Antiquity in Popular Literature and Culture

Antiquity in Popular Literature and Culture Edited by

Konrad Dominas, Elżbieta Wesołowska and Bogdan Trocha

Antiquity in Popular Literature and Culture Edited by Konrad Dominas, Elżbieta Wesołowska and Bogdan Trocha Academic review: Anna Gemra, Katarzyna Marciniak This book first published 2016 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2016 by Konrad Dominas, Elżbieta Wesołowska, Bogdan Trocha and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-9024-3 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-9024-3

POP-PHARAOHS – “REVERSED PHARAOHS”: REMARKS ON THE CARNIVALIZED MODEL OF THE RECEPTION OF EGYPT LESZEK ZINKOW JESUIT UNIVERSITY IGNATIANUM IN KRAKÓW

Abstract: The article recalls the characteristic reception paradigm of the ancient Egyptian heritage in contemporary culture, already proposed by Herodotus: ambivalence. There is no doubt that this proposal is attractive in terms of mechanisms for creating topics of popular culture, as in fact it is in a clear convergence with some of the most important instruments of the interdisciplinary study of contemporary cultural phenomena: the theory of carnivalization of Mikhail Bakhtin and the Camp theory of Susan Sontag.

Starting a discussion about ancient Egypt, especially in the case of the reception of this civilization by “others” (Hartog 1988. The “other” is, after all, also our present day civilization; see also DeLapp 2009) with citing the Histories by Herodotus plainly may be trivial. This has already been done, countless times. However, I am convinced that the work of Herodotus still has an enormous inspirational potential, that we shall benefit from for a long time. It is not only about detailed studies of the individual facts and narratives presented by Herodotus, but about the wider paradigm of reception proposed by the “Father of History.” This paradigm was adhered to throughout the era of Greco-Roman Antiquity, almost without exception (Froidefond 1971; Iversen, 1994; Kákosy 1995; Burstein 1996). It may be called, for the purpose of simplicity, a paradigm of ambivalence. And it is, in fact, this ambivalence that has been with us until today. It has, either openly or implicitly, formed the perceptions of the various aspects of the heritage of Egyptian civilisation, and its resulting incorporation into various forms of modern culture, including contemporary popular and mass culture. This has happened regardless of the development of scholarly Egyptology and reliable popularization of its achievements, along with the popularisation of the actual image of the material and spiritual culture of ancient Egypt (Harris 1987). Herodotus initiates this to p o s of contradictions and

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extremes, as well as the “rationalization” of Egypt by the horizon of one’s own mentality: Most of their manners and customs, exactly reverse the common practice of mankind (Hist. II.35; transl. by G. Rawlinson; see also West 1998). This contemporary observation is not present in the scholarly reflection on the work of Herodotus (more extensively, e.g. Harrison, 2003). Egypt was seen as both civilized (usually after Hist. II. 4 – Egypt was given priority in the chronology of civilizations) and barbaric, impressive and deserving of contempt. The vivacious progressivity of the Greek civilization and the stability (in fact, apparent) of the “unchanging” Egypt, measured by millennia; the democratic spirit of Hellas and the cruel, Pharaonic spirit of Egypt. The land on the Nile is sometimes presented as an extremely efficient model of administration , and simultaneously as an example of wanton despotism and tyranny (Baines, 1990. Incidentally, it was Herodotus that became the source of the notion of irrational construction of the pyramids by the use of brutal slave labour – now completely falsified, even though still widely functioning in colloquial theory). The religion of the ancient Egyptians (regardless of whether the Greeks or the Romans ever really understood the complexity of the Egyptian cosmology and – especially – eschatology) was frequently seen as the original source of sophisticated beliefs of the Hellenes, yet often as a bizarre conglomeration of worshipping “monkeys, cats, onions and a clay bowl” (e.g. Lucianus, Jupiter Tragoedus 42). Herodotus also established a permanent scheme of “rationalization” of Egypt – and everything that was escaping the Hellenic (and later – Roman) horizon of rationality, was instinctively shifted into the domain of distanced irony, exuberant imagination, or phobia. Herodotus himself, moreover, seemed to notice it (Hist. II.45). An excellent, Roman, example of amplification of this paradigm is the Egyptophobic Satura XV by Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis, starting with a derision for Egyptian beliefs (o sanctas gentes, quibus haec nascuntur in hortis numina! [10-11]) and climaxing in what seemingly is an accusation of cannibalism(!) against the Egyptians. Egypt has always been a graceful pretext for fantastic visual and mental narratives. The extremely easy and universally identifiable iconography, clearly distinctive among the ancient civilizations, contained most of the attractive motivators of cultural imagination in its message and (real and alleged) heritage. What is more: placed in a reception paradigm of ambivalence, it could be incorporated into almost any cultural context – and in almost any way. Ancient Egypt is a constantly open “mystery”, for which modernity is proposing more and more “answers” (Perniola 1995).

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Is it possible to attempt to identify a research perspective allowing for the capturing of the peculiarities of the contemporary reception of the heritage of Egypt and assimilating it into the resources of form and content of popular culture? It seems that an interesting key could be the theory of carnivalization by the Russian philosopher, semiotician and literary critic, Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975). Initially, the term was used in literary studies, but soon the metaphorical concept found a prominent place in the apparatus of the wide analysis of contemporary cultural phenomena (Pasero 1997, Fiske 2010: 66-67). The carnival vision of the world points to the “reverse logic” in contemporary culture. According to Bakhtin, carnivalization is an attempt to translate, into the language of culture, such features of the folk carnival tradition as creating “a world turned upside down”, where laws, customs and rules of traditional social relations are rejected, emphasizing the relativity of order and hierarchy, eccentricity, desecration, parody, the grotesque, the bizarre, and the uncommon, the unbridled creativity, mixing the high with the low, seriousness with laugh, the “top” with the “bottom.” The Bakhtinian aspect has already appeared in the study of ancient culture (Barta et al. 2001); however, it was used mainly in the interpretation of the Greek theatre. The phenomenon called Egyptomania, Egyptism, the Egyptian Revival, or the Nile Style, are furthest simplified as inclusion and hybridisation of the most recognizable elements of Egyptian identity: symbols, ornaments, canonical iconic representations, etc., and transforming them into new applications, along with giving them completely different contexts. In contemporary popular culture, the ancient Egyptophobia and irony evolved into a somewhat perverse fascination. Motifs and symbols were appropriated and invested with new meanings (sometimes quite the opposite to the actual ones), interpretable – which is important – according to the key of the present, not that of Egyptian antiquity. The “products” of Egyptomania, whether tangible or intellectual, are not, in fact, even imitations, but impositions of new content on quasi-Egyptian forms. The deep assimilation transformed them into such highly inherent values that a comparative compilation with the Egyptian originals often loses any rationale. One can and should interpret them, but sometimes only at the level of contemporary meanings or associations. An unusual phenomenon, therefore, includes an extensive repertoire of applications and includes all the themes of contemporary arts and crafts: architecture (public, private, sepulchral), interior decoration, ornamentation, jewellery, functional objects, painting, literature, theatre, and film (Huckvale 2012 for bibliography; also Humbert 1989, Lant 1997, Marchand 2000, Curl 2005, Day 2006, Smith 2007, Ryan 2007).

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Egyptomania – in other words – is not the copying of Egyptian forms. It is their processing in the context of new meanings and functions, conscious or involuntary deformations, and the imposition of new, usually completely different layers of symbolism. In each case, they differ from the current archaeological knowledge. Each product of Egyptomania has at least one – so to speak – “non-Egyptian” dimension (which is consistently emphasized, for example, by a prominent researcher of this phenomenon, Jean-Marcel Humbert). Besides, modern sources of Egyptomianiac inspiration were often not even the Egyptian proto-models, but, for example, the pseudo-aegyptiaca previously mediated through the filter of Hellenic or Roman reception (Iversen 1994, Ashton 2004), or even loose “assumptions about Egypt”, taken from random, deformed associations. The rapid dissemination of Egyptomania in the 19th-century Europe, swiftly transferring also to the American continent (let us add that its precursory manifestations could be indicated earlier – see: Humbert 1989 10-26; Curl 2005: 43-202), long downplayed as a subject of autonomous research by “serious” scholarship, has an intrinsic cultural and aesthetic value founded on the model of ambivalent, carnivalic thinking, and not on simple mimesis. Even the rapidly spreading scientific discoveries and reliable research results did not prevail against the petrified phantasms forming the earlier “knowledge” about the heritage of civilization of the Pharaohs (Solé 1972; Fitzenreiter 2007; Jeffreys 2011). The Italian Egyptologist Sergio Donadoni even adds that Egypt has always delivered – and continues to do so in modern culture – a variety of pretexts for attenuating reflection, which generally did not have much in common (sometimes almost nothing) with a genuine desire to understand this civilisation (Donadoni 1997: VII; see also Whitehouse 1995; Assmann 2011). Sally MacDonald points to more persistent paradoxes and stereotypical oppositions in the reception of the heritage of ancient Egypt: it is seen as a reservoir of extensive knowledge and deep wisdom, at the same time emanating an inexplicable obsession with death; it is powerful and imperial, but also idyllic; it is symbolised by the all-powerful, despotic pharaohs and the exploited slaves; it is an everlasting power at the same time almost entirely lost in time (MacDonald 2003: 88-89). One can add many more combinations of an “reversed” reception from the field of colloquial cultural associations: for example, beautiful Egyptian women and the disgusting mummies. Further, the hieroglyphic writing system, completely deciphered by the mid-19th-century scholars, still remains a symbol of unfathomable mystery, in which the mass imagination is willing to seek highly peculiar, esoteric content: hence their exploitation by occult or secret societies (Hornung 2001).

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One can propose one more observation: Egyptomania usually transformed Egyptian form and content towards the stylistic conventions that Susan Sontag defined as Camp (Sontag 2009) – as a conscious (or involuntary) application of features of “bad taste”, ironic meaning, or a dimension of exaggeration and ostentation, affectation, theatricality. Egyptomaniac projections dazzled artifice and exaggeration. They intrigued not in terms of beauty, but the intended aesthetic unnaturalness and perverse style. The formula of “reversed Egypt” is consequently exploited. The shape of Egyptian pyramids has settled not only in contemporary cemeteries, but also in gardens and parks. Miniature obelisks have decorated kitschy fireplaces and trivial sphinxes have adorned the grills. Architectural elements – Egyptianizing columns, cornices and pseudo-hieroglyphs – can be found in details of pretentious furniture and clocks (Humbert 1989, Curl 2005), cocktail cabinets mimic polychrome sarcophagi. Mummies have played the role of disgusting but also grotesque clowns in popular literature, and especially so in horror films (Day 2006: 94, 116, passim), while symbolic gestures and rituals copied from the Egyptian paintings and reliefs are described by Internet memes as giving a “high five”. We have continued to draw from the material and spiritual heritage of Egypt as from an immeasurable reservoir of quirks and oddities, spending what we have drawn, reception-wise, on functions (also, naturally, literal or symbolic meanings) completely different than the original ones. If we assume that the above considerations are a kind of a theoretical proposal, a possible interpretative key for different modes of the reception of Egyptian civilization’s heritage in contemporary, especially in mass and popular, culture, let us now try to identify some examples taken from that area. This shall be no systematic typology aiming to be a complete list of themes, variations and basic directions of reception (is this possible with the extensive, constantly surprising creative potential of modern times?), though, I hope, I will manage to capture that which is the most characteristic of it and its rhetoric of ambivalence and reverse as well. If we endeavour to indicate the very first elemental iconic association that comes to mind when we ask a modern, average consumer of culture about ancient Egypt (excluding the “touristy” images of the Pyramids and the Sphinx), no doubt it will be a distinctive way of imagining the human figure, especially two-dimensionally, in painting and relief. It is one of a kind and uniquely distinctive for Egypt. No one, not even a person with very mediocre historical or artistic knowledge, is likely to make a mistake here. The “unnaturally” bent figures, turned sideways, though their arms and eyes are shown frontally, seem to be frozen in some “robot-like”, rigid

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motion. Most walk majestically, some perform gestures which are difficult to understand for the laymen (and therefore, in the consequences of everyday thinking – “mysterious”, or “secret”). All similar, almost identical, as if statistically normalized (Schäfer 2002, 277 ff.). A peculiar dissonance is compounded by the accompanying general impression of unprecedented perfection and excellence in proportion, a precise grasp of detail (characteristic multiple necklaces, pectorals, details of dress) completely contradictory to our idea of the potential awkwardness and weakness of the creator’s primitive workshop. This all makes us readily succumb to the popular opinion that the ancient Egyptians looked so bizarre and intriguing, and this is how they moved. Probably also just the aforementioned association with robots indicates the futuristic – and grotesque – dimension of the popular perception of Egypt. For example, C-3PO, a character from the Star Wars cycle, and the title protagonist of the Robocop series, “walks like an Egyptian”, just as the pompous mummies from popular horror films. These iconographic projections, additionally, have generated the peculiar ideas for dance choreography, in various ways relating directly to Egypt, from The Magic Flute, to the pop-rock hit Walk like an Egyptian (The Bangles), intentionally, as in some varieties of hip-hop and Electro dance. I am sure that similar transformations will reappear more frequently in pop culture. Egypt is, thus, an evocation of extreme, seemingly mutually exclusive associations: the extremely distant, almost mythical antiquity and disturbing quasi-futurism. Let us recall that the elements of ancient Egyptian clothing and accessories, or even the Egyptian gods and their symbolic emblems have often been transformed into visions of space suits or fantastic weapons of the future (e.g. Stargate, Stargate Universe, Stargate SG-1, Immortal/Ad vitam). And this once again shows that the reception of the heritage of ancient Egypt is, even today, a game of extremes, or antitheses. At the root of such attempts at the transfer of cultural elements there often is fundamental misunderstanding. Similar phenomena have, I think, their main source in the involuntary priorities of perception or mentality along which Europeans have developed their aesthetic sensitivity, provided by the classic, universal patterns of the Greco-Roman culture, no matter how commonplace and deformed they are today. Egyptian art (or what are used to simplify as “the art of Egypt”) is a kind of convention with above all, primarily symbolic imagery, and not – as seems obvious and primary for us – materialisation of an artistic vision of an outstanding artist-individualist. Therefore (of course, from the point of view of Egyptology I highly simplify this, Schäfer 2002, 36 ff.) Despite the three

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thousand years of its duration, the Egyptian “art” is almost constant in time, not subject to “development”, or clear evolutionary changes. “Art” was, for the ancient Egyptians, a highly relative concept, in any case very different from ours. It was a kind of interpretation and “animation” (also understood literally, magically), for example, of symbolically complex theological or eschatological concepts – or “information” (not to say propaganda) about important, though usually ritualised events of the real or mythical world. Even the images of scenes from everyday life placed on the walls of tombs were not intended to be contemplated by an “audience”, or “visitors” – as is now the case with archaeological discoveries – they were to be magically presented only to the deceased. The battle scenes on the walls of temples were mainly of the same character. In paintings, reliefs and statues depicting specific living (or dead) people, physical resemblance was not the most important aspect; what counted was projection of an ideal state, showing, or rather indicating individual characteristics to a more or less moderate extent. Faced with this – mostly symbolic – role of “art”, no feverish need to seek new ways of artistic expression was felt, at least in the contemporary meaning. This is as if one today made a serious attempt to discuss the imperfections or mannerisms (or artistic ineptitude) in the mapping of the human figure display in red or green traffic lights at a pedestrian crossing, making critical attempts to compare it with the image of the Apollo Belvedere, expecting the traffic lights to display a figure of a striding fashion model, or even a naturalistically mapped statistical pedestrian. Would we not find such discourse extremely curious? That is perhaps the most important misunderstanding in the discussed reception (one can even venture to use the term “reception catastrophe”), not simply understanding the message of the ancient Egyptian iconic expression completely awry. An intriguing paradox that is worth mentioning is that the probably best known example of Egyptian art today – with a powerful pop culture potential – the icon of Queen Nefertiti’s head, was in fact a model of beauty for a very short stretch of the history of Egypt, the socalled Amarna Period (ca. 1350 BC); a religious revolution, at the same time being an episode of implementation of a new canon of representations in art, which was soon, moreover, rejected in its basic determinants. And one more note: some researchers of the phenomena of contemporary popular culture (Michel de Certeau, John Fiske) note that many of the processes taking place therein may be aptly described and characterised using military terminology (metaphors related to conflict,

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war), such as: strategy, tactics, enemy territory, acquisition / reflection / controlled area, gaining a foothold, guerrilla warfare, etc. Contemporary popular culture evolves, contesting and at the same time adopting the areas perceived as dominant, hegemonic. This observation can also perfectly illustrate the relationship between scientific Egyptology and Egyptian culture reception in mass culture. Seemingly, the progression of reliable knowledge and its skilful popularisation should model at least a correct paradigm of the formation of images of mass imagination. Unfortunately, not in the case of Egypt. Even contemporary hits of “Egyptomaniac” cinema are full of extravagant fantasies, distortions and deformations. The introduction of The Mummy (1999 adventure film) is symbolic here. Although the production is declared as of the fantasy genre, there is no reasonable justification for even the first scene, which readily brings to mind the camp aesthetics of Las Vegas: an accumulation of buildings, pylons of the temples, monumental sphinxes, countless statues – and dominant silhouettes of the pyramids. This picture is completed by the narrator’s comment: “... Thebes.” It seems that this should raise objections even in the average tourist, who was once on a trip to Egypt. This is what seems to me to be the synthesis of pop culture reception, clearly and perhaps deliberately (?) contesting the facts. Academic science is perceived as a hegemon, which is programmatically questioned, seizing, more or less insidiously, its associated territories. Not accidentally, otherwise as in the case of scientific research on the cultural heritage of Greece and Rome – Egyptian archaeology in popular culture is suspected of hiding “secrets”, “the truth about the findings,” taking voice in authors such as Erich von Däniken, providing the medium of modern mythology of the Egyptians’ with relations with space aliens or their alleged mastery of electricity. Once fixed, the image of “Egypt full of secrets”, the country where everything is “different”, weird, inverse or backwards, it must continue stubbornly as one can see in our time. Although it seems that Herodotus was more honest.

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