Thread: Gilded Serpent article: Sex Bellydance and the Afterlife

I would like to congratulate Yasmin for her interesting article on Gilded Serpent, one which has engendered a rich and thought-provoking discussion here on Bhuz. I enjoy both forums as they represent contributors and readers of a lay, non-professional status, and content which ranges from flouncing, soapboxing and sockpuppeting to academic and publishable material.

Yasmin is to be commended here for her poise and open-minded responses to the various suggestions and critiques to her article. We who are following this thread are surely learning a great deal from this discussion.

Finally, I probably wouldn't have popped in to this thread if it weren't for a brief on-line interaction I had with Yasmin many years ago. In the early days of my dance career I purchased a video on Amazon entitled "A Night at the Casablanca", a Serpentine production featuring Yasmin and several other magnificent dancers. I was especially taken with a Saidi number and emailed Yasmin inquiring as to the name of the piece, CD, etc. Yasmin emailed me right away with all the details and thus I came to know and become enamored with Jalila's "Raks Sharki" series.

Thank you, Yasmin, for your professionalism, devotion, and heartfelt intention to contribute to our community.



Khalida

Andrea's article - part 1 - was posted. ..g.:
Naked Belly Dance in Ancient Egypt | Belly Dance News & Events - Gilded Serpent
GREAT ARTICLE. Wonderful research. I LOVED the raised heel iconography. Brilliant idea.

Can we continue the discussion?

Now THIS is a worthwhile article. I too like the raised heel iconography suggestion. I also like that it's presented as a suggestion, not an immobile truth.

This is a wonderful article. And I personally am no expert and my knowledge of anthropology is limited, but I thought that in ancient times, nudity was not something that was looked down on; in fact, it was a part of many sacred rites, sports, war, etc.

So if bellydancers or dancers of ancient times were naked, until the dawning of Judaism and Christianity as well as Islam came along and changed the thinking on nudity, I don't think we can assign it the same meaning that we have today to those times.

When I researched Theatre in ancient Greece and Rome, there was a great deal of discussion that, especially in summer, clothing was optional at least for the lower and slave classes and children. Kitans were generally simply pieces of cloth connected at the shoulder and tied around the waist. The wealthier the person, the more elaborate the pins, belts, etc.

Remember, while this predates the first Olympics by a few hundred years, as Fotia pointed out, this is simply another example of what was a normal part of the culture.

Anyway, while the article is interesting, I still see holes. But, I also try to avoid anthropomorphizing. . .

{{{HUGS}}}

Thanks for sharing this second article. I really liked the discussion about the raised heal iconography; it was articulated very well. It lines up well with the information I’ve gathered about ancient Egyptian art, and I think it would fit in the canon well. Because the ancient Egyptians had the strict canon, they had to use “code” in their art to depict some actions. (For example, when a God is passing a queen the ankh, it’s a euphemism for “giving her life.”)

Originally Posted by Karnak

(For example, when a God is passing a queen the ankh, it’s a euphemism for “giving her life.”)

Oh, I LIKE that one! I'd never read about that before. Where's that from?

death by content overload

But, I also try to avoid anthropomorphizing.

Of what?

[QUOTE=Fotia;511027]Oh bull! We are just so naturally sexy that people have to ASSUME bellydancers initiated all the ancient (and current) sex acts. ..l;,
QUOTE]

LOL!

Ooops!

Originally Posted by Serpentine

Oh, I LIKE that one! I'd never read about that before. Where's that from?

Try reading up on Amarna period art. Lots of ankh imagery there, usually emanating from the Aten (sun-disc).

Originally Posted by Karnak

Because the ancient Egyptians had the strict canon, they had to use “code” in their art to depict some actions. (For example, when a God is passing a queen the ankh, it’s a euphemism for “giving her life.”)

I'm not sure what you mean by "because they had a strict canon". The ankh appears in art symbolizing life because in hieroglyphic script, which is of course pictorial, the ankh symbol writes the Egyptian word for "life".

Hieroglyphic writing marked only consonants, no vowels, and consequently there were lots of homographs -- i.e. words that shared a set of consonants and so could be written using the same symbol -- with different determinatives placed after the symbol to tell the reader which meaning was intended.

So the ankh, the sandal strap, was also used to write another word with the consonants '-n-kh that meant "life". It would be like if we used an image of a leaf (l-f) to also spell "life" (l-f). Then if you saw a tree with many leaves in art, it would represent much more than just a picture of a tree.

The hieroglyphic writing system lent itself beautifully to symbolic incorporation into art, making Egyptian art really, really difficult to interpret unless you read hieroglyphs. Just to give another example, the sema symbol, a windpipe and lungs, is frequently used in Egyptian art. If you thought it really represented a windpipe and lungs, you would have a lot of trouble figuring those images out. It actually writes the word sema "to unite" and represents the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt.

I haven't had a chance to read Andrea's article yet but am looking forward to it when I have the opportunity.

Originally Posted by Fotia

And I personally am no expert and my knowledge of anthropology is limited, but I thought that in ancient times, nudity was not something that was looked down on; in fact, it was a part of many sacred rites, sports, war, etc.

This is much too broad a statement. Like it does today, the propriety of nudity, as well as other social conventions, depended on the region, culture, period, and context.

The goal in Egyptian art was to show the human body as complete as possible, which lead to the development of their strict canon. The canon requires that the head and feet are shown in profile, while the torso and eye are shown frontal. This causes limitation as to what the artists can show. (There were artists who broke the canon, like the artists who painted the murals in Nebamun’s tomb, which was cited in the “Naked Belly Dance in Ancient Egypt” article. That artist showed musicians with frontal faces, which was extremely unusual.) Some things were just difficult for artists to depict because it would interfere with the canon. For example, there are some people that believe that the ancient Egyptians kissed by rubbing noses and never touched lips because that’s how it’s show in their art. The reason nose-to-nose was shown as a kiss was because the artist couldn’t cover one person’s nose.


As for the “passing the ankh,” it’s a more dignified way of showing a God impregnating a queen. (Yes, I know there are some crass Egyptian drawings, such as the Turin Papyrus, which was brought up in the original article. However, those depictions are rare, and it wouldn’t very nice to show the queen like that!) The most popular example of this image I can recall is from Hatshepsut’s propaganda about how Amun was her father. Amun is disguised as the pharaoh Thuthmosis, and he is seated on the bed with Queen Nefertari. He is passing her an ankh, which is the euphemism. The reason I mentioned this earlier was I thought it help support the point that the ancient Egyptians relied on iconography to show actions in their art, like Andrea’s raised heel idea.

Thanks for nice comments, and if people have critique I would love to hear it, as I'm hoping part of this will be in a book chapter I'm working on. I admit to being rather proud of the "heel up" thing. It's funny, all the Egyptologists of the early 20th century who excavated these New Kingdom tombs and published them, took it for granted that the kheners in the homecoming scenes at least were the equivalent of the "Almehs" of their own time, and that they were belly dancing, but never articulate why they think this -- Is it orientalism and the "eternal East," or is it the "period eye"? In any case, I think the iconography thing really just supports what many of us have known intuitively all along.

The iconography is pretty consistent in the New Kingdom in those different contexts, but it would be interesting to see if it goes back farther. I haven't seen that it does, though it might, since I am not omniscient, whatever delusions I sometimes cherish in my weaker moments. ..l;,

If it's purely New Kingdom, it might not exist earlier because the same sorts of festivities were not portrayed, or alternately, belly dance could have been an import at some pre-New Kingdom point ... but I personally think it was present in Egypt earlier on, though I can't say why.

Well, thank you for giving me a little longer to ramble on, one of my favorite leisure activities.

Seems like the people on this thread might like to know that Dr. Zahi Hawass has a blog:

Dr. Zahi Hawass' Adventures | drhawass.com - Zahi Hawass

There are some excellent pictures and video on it.

Part 2 of Andrea's article.
Naked Belly Dance in Ancient Egypt | Belly Dance News & Events - Gilded Serpent

My own research completely concurs with the fertility figurine imagery - from different sources.

Just have to say how much I am seriously enjoying this discussion.


When I was a kid (and even now really) I always thought that the Nebamun dancers looked like they were doing this: (1:01)

YouTube - african dance teacher- lucy gomez

African dances are some of the oldest forms of dance in the world. When I imagine Egyptian dances I cant help but imagine that they may have looked something like this. Or perhaps even influenced by this in someway.

Most of what we think of as African dance comes from West Africa, though there may be connections with East African dances -- I don't know enough about it to say. And of course Egypt is in Africa, so there may be some kind of continuum. There are some dancers depicted in the Tomb of Kheruef who make me think in terms of African dance as well -- not something I really get from the Nebamun dancers, but of course there is never going to be any proof of anything. In any case, here are the Kheruef dancers:



I hope I did that right. There are other representations of similar dances, but I just can't remember where.

Some Middle Kingdom temple records indicated that foreign dancers were hired for temple events and were even kept "on retainer" to perform. Some dancers in art seem to be portrayed as Nubian. So there are interesting possibilities in terms of what we think of as African techniques, in Pharaonic Egyptian dance.

Originally Posted by Ainsley

This is much too broad a statement. Like it does today, the propriety of nudity, as well as other social conventions, depended on the region, culture, period, and context.

How so? From what I understand, until the Mosaic laws came into effect, nudity was not as looked down on as it came to be later on. One of the main reasons for this was that Judaism emphasized not ever showing nudity as part of the Torah laws which separated the Jews from other religions/tribes "to come out and be ye separate." Indeed, with the birth of Christianity and Islam, and I'm sure others, nudity became a much bigger issue later on.

I have to agree on one thing: these paintings are so old that it is possible the paint has peeled off of some of them, giving the impression that the dancers were naked when in fact maybe they were not.

Hi Fotia. I think what Ainsley was saying is that there are many variations of culture besides "pre-Judaic/Christian/Islamic" and "Christian-Judaic-Islamic." While Christianity and Islam have definable starting points, Judaism emerged pretty organically from the mix of religions and cultures in the ancient Middle East. All of them have different customs and habits that might differ a little or a lot. Just using an example from the work I did for the GS article, what does full-frontal female nudity mean? In art, at least?

In Greece, it was sexuality but that sort of sexual "aggression" from a woman bordered on offensive for you rarely saw it. In Egypt, when you see it, it is usually in association with the fertility figures which span that area between sex, prosperity, parenthood, and life after death. In Mesopotamian art the same kind of figure seems to be more protective in the sense of scaring off harmful things. So -- three different cultures, three different meanings for the artistic presentation of a particular kind of nudity. And that's only art. Actual behavior differed broadly. (And the world is full of different permutations ...)

All our inhibitions don't stem from the ancient Hebrews. There were plenty of inhibitions around before then ......g.:

Originally Posted by Andrea Deagon

In Greece, it was sexuality but that sort of sexual "aggression" from a woman bordered on offensive for you rarely saw it. In Egypt, when you see it, it is usually in association with the fertility figures which span that area between sex, prosperity, parenthood, and life after death.

I remember reading a good article about the difference between nude and naked in Greek art. The male body was seen as beautiful, and those figures were nudes. The unclothed female form, on the other hand, was shown as naked because it was often part of a violet story or an unseemly woman.

Ancient Egyptian artists, on the other hand, included a lot of nude people in their paintings and sculptures. Children were shown unclothed in many cases. The popularity of the see-through linen in the New Kingdom also doesn't leave a lot up to the imagination. A lot of statues show women with very tight clothing, and if the paint has worn away, they might appear nude at first. However, looking at the ankles will often show a line that indicates the bottom edge of a dress.

Originally Posted by nisaasaintlouis

It's unfortunate that you didn't incorporate these into the article. I guess, from an academic standpoint, I just can't understand making a conscious decision to put an unfinished, incompletely referenced/documented article on a very heavily-debated subject (origins of belly dance) out there in cyberspace if there is good source material and documentation available to provide a sound argument. I will await your aforementioned history article with interest.

OK, it's done, with all the references, documentation and source materials you requested. I truly appreciate all the comments made over the months, as I believe they helped me write a much better product. When I could, I included the entire public domain reference. When it was copyrighted I quoted only small sections with a footnote where it came from. There are two pages of footnotes and bibliography. I translated my French sources for you. We do know some of the rhythms the ghawazees played on sagat during the 1700s from the Description de l'Egypte and I have included Villoteau's musical notation plus a track where I play them. The dance belt rattles (I own a bangour pictured in the zar booklet) I have included their mystical sound at the end of the last rhythm drill. I have the booklets and am only waiting for the CDs to come back from the duplicators. I expect the album will be available beginning the week after Xmas.

I await your criticisms with baited breath.