The Charition mime is a Greek mime found in Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 413. The manuscript, which is possibly incomplete, is untitled, and the mime's name comes from the name of its protagonist. Oxyrhynchus (Greek: Οξύρυγχος; sharp-nosed; ancient Egyptian Per-Medjed; modern Egyptian Arabic el-Bahnasa) is an archaeological site in Egypt, considered one of the most important ever discovered. ...

The plot of the mime is unremarkable, and is derived from Euripides' Iφιγένεια ἡ ἐν Ταύροις (Iphigeneia in Tauris), with the scene of action transposed to India. The introduction of humorous elements suggest that it may originally have been written as a spoof (Danielou 1985). The play's character makes it almost a burlesque, representing a type of drama which was prior to the play's discovery not known in antiquity. The manuscript contains signs at various points which are almost certainly instructions to play percussion instruments and - possibly - the auloi, a Greek double-piped reed instrument, which suggests that the use of music in Greek mime was much more extensive than was earlier thought (Hall 2002, 5). Whilst the exact date of the play is unknown, it cannot have been later than the second century CE, and was possibly earlier. A statue of Euripides Euripides (Greek: Ευριπίδης) (c. ... Iphigeneia in Tauris (in Greek: ) is a drama by the playwright Euripides, written sometime between 414 BC and 412 BC. It bears much in common with another of Euripides plays, Helen, and is often described as a romance, a melodrama, or an escape play. ... A spoof is a humorous take on an established idea, cultural movement, television program, movie, play, or book. ... Photo of the Burlesque Troupe, Chitty Chitty, Bang Bang Burlesque was originally a form of art that mocked by imitation, referring to everything from comic sketches to dance routines and usually lampooning the social attitudes of the upper classes. ... Satyr playing an aulos The ancient Greek aulos, often mistranslated as flute, was a double-piped reed instrument. ...

One of the most interesting features of the skit is the appearance of a number of Indian characters who speak dialogue in an Indian language. Shortly after the papyrus' publication, Dr. E. Hultzsch, a noted German indologist who had a strong command of the Dravidian languages, demonstrated that the words represented an ancient form of Kannada, and suggested possible readings for the dialogues in question which made sense in the context in which they were uttered (Hultzsch 1904). Although his findings were criticised by others at the time for being speculative, no other attempt to provide readings for the words in question has been successful and even Hultzsch's critics accept that the language must have been a Dravidian tongue (Salomon 1991). The subsequent discovery of the Halmidi inscription, which contains a form of Kannada much earlier than the forms known at the time Hultzsch wrote his article, confirms many of his theories on the evolution of the language and therefore adds strong support to his readings. Indologist is a derivative of the word indology, which refers to study of India, particulary ancient India. ... The Dravidian family of languages includes approximately 26 languages that are mainly spoken in southern India and Sri Lanka, as well as certain areas in Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and eastern and central India, as well as in parts of Afghanistan and Iran. ... Kannada - aptly described as sirigannada (known to few as Kanarese) is one of the oldest Dravidian languages and is spoken in its various dialects by roughly 45 million people. ... The Halmidi inscription is so far the oldest known Kannada inscription in the Kannada script. ...

References

• Danielou, Alain (1985), Histoire de l'Inde, Fayard, Paris. ISBN 2213012547.

• Hall, Edith (2002), "The singing actors of antiquity" in Pat Easterling & Edith Hall, ed., Greek and Roman Actors: Aspects of an Ancient Profession, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 0521651409.

• Hultzsch, E. (1904), "Remarks on a papyrus from Oxyrhynchus", Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1904: 399-405.

• Salomon, R. (1991), "Epigraphic Remains of Indian Traders in Egypt," Journal of the American Oriental Society, 111(4): 7-16.

External links

• A translation of the mime