Earlier Misunderstandings.

Nineteenth-century Egyptologists hindered accurate interpretations of ancient Egyptian dance by imposing their own value systems on the evidence. The lack of clothing in Egyptian dance caused scholars to think of Egyptian dance as lewd, and thus they turned to more seemly subjects for study. These scholars also mistranslated the word "khener"—an Egyptian word meaning "musical bureau"—as "harem." They assumed that there was a connection between the word for musical bureau and the word for women's quarters (harem) because of the similarity of the hieroglyphic writing of the two different words. This misconception added to scholars' difficulties in dealing with Egyptian dance. Moreover, Western scholars did not make an immediate connection between dance and religious ritual because Western culture does not generally maintain the tradition of sacred dance that was common to biblical religion. The absence of dance in the church...