Academic Juggler

 

The Early History of Juggling

BY ARTHUR LEWBEL

 

The earliest known depiction of toss juggling is Egyptian, from the 15th Beni

Hassan tomb of an unknown prince, dating from the middle kingdom period of about 1994 -1781 B.C.(5). The Staatliche Museen zu Berlin has a Terra Cotta Statue from the time of Ptolomaer of ancient Thebes, about 200 B.C., of a man with balls balanced on different parts of his body (10,13). Some pictures of jugglers appear in various medieval illuminated manuscripts described in the references below, most notably (3). See (2) also.

 

Article (5) discusses the tendency in illustrations to draw objects being juggled in a single arc over the jugglers head, while the juggler holds his arms far out to either side of his or her (usually his) body, and generally looks straight ahead instead of up at the pattern. This drawing is probably intended to represent a shower, though a correct representation of a shower would have the hands and arms much closer together, eyes directed toward the top of the pattern, and either far fewer objects, or an arc much taller relative to the width.

 

As far as I can tell, this common misrepresentation of juggling is exclusively modern. None of the medieval or earlier pictures of juggling I've found look like this; The earliest picture I've seen of this er­roneous juggling representation is an 18th century French woodcut, which is reproduced in (9). Even "Scientific American" once got this wrong; The text in the January 1, 1898 issue of "Scientific American" correctly describes how a trick blindfold is made, but the accompanying picture of a blindfolded juggler shows a six object shower pattern that would be physically impossible to do at the height and width shown. A modern article on the science of juggling in that magazine, (1), does not suffer from this problem.

 

Generally, historical renditions properly show the juggler's hands relatively close together (one to two feet apart is normal). In these pictures the objects are usually drawn in straight lines above the hands (consistent with fountains, columns, and some forms of multiplexes), or scattered in a cloud above the hands, both of which are closer to real juggling than a single very low, very wide arc. Both modern and historical juggling pictures that show more than three or four objects tend to show the objects being juggled lower and clustered closer together than is physically possible, other than by multiplexing.

 

In addition to pictures, written references to juggling are also quite old. The Chinese Book of "Lie Zi," written during the Warring States Period (475-221 B.C.) and attributed to Lie Yukou, describes a Lan Zi from the state of Song in the Spring and Autumn Period (770­476 B.C.) who juggled seven swords (14). The Tractate Sukkah of the Talmud says that Rabbi Shimon ben Gamaliel could, "take eight flaming torches and throw them in the air, and catch one and throw one and they did not touch one another." The story "Tain Bo Cuailnge," (5) describes the 5th century AD Irish hero Cuchulainn juggling nine apples. A few centuries later Tulchinne, the royal buffoon of king Conaire, is described in "The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel," as juggling nine swords, nine silver shields, and nine balls of gold. See (3). Norse mythology includes juggling in Snorri Sturluson's (1179? - 1241) "Edda" (8), where in the first part (Gylfaginning) he writes, "In the doorway of the hall, Gylfi saw a man juggling with knives, keeping seven in the air at a time."