Musiciens, fetes et piete populaire

Depictions of musicians and dancers in the corpus of Egyptian terracottas (from the 3rd century BCE to the 3rd century CE), are often singular. To understand the language of coroplastic art and situate this handicraft production within the period's visual culture, it is important to contextualize these figurines. The author discusses the respective influence of Greco-Roman and indigenous traditions, the boundaries between the sacred and the profane, and the definition of popular art. To shed light on their significance, these artifacts are examined alongside textual and papyrological evidence and compared with other types of figurative documents. The repertoire is structured around the main theme of cults and festivals. The terracottas reflect contemporaries' concerns about flooding of the Nile and celebrations of the abundance guaranteed by the gods. As expressions of collective beliefs, the figurines exemplifly the imaginary and metaphorical power of musical instruments and the positive virtues of sounds associated with festivals. Placed mainly in houses, these everyday objects recall moments of collective jubilation.