Dancers

Figure 1:Textile Fragment with Dancers and Lozenge Border, Late Antique / Byzantine / Early Islamic, 2-9 century CE, 2015.030.009, gift of the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation

Figure 1:Textile Fragment with Dancers and Lozenge Border, Late Antique / Byzantine / Early Islamic, 2-9 century CE, 2015.030.013, gift of the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation

Two of the textile fragments from the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation donation feature highly stylized dancers with feet apart, one arm up, one down, and a pair of rhythm instruments, possibly cymbals of bells. These instruments may indicate that the dancers are participating in ritual dances associated with the cult of Bacchus. Bacchus, whose Greek parallel is Dionysus, is the Roman deity of wine and ritual madness. He and his followers, called maenads or bacchants, were popular motifs in a wide variety of media. On Figure 1, detail on the figures has been created by weaving the lighter colored base textile into spots on the darker figures. On Figure 2, detail has been created by bleached white threads that were woven on top of the figures. Much of the detailing on Figure 2 has deteriorated, leaving dark figures without faces or clothes.

Figure 3:Textile Fragment with Dancing Woman and Rabbit, Late Byzantine / Early Islamic, 8th century CE, 2001.033, Gift of A. Dean McKenzie

The Hallie Ford Museum of Art has another textile fragment in its collection featuring a less stylized dancer. The museum received this textile fragment as a gift from A. Dean McKenzie, but is serves as a useful comparison for the textile fragments from the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation. Like the more stylized dancing figures in the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation donation, this dancing figure is dark and stands with one foot forward, another foot back, one arm up, and the other arm down. Damage to the textile has destroyed the figure’s head and torso, but its posture is still apparent. The rabbit and vegetal motif below and to the sides of the dancer may serve the same purpose as the instruments on the stylized Arthur M. Sackler Foundation textile fragments, indicating that this dancer is associated with Bacchus.