AMONG THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS.
Egyptian art was old when Grecian art was young, and it remained crude
when the art of Greece had reached its highest development. But not the
less did it delight in caricature and burlesque. In the Egyptian
collection belonging to the New York Historical Society there is a
specimen of the Egyptians' favorite kind of burlesque picture which
dates back three thousand years, but which stands out more clearly now
upon its slab of limestone than we can engrave it here.
[Illustration: An Egyptian Caricature.]
Dr. Abbott, who brought this specimen from Thebes, interpreted it to be
a representation of a lion seated upon a throne, as king, receiving from
a fox, personating a high-priest, an offering of a goose and a fan. It
is probably a burlesque of a well-known picture; for in one of the
Egyptian papyri in the British Museum there is a drawing of a lion and
unicorn playing chess, which is a manifest caricature of a picture
frequently repeated upon the ancient monuments. It was from Egypt, then,
that the classic nations caught this childish fancy of ridiculing the
actions of men by picturing animals performing similar ones; and it is
surprising to note how fond the Egyptian artists were of this simple
device. On the same papyrus there are several other interesting
specimens: a lion on his hind-legs engaged in laying out as a mummy the
dead body of a hoofed animal; a tiger or wild cat driving a flock of
geese to market; another tiger carrying a hoe on one shoulder and a bag
of seed on the other; an animal playing on a double pipe, and driving
before him a herd of small stags, like a shepherd; a hippopotamus
washing his hands in a tall water-jar; an animal on a throne, with
another behind him as a fan-bearer, and a third presenting him with a
bouquet. No place was too sacred for such playful delineations. In one
of the royal sepulchres at Thebes, as Kenrick relates, there is a
picture of an ass and a lion singing, accompanying themselves on the
phorminx and the harp. There is also an elaborate burlesque of a battle
piece, in which a fortress is attacked by rats, and defended by cats,
which are visible on the battlements. Some rats bring a ladder to the
walls and prepare to scale them, while others, armed with spears,
shields, and bows, protect the assailants. One rat of enormous size, in
a chariot drawn by dogs, has pierced several cats with arrows, and is
swinging round his battle-axe in exact imitation of Rameses, in a
serious picture, dealing destruction on his enemies. On a papyrus at
Turin there is a representation of a cat with a shepherd's crook
watching a flock of geese, while a cynocephalus near by plays upon the
flute. Of this class of burlesques the most interesting example,
perhaps, is the one annexed, representing a Soul doomed to return to its
earthly home in the form of a pig.
[Illustration: A Condemned Soul, Egyptian Caricature.]
This picture, which is of such antiquity that it was an object of
curiosity to the Romans and the Greeks, is part of the decoration of a
king's tomb. In the original, Osiris, the august judge of departed
spirits, is represented on his throne, near the stern of the boat,
waving away the Soul, which he has just weighed in his unerring scales
and found wanting; while close to the shore a man hews away the ground,
to intimate that all communication is cut off between the lost spirit
and the abode of the blessed. The animals that execute the stern decree
are the dog-headed monkeys, sacred in the mythology of Egypt.
[Illustration: Egyptian Servants conveying Home their Masters from a
Carouse.]
That the ancient Egyptians were a jovial people who sat long at the
wine, we might infer from the caricatures which have been discovered in
Egypt, if we did not know it from other sources of information.
Representations have been found of every part of the process of
wine-making, from the planting of the vineyard to the storing-away of
the wine-jars. In the valuable works of Sir Gardner Wilkinson[2] many of
these curious pictures are given: the vineyard and its trellis-work; men
frightening away the birds with slings; a vineyard with a water-tank for
irrigation; the grape harvest; baskets full of grapes covered with
leaves; kids browsing upon the vines; trained monkeys gathering grapes;
the wine-press in operation; men pressing grapes by the natural process
of treading; pouring the wine into jars; and rows of jars put away for
future use. The same laborious author favors us with ancient Egyptian
caricatures which serve to show that wine was a creature as capable of
abuse thirty centuries ago as it is now.
[Footnote 2: "A Popular Account of the Ancient Egyptians," by Sir J.
Gardner Wilkinson, 2 vols., Harper & Brothers, 1854.]
Pictures of similar character are not unfrequent upon the ancient
frescoes, and many of them are far more extravagant than this,
exhibiting men dancing wildly, standing upon their heads, and riotously
fighting. From Sir Gardner Wilkinson's disclosures we may reasonably
infer that the arts of debauchery have received little addition during
the last three thousand years. Even the seductive cocktail is not
modern. The ancient Egyptians imbibed stimulants to excite an appetite
for wine, and munched the biting cabbage-leaf for the same purpose. Beer
in several varieties was known to them also; veritable beer, made of
barley and a bitter herb; beer so excellent that the dainty Greek
travelers commended it as a drink only inferior to wine. Even the
Egyptian ladies did not always resist the temptation of so many modes of
intoxication. Nor did they escape the caricaturist's pencil.
[Illustration: Too Late with the Basin.]
This unfortunate lady, as Sir Gardner conjectures, after indulging in
potations deep of the renowned Egyptian wine, had been suddenly
overtaken by the consequences, and had called for assistance too late.
Egyptian satirists did not spare the ladies, and they aimed their shafts
at the same foibles that have called forth so many efforts of pencil and
pen in later times. Whenever, indeed, we look closely into ancient life,
we are struck with the similarity of the daily routine to that of our
own time. Every detail of social existence is imperishably recorded upon
the monuments of ancient Egypt, even to the tone and style and mishaps
of a fashionable party. We see the givers of the entertainment, the
master and mistress of the mansion, seated side by side upon a sofa; the
guests coming up as they arrive to salute them; the musicians and
dancers bowing low to them before beginning to perform; a pet monkey, a
dog, or a gazelle tied to the leg of the sofa; the youngest child of the
family sitting on the floor by its mother's side, or upon its father's
knee; the ladies sitting in groups, conversing upon the deathless,
inexhaustible subject of dress, and showing one another their trinkets.
Sir Gardner Wilkinson gives us also the pleasing information that it was
thought a pretty compliment for one guest to offer another a flower from
his bouquet, and that the guests endeavored to gratify their
entertainers by pointing out to one another, with expressions of
admiration, the tasteful knickknacks, the boxes of carved wood or ivory,
the vases, the elegant light tables, the chairs, ottomans, cushions,
carpets, and furniture with which the apartment was provided. This too
transparent flattery could not escape such inveterate caricaturists as
the Egyptian artists. In a tomb at Thebes may be seen a ludicrous
representation of scenes at a party where several of the guests had been
lost in rapturous admiration of the objects around them. A young man,
either from awkwardness or from having gone too often to the wine-jar,
had reclined against a wooden column placed in the centre of the room to
support a temporary ornament. There is a crash! The ornamental structure
falls upon some of the absorbed guests. Ladies have recourse to the
immortal privilege of their sex--they scream. All is confusion. Uplifted
hands ward off the falling masses. In a few moments, when it is
discovered that no one is hurt, peace is restored, and all the company
converse merrily over the incident.
It is strange to find such pictures in a tomb. But it seems as if death
and funerals and graves, with their elaborate paraphernalia, were
provocative of mirthful delineation. In one noted royal tomb there is a
representation of the funeral procession, part of which was evidently
designed to excite merriment. The Ethiopians who follow in the train of
the mourning queen have their hair plaited in most fantastic fashion,
and their tunics of leopard's skin are so arranged that a preposterously
enormous tail hangs down behind for the next man to step upon. One of
the extensive colored plates of Sir Gardner Wilkinson's larger work
presents to our view a solemn and stately procession of funeral barges
crossing the Lake of the Dead at Thebes on its way to the place of
burial. The first boat contains the coffin, decorated with flowers, a
high-priest burning incense before a table of offerings, and the female
relatives of the deceased lamenting their loss; two barges are filled
with mourning friends, one containing only women and the other only men;
two more are occupied by professional persons--the undertaker's
assistants, as we should call them--employed to carry offerings, boxes,
chairs, and other funeral objects. It was in drawing one of these
vessels that the artist could not refrain from putting in a little fun.
One of the barges having grounded upon the shore, the vessel behind
comes into collision with her, upsetting a table upon the oarsmen and
causing much confusion. It is not improbable that the picture records an
incident of that particular funeral.