The Jig is Up – An Imposter in the Egypt Centre!

The blog post for this week is written by Sam Powell.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I have already written several posts on the wooden funerary figures of the Egypt Centre. As part of my research, one of the first tasks was to ensure that all of the objects that had been labelled as wooden funerary figures were actually correctly classified – and not all was as it seemed. 

Fig. 1: EC940

The figure discussed here (EC940) was not on display, and at first glance is an extremely unassuming piece (fig. 1). It is very small, measuring just fifty-six millimetres tall, crudely carved in human form, appearing to be unfinished, although close examination does show some very small traces of remaining gesso, indicating a surface layer may well have once been present. The limbs do not survive, but there is a hole through the shoulders, as well as through the three prongs at the bottom of the figure. My initial thoughts were that this could indeed be a crude figure from a funerary model, with the prongs being used to attach it. I included an image of this figure when presenting my research for the Wonderful Things conference 2020 for the Egypt Centre. Following on from this event, I discussed several of the figures with Angela Tooley, one of the leading experts in wooden funerary models. She suggested the object was more likely to be a ‘jigger’ doll or ‘limberjack’. Nicholas Reeves describes similar figures as “proto-automata” (Reeves 2015: 43).

Fig. 2 Sam presenting her research as part of the Wonderful Things conference 2020

These articulated figures are relatively rare, but are known from around the Twelfth Dynasty. Examples with a similar functionality are known, such as A.1971.139 in the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh (fig. 3), and several examples in the Petrie Museum, University College London (UC7151, UC16686, UC16687, & UC7401).

Fig. 3 Comparative figure A.1971.139, The National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh.

The Egypt Centre example is not as finely carved nor to the same canon of proportion as the examples in Edinburgh or the Petrie Museum, but this can be excused as a greater compositional freedom often found in smaller-scale items (Reeves 2015: 47). Such objects typically have legs attached into the two recesses created by the prongs, and arms loosely attached to the shoulders via the aperture through the torso, so that the figure gives the impression of dancing when manipulated and shaken in a similar way to the well-known “dancing dwarfs” from Lisht (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 34.1130). Similar dolls are often used by modern street performers around the world. The dolls jig and wiggle their loose limbs, normally upon a board or plank to add a percussive element to the performance. A video of a jigger being used can be seen here:

 

https://youtu.be/Im9WTwQglMA

The most likely use for such objects in ancient Egypt is assumed to be as a toy, or a form of entertainment, but this may be a modern reaction to an ancient object, as a result of our own perspective and preconceptions. A religious application cannot be ruled out as the use of puppets as part of the rituals in the festival of Dionysus is referred to by Herodotus, and the movements created may mimic that of a ritual performance by real dancers (Reeves 2015: 48–50). Regrettably, as EC940 is an unprovenanced piece, it is impossible to draw any conclusions with any certainty.

This little unassuming figure has proven that looks can be deceiving, and also shows that research in a museum collection is never complete, requiring constant reassessment as new information arises. I hope that post-lockdown, a place can be found for this little figure on display in the Games Case, and that I can find further parallels to support its identification. The figure also shows the importance of events such as the Egypt Centre’s Wonderful Things conference, which provided the opportunity to highlight these figures to a wider audience. I would like to express my thanks to Angela Tooley for her suggestions and opinions on this figure, as well as several others.

Bibliography

Exner, C. 2004. Practical Puppetry A-Z: A Guide for Librarians and Teachers. McFarland & Co.

Pickles, P., & Howson, K. 2018. The Brightest of Entertainers: Jig Jolls from Britain and Beyond. East Anglian Traditional Music Trust.

Reeves, Nicholas 2015. A rare mechanical figure from ancient Egypt. Metropolitan Museum Journal 50, 42–61.