Professor Jennifer Babcock will be giving a lecture on Tuesday, February 13 from 6-7pm, “When the cat’s away the mice will play: Divine Lessons and Humorous Imagery in Ancient Egypt”, at at Salmagundi Club.
About the lecture
An illustrated limestone flake in the Brooklyn Museum’s collection (37.51E) is one of many limestone flakes, or ostraca, that are associated with the workmen’s’ village of Deir el-Medina. With its humorous drawing of a cat serving an elite mouse dressed in fine linens and seated on a chair, the Brooklyn ostracon is part of a special group of “figured” or illustrated ostraca depicting anthropomorphized animals. Additionally, similar imagery is found in four papyri, now located in museums in Cairo, Basel, London, and Turin. While elite mice and subservient mice compose a significant portion of the imagery, there is a large menagerie of animals performing a variety of human acts, including jackals, hippos, and caprids. This lecture will reconstruct the environment in which the Brooklyn ostracon was created and explore the narrative possibilities embedded in these images, making them effective storytelling tools and offerings used to appease the “Distant Goddess” and maintain the status quo.
You can learn more about the event and RSVP through this link.
Image credit: Cat and Mouse, ca. 1295-1075 B.C.E. Limestone, ink, 3 1/2 x 6 13/16 x 7/16 in. (8.9 x 17.3 x 1.1 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 37.51E. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum (Gavin Ashworth,er), 37.51E_Gavin_Ashworth_photograph.jpg)