The Dancer from DanAuthor(s): Avraham BiranReviewed work(s):Source: Near Eastern Archaeology, Vol. 66, No. 3, Dance in the Ancient World (Sep., 2003), pp.128-132Published by: The American Schools of Oriental ResearchStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3210917 .Accessed: 17/01/2012 11:57

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The Dancer trom Dan Avraham Biran

Among the unique finds in the course of the excavations at the s 4

Caananite levels at Tel Dan is a ; clay plaque depicting a man playing the lute, with his right foot raised as though dancing (Biran : 1994: fig. 84). It was discovered / during the clearing of a flagstone ': v

pavement dated to the Late Bronze II Age (fourteenth to thirteenth centuries BCE) when the name of the city was Laish. The molded clay plaque was found below the surface of the pavement where some of the flagstones were missing, and may have belonged to the people who built the flagstone pavement in the fourteenth century BCE. The plaque was promptly dubbed in rhyming Hebrew Ha'Rakdan mi'Dan, the Dancer from Dan.

The lute was a common musical instrument in antiquity and is found on numerous plaques and paintings. A close parallel to the lute depicted here appears on a wall painting in a Theban tomb where the player is a woman. Lutes are also found on plaques and figurines from northern Mesopotamia and north Syria. A bronze figurine of a lute player was found in Beth-Shean. On some of the plaques the lute is played with a plectrum, but it is not clear whether this is the case on the Dan plaque.

The most unusual feature of the plaque is the attitude of the right foot. The movement of the foot is so graceful that it seems to be that of an experienced dancer-and the product of a no less experienced potter. Representations of both male and female dancers are known from antiquity, but this kind of dancing movement is usually associated with women, while male dancers are usually shown in a more stylized way. The freedom of movement in the raised foot is not unlike the much later Greek and Etruscan representations or the paintings of the bull games at Knossos. It should also be mentioned that a fragment of a plaque found in Area M in Dan may well represent another dancer (Biran 1986: fig.2:2).

The short kilt with a decorated band and the decorated cape(?) across the shoulders are not unusual. Similar clothing is seen on Hittite plaques and figurines

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and on examples from northern Mesopotamia and north Syria, perhaps indicating a northern origin for this plaque.

The strange facial expression of our dancer is reminiscent of Hittite art at first glance, though it is possible that it is the result of retouching by the artist. It is more likely, however, that the dancer is wearing a mask. Masks, in a variety of forms and from different periods and places are well known in antiquity.

What is the significance of this plaque? Music, dancing and singing has been part of human culture from time immemorial. In biblical tradition, Jubal, the father of all players of the lyre and harp, is counted among the ancestors of mankind (Gen 4:21), and representations of musicians, dancers and singers are found through the ancient Near East. Prophets were accompanied by musical instruments (I Sam 10:5), and there are numerous references to girls engaged in dancing (e.g., Judg 11:34; 21:21). Few representations of men dancing are known, although David is described as dancing when the Ark of the Covenant was brought to Jerusalem (I Chr 15:29).

The dancer from Dan may have belonged to a member of the guild of dancers and musicians performing in the Canaanite city of Laish (later Dan), in the fourteenth-thirteenth centuries BCE. As dancing was part of religious ceremonies, however, it is tempting to suggest that the flagstone pavement could have been a courtyard where dancing and singing took place in a cultic performance.

128 NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 66:3 (2003)

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The "dancers stand" from Tell Qasile. This elaborate cult stand, from the temple of Stratum X (eleventh century BCE), depicts four human figures created by cutting a window and leaving a silhouette of the figure in the window while the clay was leather hard. Photo by Zev Radovan.

Iron Age representations of dancers are rare. They can perhaps be identified on a few Iron I and Iron II seals that show human figures with hands stretched out to their sides found at Tel el-Far' ah (south), Lachish, Megiddo, Gezer and Tel Rehov as well as on two bronze plaques from private collections with Hebrew inscriptions on one side and depictions of dancers on the other side.3

The "Dancer's Stand" from Tel Qasile is a highly unusual depiction and certainly demonstrates the relationship between dance and ritual in the temple, in this case in a mixed Philistine-Canaanite context dated to the late eleventh century BCE. The stand is 44 centimeters tall and its diameter tapers from 21.8 centimeters to 15.2 centimeters. It was found broken in pieces on the plastered step leading to the raised platform that was the focal point in the temple of Stratum X at Tell Qasile. The figures, facing left with hands stretched out to their sides, represent either a line of dancers, recalling the Late Bronze Age depictions mentioned above, or a circle of dancers moving in a clockwise direction. The bodies of the figures are painted with horizontal reddish stripes on the yellowish clay, but there are no details of dress or gender.

The Tell Qasile stand is comparable to the "Musicians Stand" from Ashdod Stratum X of the tenth century BCE (Braun 2002: 166-75). A band of five musicians is depicted as clay figures attached to windows in the walls of the clay stand. Two play a double pipe, the others play a lyre,

NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 66:3 (2003) 129

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cymbals and a tambourine. These two stands from Tell Qasile and Ashdod complement each other and possibly depict rituals in which musicians and dancers both took part, as mentioned in several biblical references (such as 1 Sam 10:5; 1 Chr 15:29).

Numerous ceramic ritual objects were recovered from the Iron Age shrine at Horvat Qitmit (seventh to sixth centuries BCE) including a male figure in a dynamic pose that was probably attached to a vessel or stand. A clay figure of a double flute player and fragments of clay depictions of a lyre and six tambourines were also found at Qitmit (Beck 1995: 108-9; 161-68), creating an assemblage that recalls not only the stands from Ashdod and Tell Qasile and the biblical references, but also depictions on Phoenician metal bowls.

Several Phoenician metal bowls from Cyprus and Greece dating from the late ninth to the seventh centuries BCE depict ritual processions that include dancers and musicians (see pages 122-24). The earliest is a bronze bowl from Dali showing a seated goddess in front of a tripod, a priestess, an offering table, six female dancers holding hands and three female musicians playing the double flute, lyre and tambourine. The style and details of dress and objects are clearly Cypriot, and the dancing females are inspired according to Gjerstad from the Greek chorus. Markoe (1985: 149-56) dates this bowl to the second half of the ninth or early part of the eigth centuries BCE. A second bronze bowl, now in the Louvre Museum and said to come from Sparta in Greece, shows a similar ritual procession in front of a sitting

The "Musicians Stand" from Ashdod Stratum X of the tenth century BCE. Some of the figures were made separately and inserted into the windows on the stand's wall. A band of five musicians is seen: two play double pipes, the others play a lyre, cymbals and a tambourine. They are depicted as clay figures attached to windows in the walls of the clay stand. Photo courtesy of Zev Radovan.

130 NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 66:3 (2003)

goddess, but with a larger number of participants: there are four female musicians (three lyre players and a tambourine player) and seven female dancers holding hands.5

A silver bowl from Curium in Cyprus dated to 710-675 BCE6 preserves a broken scene of a royal banquet at which three musicians playing double flute, lyre and tambourine are followed by a cupbearer while behind an amphora and a table of offerings, three female figures hold various objects. Markoe explains these figures as votaries holding sheep or goats, bunches of flowers, and trussed geese; however they are shown in vigorous movement, as if dancing. A bowl from Crete shows a long line of female dancers, of which two groups one consisting of six and the other of five dancers were preserved (Markoe 1985: 165-66; 238 [No. Cr7] dated to the eigth or seventh centuries BCE). Two female dancers appear in the center medallion of a bowl from an unknown provenience (Markoe 1985: 349). Finally, a Phoenician bowl from Olympia shows three female musicians: double flute player, lyre player and a tambourine player, the latter shown in dancing posture (Markoe 1985: 204-5; 316 [No. G3] dated to 750-700 BCE). Thus musicians and processions of dancers participating in rituals and banquets were a common motif on Phoenician metal bowls in Cyprus (see illustrations in Tubb, this issue), some of which reached Greece, probably as offerings to temples.

The combined evidence emerging from the textual and iconographic data presented above indicates that rituals in which bands of musicians and lines or circles of dancers took part were a common feature of ritual ceremonies in Israel, Philistia and Phoenicia throughout the Iron Age. The participation of dances in Iron Age ritual had its roots in the Bronze Age, though the specific composition of the Iron Age ritual is somewhat more complex than its predecessors. Dancing was thus an integral part of ritual in biblical times. The correlation between the various biblical terms for dancing and the pictorial repre- sentations of dancing needs further research (Gruber 1981: 346 calls for such a study). It might be suggested that dancers depicted with one bent leg (as on Mitannian seals, the dancer from Dan and the dancer from Qitmit) are showing the jump dance (kipputz), while rows of dancers, as on other Mitannian seals, the Tel Qasile stand and the Phoenician bowls, perform the skip dance, either in a circle or a row, the biblical term for which would be riqqud or mahol.

Notes 1. This word occurs only in 1 Kgs 18:21. 2. Compare Psalms 149:3, which mentions dancing with drum and lyre. For identifications of the instruments see Braun (2002: 107).

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Clay figure from the late Iron Age shrine of Hurvat Qitmit in the northern Negev. This sixteen centimeter tall male figure with a bent knee was probably attached to a vessel or a cult stand. It was identified by Beck as a dancer mainly due to its resemblance to the dancer from Tel Dan. Photo by A. Hay, courtesy of /

I. Beit Arieh.

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3. Tel el-Far'ah (south) (Petrie 1930: pl. XXIX: 257), Lachish (Tufnell 1953: 363-70, pl. 44:68, 69, 71-75), Megiddo (Lamon and Shipton 1939: pl. 67:21, 56), Gezer (Macalister 1912: pl. CCVI:5), bronze plaques from private collections (Avigad and Sass 1997: 67 no. 50, 69 no. 58; the authenticity of these plaques may be questioned however). 4. Gjerstad (1946: 3-6, pl. I), Markoe (1985: 171-72; 246-47 [No. Cy3]), Cesnola collection No. 4561, in the Metropolitan Museum. 5. Gjerstad (1946: 6, pl. II) and Markoe (1985: 328-29 [No. G8]) both date the bowl to the eigth or seventh centuries BCE. 6. Gjerstad (1946: 6-7, pl. III), Markoe (1985: 175-76; 252-53 [No. Cy6]), Cesnola collection No. 4557 in the Metropolitan Museum.

NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 66:3 (2003) 131

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Amihai Mazar is a Professor of Archaeology at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and has served as Chairman of the Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University. He directed the archaeological survey of the aqueducts of Jerusalem and major excavations at Tell Qasile, Tel Batash (biblical Timnah), Tel Beth Shean and Tel Rehov. In Amihai Mazar addition he directed excavations at the "Bull Site," Giloh, Khirbet Marjameh, and Hartuv. He is the author of three volumes of archaeological reports on the excavations at Tell Qasile and Tel Batash and of Archaeology of the Land of the Bible.

Avraham Biran is the Director of the Nelson Glueck School of Biblical Archaeology of the Hebrew Union College. He has excavated sites in Iraq at Tepe Gawra and Khafaje, in Jordan at Irbid, and at Tell Zippor, Anathoth, Ira, Aroer and Yesud Hama'alah Israel. He is best known for his work as the director of the longest ongoing excavations in Israel, at Tel Dan, from 1966 to 1993.

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Avraham Biran

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