When I was considering possibilities for my fourth portrait, I very soon settled on a ball – a staple of toy boxes everywhere, and a thing universally enjoyed by children and adults alike. Balls are perfectly suited for play– they can roll, they can spin, they are aerodynamic, and if they are the right size, they can fit nicely into a cupped hand. They are also shapes that occur naturally (fruits, pebbles, stones) and are easy to fashion out of things one has lying about the place – rolled up socks can do nicely as juggling balls.
I decided to go back in time. At first I chose some Ancient Egyptian balls exhibited at the Met, which are dated to c. 1550–1295 B.C. and are about 7 cm in diameter. I was especially taken by the stitching and their regular, even shape, and enjoyed finding out more about Egyptian games. Some tomb murals in Ancient Egypt include sports and games scenes featuring balls – they had games that somewhat resembled handball and hockey (hence the regular shape of those balls), and they are depictions of girls juggling. The murals at Beni Hassan are a good point of reference for this field – these are currently being carefully and accurately re-recorded, and you can see and read about them here.
After a more in-depth exploration of balls in Ancient Egypt, however, I settled on this humble linen and cord ball, exhibited at the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery. It was found in grave 518 at the necropolis of Tarkhan (about 50 km from Cairo), an Early Dynastic Egyptian site excavated in two seasons by Flinders Petrie and his team in 1911 and 1912. This blog post by curator Sue Giles is also an interesting read. While I have not found any mention of the exact size of this ball, the curator says she can hold it in her hand, and suggests the child might have used it to throw around or even to juggle with other balls, which gives us an approximate idea.
The first thing I did was to start right at the beginning and refer to Flinders Petrie’s original reports to see whether there was any other information available about this find. I found three references.
One of them is the note for the photograph plate: “Plate X. Linen ball bound with cord, for child to play with, Grave 518, S.D. 80”. The plate includes the original photograph of the ball (p. 71 of the reproduction of the original report).
The second reference I found stated “In No. 518, a ball was discovered, made of linen and tied round in many places with palm fibre (Tarkhan I, x, 8). The grave was that of a young woman with a child lying by her side, to whom the plaything evidently belonged.”
The third reference states “No. 518 – A ball made of a tight mass of linen tied round with fibre string was found on the bones (Tarkhan I, x, 8)”.
A reference is also made to the condition of the graves: “Three graves (nos. 225, 518 and 555) had been disturbed, the position of the bodies could not therefore be determined […] the remainder were untouched and the position was invariably contracted and laid on the left side.”
As I looked further into this site, I found out that the ball came from the same necropolis as the Tarkhan dress. Petrie’s report of 1913 includes an extensive description of a bundle of linen from grave 1050, in which he talks about the type of weave and the texture of each piece, but no mention of any garment. The dress lay undetected until 1977, when this bundle was taken to be treated by textile conservation experts at the V&A, who realised this was no ordinary piece of linen. Looking at the dress helped me picture things a little more clearly and place our ball in context. I also got a better picture when, having looked through the list of museums housing Tarkhan finds, I saw that there are several artifacts and even skeletons in their coffins from the site at the British Museum.
I have chosen this ball for my portrait because it is very much a plaything – a thing to play with. It may be Ancient Egyptian and all of 4500 years old, but as a piece of fabric bound together with cord, this simple, human object transcends time and place. I also like the fact that it has been purposely made into that shape – sculpted, if you will – in what seems like a tactile and instinctive manner. Tie that knot a little tighter there, tuck in that bit of linen so it doesn’t stick out – ah yes, that’s a good ball!
I imagine deft hands pulling at the cord, tightening those knots, untying and retying with thumbs and index fingers, turning it round to make sure it is even. Move in a little closer – are those fingers rough or smooth? Do they have hardened bits of skin that occasionally catch in the weave of the linen? What do the fingernails look like? If a photograph captures an instant, objects like this capture and retain successions of small movements from unremarkable days in the past. Every knot I draw is a paused reenactment of each knuckle flex those fingers made.
The child throws the soft ball up in the air for the first, second and then hundredth time; whenever she fails to catch it, the ball lands quietly on the floor, with a barely audible thud.