A Hundred Pictures of Music, Dance and Play

...Acrobatic tricks such as bending the body backwards and touching the hands or head to the ground, as well as tightrope walking, can be seen in many archaeological artifacts from ancient Egypt and ancient Greece, and Homer, in his Iliad, also tells us that the shield of Achilles was engraved with the image of a flying acrobat (kybistētēr) (it is said that these acrobatics had some kind of symbolic meaning). In addition, the so-called "Hundred Plays of Music and Dance" carved into stone, excavated from a Han tomb in Yinan, Shandong Province, China, shows acrobatics such as tightrope walking and flying swords (called "acrobatic tricks" in China), and some ancient Chinese documents tell us that such performers were from the Western Regions. The spectacles, including animal shows and martial arts shows, have been passed down to later generations in various forms, but it is noteworthy that in Europe and the United States, organized modern circuses were born as their "descendants."

*Some of the terminology used in reference to "Rakubu Hyakugizu" is listed below.

Source | Heibonsha World Encyclopedia 2nd Edition | Information

…体をうしろに曲げて手や頭を地につける曲技，また綱渡りなどの曲芸は，古代エジプトや古代ギリシアの多くの考古文物にその姿をみることができるし，ホメロスも《イーリアス》のなかで，アキレウスの楯には飛び回る曲芸師(キュビステーテールkybistētēr)の姿が刻まれていたことを伝えている(なおこれらの曲芸には，なんらかの象徴的意味があったといわれる)。また，中国山東省沂南（ぎなん）の漢墓から出土した，石に刻まれたいわゆる〈楽舞百戯図〉には，走索(綱渡り)，飛剣(剣を手玉にとる)などの曲芸(中国では〈雑技（ざつぎ）〉とよばれる)の姿がみえ，古代中国の幾つかの文献は，そういった芸人に西域人がいたことを教えてくれる。　動物の見世物や格闘技なども含め，見世物はさまざまなかたちで後代に伝えられていくが，欧米ではその〈後裔〉として，組織的な近代サーカスが生まれたことは特筆される点である。…

※「楽舞百戯図」について言及している用語解説の一部を掲載しています。

出典｜株式会社平凡社世界大百科事典 第２版について | 情報