thousand years earlier, in celebration of the Osirian Khoiak Festival at Abydos. The known Egyptian dramatic texts—those texts which exhibit classic Western features of dramatic literature such as dialogue and stage directions—all, in some way, honor Osiris. We can infer from this that the ancient Egyptian concept of dramatic performance was strongly associated with his cult, just as the Greeks associated theater with Dionysiac worship. Herodotus first observed the link between these two gods in the mid-fifth century BCE—a connection the Ptolemies promoted heavily during their reign, essentially presenting Dionysus and Osiris as Greek and Egyptian counterparts of the same deity. This paper examines the Osirian mysteries and related dramas celebrated during the Khoiak Festival, and illustrates their significance in the development of an ancient Egyptian dramatic tradition that pre-dates the advent of theater in ancient Greece.

Archaeological evidence for the content, context, and intention behind ancient Egyptian dramatic texts is extremely limited. In rare instances, performance iconography can provide clues. On the walls of the Temple of Horus at Edfu, illustrations of dramatic scenes appear in relief alongside the text of what translator H. W. Fairman entitled "The Triumph of Horus." Dating to approximately the second century BCE, the Edfu text represents a dramatic reenactment of the legendary battle between the gods Horus and Seth for the Egyptian throne, a tradition attested on royal documents more than fifteen hundred years earlier. For this reason, Fairman and others have dubbed "The Triumph of Horus" the oldest play in the world. In 2019, theatre students at an American university performed a new staging of "The Triumph of Horus" as well as another dramatic text, "The Lamentations of Isis and Nephthys," as translated by R. O. Faulkner and edited by Miriam Lichtheim. The intention was to determine if embodied practice could reveal new ways of understanding and transmitting knowledge about ancient Egyptian dramatic performance. This article will discuss the development, rehearsal process, and outcome of this production, incorporating research methodology from the field of performance studies.

For 2,300 years one name has pervaded all discourse on theatre history, theory, and practice in the Western world: Aristotle. Theatre scholars have agreed and disagreed over his "Poetics," and nonetheless touted the work as an appropriate gauge for evaluating theatre. Meanwhile, Egyptologists, classicists, and theatre historians alike have argued for and against the theatrical merits of ancient Egyptian drama: was it theatre, ritual, or both? Aristotle used Greek tragedy as his benchmark for the literary and artistic qualifications that make up "The Poetics." What if his theory were used to evaluate an important ritual drama from ancient Egypt? Those in favor of an ancient Egyptian theatrical tradition might regard "The Triumph of Horus" as the oldest play in existence. The text itself, etched into the outer enclosure walls of the Temple of Horus at Edfu in the south of Egypt, dates to approximately 107-80 BCE. However, this play represents characters, dialogue, and a sequence of events that date much earlier. Dramatic reenactments of the mythical battle between the forces of Horus and the forces of Seth took place annually in Egypt, starting as early as the second millennium BCE. This article evaluates "The Triumph of Horus" and its dramatic forerunners using Aristotle’s theatrical theory in "The Poetics," with the intention of shedding new light on the nature of theatre in ancient Egypt during and prior to the Hellenistic period. Furthermore, the author suggests alternative approaches to identifying and evaluating theatre beyond the Western sphere.