Puppezino:

An Occasional Missive About The History,

Traditions and Current Trends in Puppetry.

 

Digging up the Roots: Part 1

 

Where did puppetry originate? Many cultures from East to West yield evidence of figurines that were manipulated by the use of strings, though scholars disagree whether these objects qualify as puppets or toys The distinction between these is significant; a puppet is manipulated in front of an audience, while a toy is used in private play. Using this definition, though, it can be argued that puppetry grows out of ritual and ceremony in which masks and objects are manipulated to tell sacred stories and communicate needs to the gods.

 

 

 

 

 

In the ancient Egyptian city of Antinoe , archaeologists discovered what is believed to be the first marionette theater: a wooden barge with a cabinet at its center, whose doors open to reveal a tiny stage and a rod suspending light wires.[1] Small jointed statues were also found in tombs at Thebes and Memphis. Like many of these statues, they have small holes at their joints, suggesting that they may have been made to move by the pulling of strings. Some also had iron rods extending from the tops of their heads, resembling characteristic Sicilian puppets of today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Herodotus, a Greek historian who lived in the 5^th century BCE, wrote about his travels in Egypt .[2] He reported on a fertility procession in which statues with jointed limbs were made to move, probably through the use of strings.  (IMAGE #3.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

During Roman times, priests sometimes stood in an adyntum, or control room, behind a statue, to pull strings and speak through tubes concealed in stonework (IMAGE #4).This made people believe that the gods were speaking through the statues. [3] References to puppetry are common in literature of the time, including the writings of Archimedes and Plato. In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, the settings is described as follows:

 

“There is a path stretching between [the prisoners] and the fire… Along this path a low wall been built like the screen in front of puppeteers above which they show their puppets.” [4]

 

The Iliad and The Odyssey appear to have been performed with puppets, as were many Greek plays in which puppets were used to represent the 'common people'. The use of puppets in the retelling of stories thus stretches back a long time. In our next newsletter, Puppezino looks at the role of the puppet in the ritual traditions of the East.

 

 

 

 

 

Sources and References for more information:

Baird, Bil. The Art of the Puppet. New York, NY: Macmillan. 1965.

Blumenthal, Eileen. Puppetry and Puppets. London: Thams & Hudson. 2005.

Blumenthal, Eileen. Puppetry: A World History: New York, NY: Harry N. Abrams, 2005.

Jurkowsky, Henrik. A History of European Puppetry from its Origins to

the end of the 19^th century. Lewiston, NY: Mellen Press, 1996.