Late antiquity textiles from Egyptian necropolises frequently depict Pyrrhic dancers, priestesses, satyrs, maenads, and musicians, many of whom are associated with Dionysian contexts. Pantomimes, gathering dances, and other much more specific ones, such as the "géranos" (Γέρανος), of salvific character, are also derived from Greek mythology. The repertoire, which welcomes group, couple, and solo dances of both sexes, travels from the West to the East, incorporating Hellenistic, Greco-Latin, Oriental, and Judeo-Christian references.

What was the significance of incorporating these dances into domestic clothing and decorative tapestries? Dancing, since our origins, has implied an awareness of one's own corporeality, deriving from its exercise an expressive system capable of articulating messages and values. Its incorporation into ritual acts served to connect with the divinity, with movements and gestures that allowed reaching ecstasy during the communication, unbridled and uninhibited dances were unleashed from that moment, which is  why moral values soon came into play in its judgment. The spectacle of the body found space and meaning in propitiatory acts and ceremonies, in courtiers, in nuptials, in funerals, in those related to war, fertility or those that were simply intended for enjoyment. 

Coptic society was no stranger to this phenomenon, and it used this universal language to structure its agricultural needs, as well as complex funerary and religious practices. Musical and choreographic instruction was taught in the temples. Its most theatrical aspect was enjoyed by the pharaohs. Osirian dances were performed in the world of death. Hunting and harvesting were secured in performative ritual prolegomena, blurring the iconographic boundary between hunter and dancer. Therefore, the identification of multiple dances in the textile production of the Nile Valley must be understood as a beautiful document on the customs of its people. The dancers, beyond referring to mythological characters or those present in the collective imagination, are indicative of the dramatic and theatrical context that was part of everyday life. 

Those of the Dionysian type are probably the most well-known and most emblematic, although with an iconographic coding that, a priori, can be confusing given the variety of gestures and associated figures of accused syncretism. Its symbolism can be extended to bucolic dances, in which lovers, dancers and musicians are surrounded by a vegetal and animal scenery that appears to be a symbol of natural regeneration. Those who dance have often suffered from a denoted abstraction and, consequently, their movements are almost static, with the crossing of legs, the alternate raising of arms and the display of the palms of the hand, are all indicators of their choreutic attitude. The first dance steps described were part of a familiar gesture and torsion, which correspond to a type of oriental dance known contemporarily as "al-raqs al-sharqi", or belly dance. In parallel, the action of separating the legs, raising the arms and showing the inner face of the hands is a clearly prayerful attitude, serving as an effective mechanism of representation of the devotion of the maenads. Despite the loss of forms, the recipients of the fabrics were able to recognize their background due to the correlation between image and reality. This characteristic is easily identifiable in the production corresponding to the Muslim period (7th century), with disproportionate dancers, as observed in the textile from the Brooklyn Museum (64.114.283) (Hecotex 015). As a consequence of such extreme stylization, the characters are sometimes dismembered. Percussion musical instruments such as cymbals undergo a similar process, eventually becoming an extension of the ring finger. 

In Egypt, the cult of Dionysus was particularly widespread during the Ptolemaic period, as a symbol of seasonal rebirth and the continuity of life after death, assimilating with Osiris, the god of death and the afterlife. Wine processes, such as the grape harvest, were linked to funerary cults, acquiring eschatological connotations. In a community such as the Coptic, which straddled Christianity and the pantheon of Egyptian divinities, Dionysian rituals found parallels with the Eucharist, where wine was used at the moment of communion, a symbol of the mystery of the resurrection. The use of Dionysian themes in tunics indicates the deep cultural roots of the theme, linking cycles of Christ's life, such as the Passion, with the vital vicissitudes of Dionysus, and thus perpetuating its iconographic fecundity/fruitfulness over time.  

Its popularity was doubly catapulted thanks to the literature of the 4th - 5th centuries, with the well-known Dionysiacs of Nono de Panópolis (500 AD). Images of his triumph in India emerge from this source, staging his authority and apogee by standing on a chariot guided by panthers and being led by a retinue that could include characters such as Ariadne, the deity Pan, and maenadic courts. His female devotees flank him in the center of the composition in the well-known panel in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (90.5873)  accompanied by a satyr and a captive at the ends. A synthesis of this ecstatic entourage appears in the same collection in a large textile made up of multiple medallions containing, in addition to the aforementioned experts, nymphs and sileni (MET 31.9.3) (Hecotex 063). The attributes of the panther skin, such as bunches of grapes, its support on columns decorated with branches and the act of raising the arm, all serve to identify Dionysus and the sensation of rapture that accompanies him, gathering all these distinctive elements in the textile jewel of the Abegg-Stiftung Foundation of Bern (3100a) (Hecotex 058). 

The maenads or bacchantes, protagonists of the thiasos, enjoyed sufficient recognition as to emancipate themselves from the group scenes and present themselves as isolated figures, in addition to forming part of the visual apparatus of the Dionysian mysteries. In the preserved textiles it is frequently present in initiation ceremonies. They appear naked or in light clothing, such as tunics or animal skins, with jewels on their limbs and neck. This nudity, as well as the celebration of worship through the body, was associated with a spiritual purity phenomenon, the mystical experience of the divine presence. The rapture of the physical will and the spontaneity in the execution of movements find parallels in biblical exegesis. Figures such as Miriam, and the Daughters of Israel, who were ubiquitous  in the high medieval oriental miniature, danced in praise of God for the/ in the/ during the liberation of the Jewish people, a manifestation of gratitude with clearly positive connotations. Miriam herself, in her first representations, and as Licia Buttà points out, is characterized as such. 

Menades were part of theatricality during the first centuries of Christianity, with actors imitating them as mythological characters, migrating their actions from the ritual sphere to that of entertainment. The writings of Christian patriarchs and moralists, such as John Chrysostom, provide evidence of this transfer, and it is clear that the cult of Dionysus ceased at the end of the third century, whereas images and certain practices continued their journey, and their subsequent evolution, far beyond the sixth century. 

Smaller in volume are the textiles depicting orgiastic dances, bacchanals in which maenads also took part and where omofagia, drunkenness and spasmodic movements were part of the ritual, as shown in the piece in the Krannert Art Museum of the University of Illinois (B6) (Hecotex 028). The exaltation could be such that its protagonists showed clear signs of paroxysm. This state is emphasized in a fragment of tunic, also part of the Krannert Art Museum collection (B12), where a group of bacchic dancers, in addition to intertwining or holding their legs apart, emphatically bend their knees while bending at the waist (Hecotex 036).

The Coptic material legacy also includes the use of oval shields by warriors and dancers, which is linked to the Greek Pyrrhic dances - ancient war dramatizations that continued into Roman times and were not unrelated to the Dionysian context. The confrontation between Dionysus' retinue and the Indians resulted in a sequence of movements that emulated defenses and attacks based on thrusts, jumps and flexions (Krannert Art Museum B17) (Hecotex 040). These highly choreographed mock battles were part of the imperial court and public events, such as those that took place at hippodromes. The entrances of emperors were accompanied by processions of this character, as demonstrated on the southeastern face of the base of Theodosius the Great (4th c.) obelisk . Reminiscences of this ancient past still survive in the late Middle Ages, with representations that maintain a formative and sporting tone and are also linked to cultural and court events, such as tournaments and jousts. Aside from miniature medieval combat manuals, these images are common on painted ceiling tiles, where the civilian character is implicit in the attitude and clothing of the characters depicted, as well as on other surfaces such as choir misericords or objects for private use. The minstrels, accustomed to the use and play with swords, acrobatics and mime, contributed to envelop these exercises in an aura of theatricality that was carried into the streets

Laurel wreaths in the hands of dancers, like shields, induce a performative reality. The maenad in the Krannert Art Museum (B13) holds two of them in each hand, one facing upwards and the other downwards, while dancing on a pedestal with the left leg raised in a mannerism that has been interpreted as an allusion to Nike, the Greek goddess of Victory (Hecotex 020). This pantomime, performed by masked actors, was intended to dramatise mythological scenes through body language in the form of a story. 

Bibliography 

Eunice Dauterman Maguire (Dir.) (1999): Weavings from Roman, Byzantine and Islamic Egypt. Champaing Illinois: Krannert Art Museum

Engy Hanna (2017): Women in Late Antique Egypt through Coptic artefacts: a social-context, art historical study of women's representations in Late Antiquity (unpublished doctoral thesis). Sussex: University of Sussex

- (2019): “Glinding Steps”: dance as a performing art in Late Antique Egypt, International Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Management, 3: 1, pp. 36-63

Laura Rodríguez Peinado (2014): “The expression of dance in the textile art of the Nile Valley”, Textile research and new study methods (coord. Laura Rodríguez Peinado, Ana Cabrera Lafuente). Madrid: Lázaro Galdiano Foundation, pp. 73-88