MOST historians think that the creation and staging of drama was performed for the first time by the Greeks; yet studying carefully the scenes and the texts on the walls of the Ancient Egyptian temples proves that different dramas were performed at the temples with real actors, narrators, singers, performers and spectators. These dramas consist mainly of five distinct sections, a prologue, three acts subdivided into scenes and an epilogue. There are three well- known dramatic texts from the time of the Pharaohs. The first is the "drama of the start of creation" or "the Memphis drama", the second is the "Ramesseum Coronation Drama" and the third is the "Myth of Horus at Edfu drama". It is believed by scholars that the Egyptian religious plays, like those of medieval Europe, consisted of a narrative recited by a reader linking together a number of dramatic performances in which the players, by short set speeches, gestures and actions, gave life and reality to the narrator's story. We will elaborate here on the last drama, which is the "Myth of Horus at Edfu". This drama was performed annually at the temple of Edfu in Upper Egypt. It included three separate dramas: one representing the victory of Horus over his enemies, the second showed the coronation of Horus as a king of Upper and Lower Egypt, and the third was the sacred marriage of Horus to the goddess Hathour of Dendera. The main part of this play is inscribed on the back wall surrounding the temple of Edfu. The vivid reliefs, which illustrate the dramatic text, clearly show that the play was performed on and beside a stretch of water, those players who impersonated Horus and the divinities and demons accompanying him were in a boat, while the king and other characters such as the queen and the princesses remained by the water edge. The narrator too was to be stationed on land, somewhere, in the foreground, between the players and the crowd of spectators. There is a good reason to believe that the above- mentioned stretch of water is the pool of Horus, the sacred lake of the temple, which lay to its east. It was clear that the objective of the play was to relate the king to Horus; the prologue opened with a panegyric on the king, which designated him "Son of Victorious Horus" and in the epilogue his name came last in the list of divinities. The king was thus, so to speak, the Alpha and Omega of the whole performance. [email protected] Saleh is the Director of the Centre for Documentation of Culture and Natural Heritage.
