Laughter, carnival and religion in ancient Egypt
VIEW FULL TEXT

Keywords

culture of laughter
sacred
ancient Egypt
carnivalisation
Mikhail Bakhtin

How to Cite

Murashko, A. (2021). Laughter, carnival and religion in ancient Egypt. The European Journal of Humour Research, 9(2), 26–35. https://doi.org/10.7592/EJHR2021.9.2.437

Abstract

The article highlights the problem of interaction of the ancient Egypt laughter culture with the category of sacred. A person is confronted with the fact that the examples in question can often be phenomena of a different order, and the use of terms such as “carnival” or even “religion”, “temple” or “priest” in relation to ancient Egypt requires an additional explanation. We find “funny” images on the walls of tombs and in the temples, where the Egyptians practiced their cult. In the Ramesside period (1292-1069 BC) a huge layer of the culture of laughter penetrated a written tradition in a way that Mikhail Bakhtin called the carnivalization of literature. Incredible events are described in stories and fairy tales in a burlesque, grotesque form, and great gods are exposed as fools. Applying of the Bakhtinian paradigm to the material of the Middle and New Kingdom allows to reveal the ambivalent character of the Ancient Egyptian laughter: the Egyptians could joke on the divine and remain deeply religious.

https://doi.org/10.7592/EJHR2021.9.2.437
VIEW FULL TEXT

References

Assmann, J. (1993). ‘Literatur und Karneval im Alten Ägypten’, in Döpp, S. (ed.), Karnevaleske Phöänomene in antiken und nachantiken Kulturen und Literaturen, Bochumer Altertumswissenschaftliches Colloquium Bd.13 (Stätten und Formen der Kommunikation im Altertum I). Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, pp. 31-57.

Assmann, J. (1999). ‘Cultural and Literary Texts’, in Moers G. (ed.), Definitely: Egyptian literature. Proceedings of the Symposion “Ancient Egyptian Literature - History and Forms”, Los Angeles, March 24-26, 1995 (Lingua Aegyptia: Studia Monographica 2). Göttingen: Peust & Gutschmidt Verlag GbR, pp. 1-15.

Bakhtin, M. (2009 [1968]). Rabelais and His World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Bogoslovsky, E. S. (1983). Drevneegipetskie mastera. Po materialam iz Der ėlʹ-Medina [Ancient Egyptian Masters. Based on Materials from Deir El-Medina]. Moscow: Nauka.

Borghouts, J. F. (1994). ‘Magical Practices among the Villagers’, in Lesko, H. L. (ed.), Pharaoh’s Workers: The Villagers of Deir El-Medina. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp. 119-130.

Chegodaev, M. A. (2016). “Chto ėto, Dzhedi?” [“What does it mean, Djedy?”], in Chegodaev, M. A. & Lavrentʹeva, N. V. (eds.), Aegyptiaca Rossica (Vypusk 4). Moscow: Russkiĭ fond sodeĭstvii͡a obrazovanii͡u i nauke, pp. 347-367.

Di Biase-Dyson, C. (2013). Foreigners and Egyptians in the Late Egyptian Stories: Linguistic, Literary and Historical Perspectives. Leiden, Boston: Brill Academic Publishers.

Freidenberg, O. M. (2006). ‘Idei͡a parodii (nabrosok k rabote)’ [‘The idea of parody (sketch for a work)']. Veche: alʹmanakh russkoĭ filosofii i kulʹtury, 17. Saint Petersburg: Izdatelʹstvo Sankt-Peterburgskogo universiteta, pp. 228-240.

Gardiner, A. H. (1931). The Library of A. Chester Beatty. The Chester Beatty Papyri, No. I. London: Oxford University Press.

Griffith, F. Ll. (ed.) (1898). Hieratic Papyri from Kahun and Gurob (Principally of the Middle Kingdom). Vol. 1. London: Bernard Quaritch.

Houlihan, P. F. (2001). Wit & Humour in Ancient Egypt. London: The Rubicon Press.

Kozintsev, A. (2010). The Mirror of Laughter. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers.

Lesko, H. L. (2001). ‘Literacy’, in Redford, D. B. (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt (Vol. 2). New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 297-299.

Livshits, I. G. et al. (eds.) (1979). Skazki i povesti Drevnego Egipta [Tales and Stories of Ancient Egypt]. Leningrad: Nauka.

Loprieno, A. (1996). Ancient Egyptian Literature: History and Forms. Leiden; New York: E. J. Brill.

Loprieno, A. (2000). ‘Puns and Wordplay in Ancient Egyptian’ in Noegel, S. B. (ed.), Puns and Pundits: Word Play in the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Literature. Bethesda, MD: CDL Press, pp. 3-20.

Maspero, G. (2002). Popular Stories of Ancient Egypt. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO.

Newman, B. (2013). Medieval Crossover: Reading the Secular against the Sacred. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.

Noegel, S. B. & Szpakowska, K. (2007). ‘“Word Play”, in the Ramesside Dream Manual’. Studien zur altägyptischen Kultur 35, pp. 193-212.

Oden, R. A., Jr. (1979). ‘“The Contendings of Horus and Seth” (Chester Beatty Papyrus No. 1): A Structural Interpretation’. History of Religions 18 (4), pp. 352-369.

Pestman, P. W. (1982). ‘Who Were The Owners, In The “Community Of Workmen”, Of The Chester Beatty Papyri’, in Demarée, R. J. & Janssen, J. J. (eds.), Gleanings from Deir El-Medina. Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten te Leiden, pp. 155-172.

Petrovsky, N. S. & Belov, A. M. (1973). Strana Bolʹshogo Khapi [The Land of The Big Hapi]. Leningrad: Detskai͡a literatura.

Quirke, S. (2015). Exploring Religion in Ancient Egypt. The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, UK; Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Rendsburg, G. A. (2000). ‘Literary Devices in the Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor’. Journal of the American Oriental Society 120 (1), pp. 13-23.

Silverman, D. P. (2001). ‘Humor and Satire’, in Redford, D. B. (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt (Vol. 2). New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 127-130.

Tomashevich, O. V. (1999). ‘Papirus Chester-Bitti I: smekh i styd v drevnem Egipte’ [‘Papyrus Chester Beatty I: Laughter and Shame in Ancient Egypt’], in Logunov, A. P. et al. (eds.) Razvitie t͡sivilizat͡sii i Novyĭ Svet: Pervye Knorozovskie chtenii͡a: Materialy nauchnoĭ konferent͡sii 20-21 okti͡abri͡a 1999 g. Moscow: RGGU, pp. 43-45.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Copyright (c) 2021 The European Journal of Humour Research

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.