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84
The Earliest Dancing Scenes
of the Near East
By Yosef Garfinkel
How long ago did people begin to dance as a means of expression?
After investigating hundreds of prehistoric depictions of
dancers from sites from southern Europe to Pakistan and executed
in clay, stone and paint, the author concludes that this was
indeed a very old and widespread motif. He suggests that dancing
as a form of ritual had a particular place in early agricultural
societies and that its popularity had much to do with the
changing concepts of space and time that were part of the
agrarian lifestyle.
96
Dance in Ancient Mesopotamia
By Dominique Collon
Dance depictions from the “heartland of cities”
hold a particular fascination for those who are interested
in this subject. Prehistoric pottery from Mesopotamia is known
for its dynamic images of swirling dancers. Many of the dance
positions shown on ancient ceramics and cylinder seals are
echoed by the ceremonial dances of today’s Iraqi tribespeople.
From ancient motif to modern ethnography, the author, who
is a well-known authority on Mesopotamian symbolism, traces
the evolution of the dance from early farming cultures to
modern times.
106 Dancers
in the Louvre: The Iranian and Cypriot Collections
By Anne Elizabeth Dunn-Vaturi
It is not surprising that the Louvre represents an excellent
resource for researchers who are interested in evidence of
ancient Near Eastern dance forms. The author describes unusual
artifacts from both Iran and Cyprus that demonstrate the power
of the dance in ancient Mediterranean societies.
111
Dance in Ancient Egypt
By Patricia Spencer
Devotees of ancient Egyptian art are familiar with numerous
tomb paintings depicting dancers in various forms of dress
and many different postures. Tracing depictions of Egyptian
dancers from Pre-Dynastic to Hellenistic times, the author
presents a survey of the history and uses of dance in ancient
Egypt. Using both textual and pictorial material, she delves
into the commemorative, religious and entertainment value
of the dance in ancient Egyptian life.
122 Phoenician
Dance
By Jonathan Tubb
The Phoenicians may have been the first ancient Near Eastern
culture to have a specific deity of dance. Baal Marqod, the
Phoenician “Lord of the Dance” was so named either
because he was thought of as the originator of dance, or because
the form of his worship involved dancing. Despite the prominence
of Baal Marqod, representations of the dance in Phoenician
art are relatively rare. The author describes in detail some
of the important examples of Phoenician dance scenes that
have been discovered.
126
Ritual Dancing in the Iron
Age
By Amihai Mazar
The Bible gives us many characterizations of the dance and
its importance in Iron Age Israel. Dance in this culture is
described as an expression of spontaneous joy. Investigating
both the archaeology and the texts of the time, the author
tells us that dancing was an integral part of ritual in biblical
times.
135 Dance
and Gender in Ancient Jewish Sources
By Tal Ilan
Dance is often represented in ancient texts and iconography
as an activity in which the two genders have specific, defined
roles. In ancient Hebrew there are even different terms to
denote men’s dance and women’s dance. Does this
mean that the term itself is gendered and it merely describes
in different words the same thing when men perform and when
women perform, or does it also suggest that there was a formal
distinction between the way men danced and the way women did?
The author suggests that the distinction was one of strictly
delineated gender differences in the dance.
137 Dance
in Ninth Century Java
By Alessandra Lopez y Royo
Demonstrating the universalism of the dance, the author, a
scholar of Southeast Asia, tells us that rather than focusing
solely on contextual issues, such as the nature and function
of dance at a particular point in time and in a specific socio-cultural
context, it is enlightening for scholars of the past to look
at these depictions from the dancer’s point of view,
in other words, in terms of movement reconstitution and its
re-embodiment. The author’s work on the Prambanan dance
reliefs of Ninth century Java is just such an exploration.
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