LAST week, we discussed how humanity is expressing its own myths in the modern time through the science fiction works. Example is the movie "Avatar", and its similarity to the old myth recorded on the wall of Edfu temple titled "The Legend of the Winged Disk". This week we are going to talk about an example of the Pharaonic drama that was normally staged in Edfu temple and is registered on its walls. The drama is called "The Triumph of Horus over his Enemies". It has a prologue, three acts and an epilogue. The first act has five scenes while the second has two and the third has three scenes. All the scenes have reliefs on the wall with annotation above every character and a full text of the drama in a square beside the scene. The text of every scene together with the scene itself indicated the actors of every passage; some of the characters are Horus, his mother Isis, his adversary Seth, Thoth the god of recording, The King and the Queen in addition to the crowd. There was also a main narrator. The staging was normally subdivided into two areas: a lake and a ground behind the lake. The audience was situated in front of the lake. In the lake there were two boats carrying the gods, mainly Horus and Isis and on the ground behind were the King, the Queen and behind them the crowd. The first act is called the "Harpoon Rituals", which consists of five scenes; every scene is related to one of the actions done by Horus to strike a harpoon in a certain part of his enemy Seth's body who transformed himself into a hippopotamus. So with ten harpoons Horus hits successfully the different parts of the hippopotamus starting from its head down to the last part of his body and each time Horus hits part of Seth, the crowd shouts "Hold Fast, Horus, Hold Fast! During every scene there were discussions and comments from the present characters, whether deities, royalties, harpooners, or people. Then once Horus had victory over Seth, act II started titled "Rejoicing over Victory", which had two scenes showing ladies from the two cities of Busiris and Pe singing and dancing while Isis was playing the cestrum. Then it gets to the third act, which is titled "Celebration of the Victory". This act had three scenes. It shows how Horus cut Seth into pieces with an order from his mother Isis indicating to which God each part goes and the rest of the pieces were given to the poor. (Similar to the ritual of offering meat to the poor in the Muslim feast Byram) Finally, the epilogue of the play contains a declaration of the triumph of Horus in front of the different deities and the king (united with Horus). [email protected] Saleh is the Director of Egypt's Centre for Documentation of Culture and Natural Heritage.
