A Woman Will “Encompass” a Man 383 imagined that masters/mistresses are on a par with their slaves for a given time. The text runs: “When his king entered into the temple, for seven days (xvii.20) the slave girl did become equal with her mistress; the slave did walk beside the master” (20). Similar feasts are attested under the Jews (Purim) (21), the Greeks (Anthesteria) and the Romans (Saturnalia) (22), and up to modern times in carnival-like celebrations, such as the German Fasching (23). Different suggestions have been presented to understand the function of the symbolic inversions/reversals in these circumstances: in certain contexts they could be aimed at criticising, undermining or subverting a given status quo, in others, however, they could serve the purpose of reinforcing or legitimising a dominant social order (24). The fascination with a “reversed world” was likewise present in the art arena. Some of the first attestations in this respect can be found in ancient Egypt, where artists portray a fanciful world in which a cat submits to mice and where a fox shepherds geese (25). This artistic form experienced a revival in the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, when image-makers devoted a large share of their energy to depictions of a world turned upside down (26). The popularity of the topos of inversion was likewise evident in the literary sphere. The genre of the satire could for, example, be regarded as a powerful strategy in portraying such an “inverse world” (27). But it was (20) Translation by R.E. AVERBECK, “The Cylinders of Gudea (2.155)”, The Context of Scripture (eds. W.H. HALLO, et al.) (Leiden 2003) II, 432. (21) Cf. also the recent attempt of S. SCHORCH (“Die Propheten und die Karneval: Marzeach – Maioumas – Maimuna”, VT 53 [2003] 397-415) to interpret the Israelite marzeach feast along the same lines. (22) H. STUBBE, “Trauerverhalten und das Phänomen der verkehrten Welt”, Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 113 (1988) 199-205; F. GRAF, “Frauenfeste und verkehrte Welt”, Geschlechterdifferenz, Ritual und Religion (Hrsg. W. KLINGER, et al.) (Würzburg 2003) 37-51. (23) F. STOLZ, Grundzüge der Religionswissenschaft (Göttingen 21997) 94. (24) See E.M. VEEN, “The Role of Symbolic Inversion in Utopian Discourse: Apocalyptic Reversal in Paul and in the Festival of the Saturnalia/Kronia”, Hidden Transcripts and the Arts of Resistance. Applying the Work of James C. Scott to Jesus and Paul (ed. R.A. HORSLEY) (Atlanta, GA 2004) 128 and C. AUFFARTH, Der drohende Untergang (Berlin 1991) 22-24. Cf. also the view of J.C. SCOTT, Domination and the Arts of Resistance. Hidden Transcripts (New Haven 1990) 168: “Inversions … play an important imaginative function … They do, at least at the level of thought, create an imaginative breathing space in which the normal categories of order and hierarchy are less than completely inevitable … When we manipulate any social classification imaginatively — turning it inside out and upside down — we are forcibly reminded that it is to some degree an arbitrary human creation”. (25) H. KENNER, “Das Phänomen der verkehrten Welt in der klassischen Antike”, Forschungen und Fortschritte, 41 (1967) 11-14; E. BRUNNER-TRAUT, “Altägyptische Tiergeschichte und Fabel. Gestalt und Strahlkraft”, Saeculum, 10 (1959) 124-185 and D. FLORES, “The Topsy-Turvy World”, Egypt, Israel, and the Ancient Mediterranean World. Studies in Honor of Donald B. Redford (ed. G.N. KNOPPERS) (Leiden 2004) 233-255. (26) R. CHARTIER, “The World Turned Upside-Down”, Cultural History. Between Practices and Representations (ed. R. CHARTIER; translated by L.G. COCHRANE) (Oxford 1988) 115-126. (27) K. LAZAROWICZ, Verkehrte Welt. Vorstudien zu einer Geschichte der deutschen Satire (Tübingen 1963); E. GUTWIRTH, “The ‘World Upside Down’ in Hebrew”, Orientalia Suecana XXX (1981) 141-147 and H. STRAUSS, “Motiv und Strukturen von Umkehrungssprüchen in Ägypten und im Alten Testament”, ZAW 115 (2003) 25-37.