History of juggling

The art of juggling has existed in various cultures throughout history. The beginning is uncertain. The first depictions were found in ancient Egypt, China, Greece, and Rome, as well as medieval and modern societies.
The earliest record of toss juggling is a painting on the wall of Tomb 15 in Egypt's Beni Hasan cemetery complex. This tomb belonged to Baqet III, a provincial governor of Menat-Khufu (present day Minya) during the later years of the Eleventh Dynasty of Egypt. It depicts female dancers and acrobats juggling up to three balls, and one of the girls juggling with her arms crossed.
In another Beni Hasan painting, four girls are playing a juggling game in which two girls throw and catch a ball while being carried on the backs of the others. Arthur Watson, in his 1907 article for The Reliquary and Illustrated Archaeologist, suggests that if a player dropped the ball in this game, it became that player's turn to become the bearer.
Brooklyn Museum associate curator Dr. Robert Bianchi suggests that the appearance of jugglers in the Beni Hassan tomb may be "an analogy between balls and circular mirrors, as round things were used to represent solar objects, birth and death."
References to jugglers in Chinese literature from the Spring and Autumn period indicate that toss juggling was a well-developed form of ancient Chinese art.
Xiong Yiliao (Chinese: 熊宜僚; pinyin: Xióng Yiliáo), was a Chu warrior who fought under King Zhuang of Chu (ruled 613-591 BC) during the Spring and Autumn period of Chinese history. Ancient Chinese annals state that he practiced nòngwán, "throwing multiple objects up and down without dropping". During a battle in about 603 BC between the states of Chu and Song, Xiong Yiliao stepped out between the armies and juggled nine balls, which so amazed the Song troops that all five hundred of them turned and fled, allowing the Chu army to win a complete victory. As Xu Wugui recounts in Chapter 24 of the Zhuangzi, “Yiliao of Shinan juggled balls, and the conflict between the two states was ended.”
Lanzi (Chinese: 蘭子; pinyin: Lánzi), another juggler from the Spring and Autumn period who is mentioned in the Chinese annals, lived during the reign of Duke Yuan of Song (531-517 BC). Roughly translated, Chapter 8 of the Liezi, an ancient collection of Daoist sayings, reads as follows:
The passage states that Lanzi juggled the jian, a straight, double-edged sword which was used during the Spring and Autumn period. According to Jian Zhao in The Early Warrior and the Birth of the Xia, Lanzi was a general term for itinerant entertainers in pre-Qin and Han times.
Guhl and Koner, in The Life of the Greeks and Romans, describe the jugglers of ancient Greece:
Juggling, acrobatics, and other games of skill appear frequently in Greek and Etruscan tomb reliefs, coins, and vases. A terracotta statuette from Hellenistic Thebes shows a man balancing balls on his knee and head. Another example, a vase from Nola in the British Museum dating to 430 BC, shows a seated woman juggling two balls.
In his Symposium, set in 421 BC, the Greek historian Xenophon describes the appearance of a dancing girl at a dinner presided over by Socrates. Xenophon writes:
Many archaeological depictions of juggling in ancient Rome have been discovered. A monument with an inscription to Septumia Spica in the collection of the Museum of Roman Civilization depicts two relief carvings of a man toss juggling five balls while manipulating two more with his feet. A similar relief carving in Maffei's Museum Veronense of a consul giving the signal for the circus games to begin includes a detail showing a boy toss juggling five balls.
In addition to images depicting juggling, several Roman writers mention jugglers. For example, Marcus Manilius described jugglers in an astrological calendar, writing that a juggler's "quick hands supplied a constant stream of balls to his feet with which he played and ball after ball poured over the limbs of his body.”
A second century AD epitaph honors a juggler named Ursus. (Note: Although many juggling history sources refer to this man as Ursus Togatus, the word togatus in this case merely indicates that Ursus was a Roman citizen who could wear a toga.) As opposed to the “pilarii” (toss jugglers), Ursus was a “pilecrepus,” apparently performing body bounces and catches with a single ball. His inscription reads:
Archaeologist Murray McClellan describes a millefiori glass ball on display at the Penn Museum which was probably used in a juggling game called trigon, and it may have been the same game described in the Ursus inscription. Although the rules of trigon are not fully understood, it appears to have involved three players posted at the corners of a triangle throwing multiple balls back and forth as fast as possible, catching them with one hand and tossing them back with the other.
Quintilian, in his Institutes of Oratory, draws a parallel between the skill of an orator who scans ahead in his reading to that of a juggler, writing:
Sidonius Apollinaris, a Roman officer leading a legion in the French province of Niemen, wrote in his letters that he enjoyed juggling three or four balls as a hobby for his own satisfaction and to entertain his companions in the legions.
The Roman poet Martial describes a juggler named Agathinus who performed a unique shield manipulation routine:
The Tractate Sukkah of the Talmud says that Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel (10 BC to 70 AD) could “take eight fire torches and throw them in the air and catch one and throw one and they did not touch one another.” Another mention of torch juggling from around the third century AD appears in the letters of Alciphron, where an incident is described involving a woman whose husband “was attached to the Ionian lass who tosses balls and juggles torches.”
An ancient mention of knife juggling comes from the early Church father Chrysostom, who in Antioch around AD 450 witnessed jugglers “tossing up knives in rapid succession into the air and catching them by the handle.”
In the Middle Ages juggling was one of many skills performed by entertainers and buffoons. Representations of juggling in the Middle Ages may be found in illuminated manuscripts in the British Museum. One manuscript (Cotton MS. Tib. C. vi, folio 30 v.), from an eleventh century book on the life of Christ, shows an attendant of King David juggling three balls with his right hand and three knives with his left. William the Conqueror's minstrel Taillefer is recorded as performing a simple juggling trick with his sword at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, throwing and catching it, and then killing an English soldier.
The Boke of Saint Albans, published in England in 1486, mentions a “Neverthriving of Jugglers” as part of a list of collective nouns.
Legends and epic sagas from medieval folklore mention juggling. The Irish hero Cuchulainn is described “keeping nine apples, and his shield, and his sword in the air, that none of them fell to the ground.” Similarly, in The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel, a juggler named Tulchinne is described with “nine swords in his hand, and nine silvern shields, and nine apples of gold.”
In 1528, Emperor Babur of Hindustan described in his memoir a group of jugglers simultaneously spinning seven rings on their forehead, thighs, fingers, and toes. In the same year, Aztec antipodist jugglers were brought to Europe by Hernán Cortés and painted by Christoph Weiditz.
Stewart Culin in Games of the North American Indians lists examples of juggling among the Naskapi, Eskimo, Achomawi, Bannock, Shoshone, Ute, and Zuni tribes of North America. One example, quoted from George Dorsey, describes a game played by Shoshone women who juggled up to four balls made of mud, cut gypsum, or rounded water-worn stones. Dorsey describes betting contests in which the women raced toward an objective such as a tree or tipi while juggling. This may be an early example of joggling.
Otedama is a traditional Japanese juggling game practiced by women throwing up to five balls in a shower pattern, often while singing rhymes. A similar game called hiko, involving throwing limes, gourds, or tuitui nuts in the shower pattern has been played by young girls in Tonga for centuries. The earliest record of juggling in Tonga is from Johann Reinhold Forster in 1773, who describes a girl of 10–12 years juggling five fruits on the beach. Incredibly, Polynesian women have been verified showering 7 tuitui nuts, and there are reliable reports of women showering up to 10 nuts.
1680 – Germany Town Council of Nuremberg hires a "ball-master" who juggled and taught others juggling and other skills.
1768 – England Philip Astley opens the first modern circus. A few years later he employs jugglers to perform acts along with the horse and clown acts. From then until the modern day, jugglers have found work and have commonly been associated with circuses.
1793 – North America John Bill Ricketts presents America's first circus. In the opening show, watched by George Washington, Ricketts juggled on horseback.
1821 – England William Hazlitt writes the essay "The Indian Juggler" describing a four ball juggling routine in detail, probably performed by Ramo Samee, considered to be the first modern professional juggler. In his day Ramo Samee was a well-known British celebrity.
Mid-Late19th century – Europe and North America Variety and music hall theatres become more popular, and jugglers are in demand to fill time between music acts, performing in front of the curtain while sets are changed.
1883 – North America In Boston a new style of variety show is born. The format is a continuous show, the same 8-10 acts repeated over and over, the audience coming and going when they had seen all the acts. This was later known as Vaudeville.
1885 – England Paul Cinquevalli (1859 – 1918) made his debut at a circus in Covent Garden, London. Cinquevalli was the first juggling super-star, and was referred to by the British press as the world's greatest juggler.
Late 19th century – Early 20th century – North America In the USA the popularity of variety shows and vaudeville shows created great demand for professional jugglers. To distinguish them from other entertainers, jugglers were constantly developing new tricks, props, styles and characters, many of which survive to this day.
Here are some juggling "firsts" from America, based on anecdotal evidence.
1896 – Siberia Enrico Rastelli is born. Rastelli (1896–1931) is considered to be one of the greatest jugglers who ever lived. He is recorded as juggling 10 balls (though never 9), 8 sticks (small clubs) and 8 plates. He was also one of the first jugglers to use footballs (soccer balls) and other large rubber balls.
1912 – North America Glow-props are invented. Adolf Behrend, the German Gentleman juggler Salerno builds a set of clubs with electric lights inside which changed colors as he juggles them.
1930-1950 – Europe and North America Variety and Vaudeville shows start to decline in popularity due to competition from motion picture theatres, radio and television.
1947 – North America The International Jugglers' Association is formed.
1984 – the World's oldest Juggling Shop opens in London