This is the most detailed & fascinating section of this website - describing the incredibly ancient spiritual background & historical research behind my attempts to recreate for the first time in almost 2000 years, since the tragic destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem in 70CE, the actual sound of The Lyre of the Ancient Hebrews...
The incredible work of the late French composer, Suzanne Haik-Vantoura will be discussed, and her spectacular claims to have re-discovered the original 3000 year old music of the Hebrew Bible will be examined in detail.
In my extensive research at restoring the sound of the amazing Biblical Lyres, I have also discovered incredible parallels to the other lyres played throughout the ancient world, which to me, strongly suggest the possibility of many ancient cross-cultural musical connections...
This seems evident in the similarity between the Biblical lyres & the lyres played in Canaan & Mesopotamia, the lyres played during the New Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, over 3000 years ago, and also to the Kithara & Lyra lyres played in Ancient Greece over 2000 years ago.
The radiation of ancient Mesopotamian musical culture throughout the Mediterranean is explored, in my recent discovery of an ancient Mesopotamian lyre-playing technique appearing in the depiction of lyre players in the famous Paphos Mosaics in Cyprus.
The radiation of ancient Middle Eastern & Mediterranean culture into Europe is also briefly explored, in a discussion of the Anglo Saxon Lyre & the curious Welsh Crwth...the latter of which sadly, appears to be the only descendant of the ancient lyre still surviving in the Western World.
The Lyres of the Ancient World can still be heard in many parts of the African continent today...which to me, seems the culmination of all these thousands of years of cross-cultural musical exchanges of ideas. Actual videos of these amazing modern day African lyres, harps & lutes can be seen at the end of this detailed section of the website.
Not only have the lyres of antiquity survived in Africa - there is also tantalizing evidence that the ancient Egyptian lute is still being played in parts of Gambia...which in turn, could be the ultimate ancestor of the modern banjo!
The survival of the ancient Egyptian arched harp in Africa is also explored, as well as tantalizing evidence that the ancient Mesopotamian arched harp may have migrated as far as China - yet more modern musical relics from the most ancient of times.
First, I will concentrate on my main area of research - the Lyres of my very own, very ancient Levite ancestors, once played in the Temple of Jerusalem, to accompany the singing of the Levitical Choir...
THE LYRES OF THE LEVITES
The video below is a general introduction to the historical background behind my attempts to restore the sound of the Lyres of the Levites.
NB! Since first recording this video, I have carried out further research into exactly what the ambiguous Biblical "Nevel" lyre may have resembled, and this can be seen in the second video in this series, posted in this website in the section dedicated to this more elusive of the known Biblical Lyres of Antiquity...
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE LYRE AND THE HARP
The Lyre seems to have been an evolution from the much more ancient harp, and what I think drove this evolution, was the desire by specifically nomadic cultures in the ancient Middle East, to create a harp-like instrument which unlike the larger harp, was portable.
The harp is an incredibly ancient instruments, and the very first illustrations of the harp can be found from c.3300BCE – 3000BCE, in rock etchings found in Megiddo, in the northwestern Valley of Jezreel in ancient Israel:
Further details about of this ancient etching of the first known depiction of the fully evolved triangular harp, complete with harmonic curve, can be seen in of Joachim Braun's highly informative book, available from Amazon, "Music in Ancient Israel/Palestine - Archaeological, written & Comparative Sources" (Wm. B. Erdmans Publishing Company, 2002).
These rock etchings date from an incredibly ancient era, before the Bronze Age, and before the First Dynasty of ancient Egypt. This remote era in archaeology, is known as the "Chalcolithic" period (4000 - 3200 BCE) - the "Copper Age". The triangular harp depicted in the Megiddo etchings is so fully evolved, that the history of the harp must predate even this ancient illustration by at least a few thousand years! The ultimate ancient evolution of the harp, may have been the result of a long, progressive series of developments in refining the plucked sound made by the basic strung bow and arrow of the Stone Age...
The fundamental difference between a lyre and a harp, is that in a harp, the strings enter directly into the hollow body of the instrument, whereas on a lyre, the strings pass over a bridge, which transmits the vibrations of the strings to the body of the instrument – just as on a modern guitar.
The very first lyres were harp-sized, and were discovered at Ur. Incredibly, they predate the building of the Pyramids in Egypt - they date back to c.2600BCE:
Here is a clip from a fascinating documentary, "The History of the Harp", presented by Catrin Finch, featuring the sounds of amazing ancient lyres which still can be heard today...
Here is another incredible video, featuring an actual performance on the 4500 year old Golden Lyre of Ur....the oldest Lyre so far known from the ancient world...
THE KINNOR
כנור
The truly ancient "Kinnor" ( in ancient Hebrew: כנור )was the very first lyre to be mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, where it is now commonly translated as "harp" - Jubal was the son of Lamech and Adah, a brother of Jabal, a descendant of Cain, and according to the Bible, "he was the ancestor of all who played the lyre and pipe" (Genesis 4:21).
The identification of the Kinnor as a lyre is confirmed by the abundance of archaelogical evidence – since the end of the Chalcolithic Age (4000 – 3200BCE), no other stringed instruments besides lyres have ever been found in the areas which formed the land of Caanan, ancient Israel and ancient Palestine. The lyre seems to have completely replaced the use of the harp in the Levant in the Biblical era, and indeed, the only illustrations we have of harps being played in ancient Israel, dates to a time far before Biblical times; from c.3300BCE – 3000BCE, in rock etchings found in Megiddo.
The root of the word “Kinnor” is incredibly ancient, and can be found throughout the entire anient Near East, long before the writings of the Old Testament – as early as the 3rd millenium BCE! A letter from the 18th century BCE from the archives at Mari describes lyre as “kinnaratim”, and the root of the word was even incorporated into the names of deites, such as the Canaanite “kinyras”. It was also used as a designation for “lotus wood” from the 18th/19th Egyptian Dynasty. In ancient Egypt at this time, the word “knwrw” definately refers to a lyre.
Biblical Musicologist, John Wheeler, also recently provided me with the following little gem of information, about just how wide-spread the radiation of the root of the word "Kinnor" was throughout the ancient Middle East:
"We find in the lexicon of Richard J. Dumbrill, THE ARCHAEOMUSICOLOGY OF THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST (Trafford Publishing, 2005, pp. 426-427) the following information:
kinnar uhili A Hurrian lyre player.
kinirtalla A Hittite lyre player.
kinnaru Substantive. A stringed instrument. Probably a lyre. The kinnor of the Bible. Mari, ca. 1770 BC; Alalakh, 1500-1400 BC.
Found on a Hittlte tablet from. [sic] A hapx legomenon, kinir is cognate with kinnor and Tall indicates 'player of the instrument'. The large lyre was called hunzinar and the small one ippizinar in Hittite. The word zinar is probably Hattic. In fact the words zinar and kinir show a shift of k > z, which is seen in Luwian words derived from the Hittite. It could be suspected that zinar was Luwian and not Hattic. However, this cannot be since both hunzinar and ippizinar can have the suffix -nu which is not Luwian. The kinnor was loaned into Hattian with the same shift (Hattusas 1500-1200 BC).
In Ugarit, 1400-1300 BC, we have knr in alphabetic cuneiform and kinaru in syllabic, in several texts. In Emar, 1300 BC, there is kinnaru. In Egypt, about 1200 BC, the term knnr or kinnuru. The Hebrew Bible mentions the kinnor 42 times.
Also: 'With regards to the five lyres my lord wrote to me about', 'Person x made two lyres, now I am sending my lord the two lyres person x made.' It is composed of the lyre loan word and the Hurrian word huli which indicates a profession, that is either the player or the maker of the instrument.
On page 454 we have these related entries (noting the letter shift from k > z mentioned above):
zannaru See zinar Substantive. A lyre.
(...)
zinar See zannaru above. Hattic word used in hittite. Akkadian zannaru. A stringed musical instrument. It has two sizes, gal and tur which are identified as Hittite hunzinar and ippizinar respectively.
'Then the great master of ceremonies goes out to the forecourt and says to the herald: zinar, zinar. Then the musicians lift the Istar instruments. The herald marches in front of the musicians who carr in the Istar instruments.' "
The Kinnor was used for an incredibly diverse range of occasions, as described in its 42 references throughout th Old Testament. It was used for secular celebrations (Genesis 31:27) ,in times of lament (Job 30:31), praise, and was even descibed being played during the transporting of the Ark of the Covenant (Chronicles 15:16, Psalms 43:3, 98:5,149:3,150:3)
References to this beautiful Biblical lyre of antiquity can also be found thoughout the entire text of the Hebrew Bible:
In Biblical times, the Kinnor was usually made of cypress or, in very precious instruments, of sandalwood (I Kings 10: 12; described as "almug"). According to the ancient writings of the Jewish historian Josepus Flavius, who actually witnessed the Kinnor being played by the Levites in the Temple of Jerusalem, the lyre had ten strings, made of sheep gut (Antiquites vii.12.3). He also says that some Kinnors were made of electrum (Antiquities viii 3.8) – an alloy of silver and gold! This could possbibly mean the external decoration of these lyres.
Josephus informs us that it was usually played with a plectrum,although it could also be played with the fingers, to achieve a more soothing sound ( as when David soothed King Saul).
The Biblical Kinnor Lyre was the actual "Harp of David", once played by King David himself, 3000 years ago, as he danced before the very Ark of the Covenant (II Samuel 6:5), and for over 1000 years, the mystical resonance of the Kinnor could be heard wafting down from Temple Mount, as my very own, very ancient Levite ancestors played their Kinnors in the Courtyard of the Temple of Jerusalem, to accompany the almost legendary singing of the Levitical Choir (II Chronicles 5:12)...
Illustrations of the Kinnor players from the time of Solomon’s Temple, can be seen in an early 7th century BCE Assyrian bas-relief in the Southern Palace at Nineveh of Assurbanipal (704 - 681 BCE) depicting the Assyrian King Sennacherib’s conquest of Israel. The relief depicts the fall of the Judean city of Lachish - 3 Jewish lyre players are depicted amongst the other Jewish prisoners taken from Lachish to slavery in Nineveh:
The Kinnor on which I am playing, is of the Second Temple Era design; from the actual time of Jesus. The design of my replica instrument is based illustrations of the Kinnor depicted on ancient Jewish coins minted at the time of the Simon Bar Kochba Revolt against the Roman occupation in Israel:
After almost 2000 years of empty, desolate silence, after the tragic destruction of the Jewish Temple by the Roman Legions under Titus in 70 C.E, the haunting strains of the ancient Jewish Kinnor can now finally be heard, once again!
THE BIBLICAL "NEVEL" LYRE
Below is a video featuring a detailed discussion of this most elusive of the ancient Biblical stringed instruments...
נבל
As discussed in the video above, the other Biblical lyre referred to throughout the Biblical Text is the “Nevel” (in ancient Hebrew: נבל). It is mistranslated in the Old Testament as “harp” – as discussed above, there is absoutely no archeaological evidence that harp was used in ancient Israel after the end of the Copper Age, around 3200BCE.
Here is my arrangement for replica Biblical Nevel, of the timeless Jewish folk song "Hava Nagila" ( in Hebrew: הבה נגילה "Let Us Rejoice"):
Below is another video featuring my replica Biblical Nevel, featuring my arrangement of an ancient Babylonian Jewish Wedding Song, "Ashir Shirim":
This ancient wedding song of the Babylonian Jews in Israel was carefully collected and transcribed almost a century ago by the musicologist A.Z Idelsohn.
The translation of the song is:
"I will sing songs to God at the coming of the redeemer.This terrified,innocent,& fair daughter - hurry to redeem her now.Elijah will come & she will be redeemed"
The traditional music of the Babylonian Jews is unique, as it may well be the "Invisible Baggage" of the Jews who were sent into exile there, after the destruction of the First Temple of Jerusalem by King Nebuchadrezzar II, in 586BC! These melodies therefore, may be representative of the very earliest aural memory of Jewish music, ever - from the almost Legendary Era of the Ark of the Covenant, & King Solomon's Temple...
Finally, here is a video of one of my series of "Online Lyre Lessons" describing how to play an ancient melody tradionally sang to Psalm 114, "When Israel Went Forth From Egypt":
THE AMBIGUITY OF THE ACTUAL HEBREW MEANING OF "NEVEL"
Unlike the Kinnor, the exact meaning of the word “Nevel” is ambiguous, as the Hebrew root “nvl” (נבל ) can be pronounced in two different ways – either “naval” or “nevel”.
In the Hebrew language, only the consonants are written down - the vowels are added by the speaker...whih causes no end of problems once the original pronunciation of an ancient Hebrew word is lost in the mists of time! John Wheeler explains:
"Nevel is such a difficult instrument to understand precisely because
1) leather was used for soundboards both for some harps and for some lyres;
2) the root word itself has several different meanings. The name could just as well refer to a wineskin used for a soundbox, and while we don't have anything that I know of earlier than bar Kokhba illustrating that for the Hebrews, it's certainly possible given how animals' stomachs were used for other instruments"
THE TWO INTERPRETATIONS OF THE ORIGINAL MEANING OF THE HEBREW WORD "NVL" (נבל )
1) If "NVL" is pronounced “Naval”, in Hebrew thiscan mean “carcass”, implying that the Biblical Nevel was a lyre with a skin membrane as a soundboard (similar to the ancient Greek “Lyra” – the lyre with a tortoise shell resonator, over which was stretched a soundboard of taut animal skin).
Below is a fascinating video of the legendary Luis Paniagua (who was one of the artists on the epic album from 1979, "Musique de la Grece Antique") performing on a replica ancient Greek Lyra:
Mid East Ethnic Instrument Manufactures use this interpretation of the Biblical Nevel. Their interpretation of the Biblical Nevel is ideally suited to playing ancient Greek music – below is my own arrangement of “Song of Seikilos” (c.200BCE – 100CE) on their interpretation of the Nevel:
2) The alternative interpretation, if the word is pronounced “Nevel”, means “Skin bottle”. This could mean a lyre with a regular wooden soundboard, but shaped like a skin bottle.
As discussed in more detail below, I now believe that it is more likely that meaning (1) seems more likely from th available evidence - that the elusive Biblical Nevel may have been a skin-membrane lyre.
HOW WAS THE BIBLICAL NEVEL LYRE CONSTRUCTED?
The Nevel was made of the same materials as the Kinnor, namely Almug wood, (Kings 10:5), and was plucked by hand,as opposed to being plucked with a plectrum, as in the case of the Kinnor – we know this from the writings of Josephus Flavius (Antiquities vii 12.3) and the Biblical text (Amos 6:5). Josephus also describes the Nevel as having 12 strings, whereas the Kinnor had 10 strings.
EVIDENCE THAT THE NEVEL A BASS REGISTER LYRE IN THE LEVITICAL ENESMBLE?
The ancient jewish text, the Mishna, also provides some fascinating details. It limits the number of Nevels in the Temple Ensemble to “no fewer than two and no more than six”, but “never fewer than nine Kinnorot, and more may be added” (Mishna, Arak 2:5).
This is the first piece of evidence that the Biblical Nevel could have been a bass register lyre - just as in a modern string orchesta, there are proportionately many more violins in the upper register, than the cellos and basses. From this piece of evidence from the Mishnah about the ratio of the numbers of Kinnors to the number of Nevels, I think that it is quite reasonale to infer, that the Biblical Nevels provided the bass line of the Levitical Ensemble and to he singing of the Levitical Choir.
The Mishnah also informs us that the strings of the Nevel were made of sheeps large intestines, whilst those of the Kinnor were made of the small intestines (Mishnah, Quinnim 3:6).
As the Nevel had more numerous and also thicker strings than the Kinnor, this implies it could be played more loudly than the Kinnor, even without a plectrum. The resonator may have been a similar shape to a wine skin or leather bag (hence the Hebrew root “Nevel”). Indeed, Isiah 14:11 informs us that the Nevel had a powerful drone. The evidence for the thicker strings used on the Nevel also implies that the Nevel was a bass register lyre in the orchestra of the Second Temple.
POSSIBLE ANCIENT ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE BIBLICAL "NEVEL"?
The larger lyre depicted on some of the Simon Bar Kochba coins may well depict the elusive Biblical Nevel:
Many musicolgical sources suggest that the strings on this particular representation of this elusive Biblical lyre mysteriously "enter the soundbox", just as on a harp.
However, to me, the picture seen on this coin, so obviously depicts the reverseof the instrument - just as illustrations of the Biblical Kinnor also seen on the Bar Kochba coins are of the reverse of this lyre as well (these depict the strap with which the Kinnor was held).
The reason why the reverse of the Biblical lyres are shown on the Bar Kochba coins seems to me, simply to b a pragmatic one - it is simply easier to stamp a design of the reverse of a lyre onto a coin, rather than the front of the lyre..which has far more detail, and therefore is much harder to quickly mass produce by a gang of brave Jewish rebels, intent on quickly bringing about an uprising against the Roman Occupation...
In my opinion, the resonator was made of ribbed wood, and the strings passed over a bridge, transmitting their vibration to a soundboard of taut animal skin.
THE SIMILARITY BETWEEN THE ANCIENT GREEK BASS "BARBITOS" LYRE AND THE ANCIENT HEBREW NEVEL?
From the pictorial evidence on the Simon Bar Kochba coins, and the Hebrew meaning of "carcass" which can be infered from the Hebrew root "NVL", I think it is most reasonable to Nevel was probably bass register lyre, with a taut leather soundboard - very similar to the ancient Greek bass register skin-membrane lyre, known as the barbitos (βάρβιτος). This form of bass register skin-membrane lyre with a tortoise shell resonator, was particularly associated with the cult of Dionysus:
If indeed the Biblical Nevel did resemble the ancient Greek Barbitos, coul this be purely coincidence, or possible evidence of an ancient cross-cultural exchange of musical ideas? A fascinating possibility!
MORE PICTORIAL EVIDENCE
The two designs of lyres depicted on the Bar Kochba coins certainly seem to represent 2 distinct types of lyres which existed in ancient Israel for quite some time - earlier representations of these 2 basic lyre types seen on the Simon Bar Kochba coins can also be found on coins from Acco, from at least 200 years before the time of the Simon Bar Kochba. Acco was a city port on the northern coast of ancient Israel from about the 9th-8th centuries BCE (For further details and to see an llustration of these Acco coins, please see pages 288 - 289 of Joachim Braun's book "Music in Ancient Israel/Palestine").
These earlier illustrations on the Acco coins, of the 2 types of lyres probably used in ancient Israel, can also be seen in the video of my talk on this subject of the Nevel, at the beginning of this section of the website...
JOSEPHUS FLAVIUS
Josephus (AD 37 – c. 100), also known as Yosef Ben Matityahu (Joseph, son of Matthias) and, after he became a Roman citizen, as Titus Flavius Josephus, was a first-century Jewish historian who survived and recorded the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem in 70CE...
His writings in the 1st century CE, give an important insight into first-century Judaism..including an invaluable extra-Biblical description of both the Kinnor & Nevel Lyres, onces played by the Levitical Ensemble in the Coutyard of the Temple of Jerusalem, to accompany the singing of the Levitical Choir...
Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book 7, Chapter 12, Paragraph 3
(Whiston translation with footnotes)
3. (305) "And now David being freed from wars and dangers, and enjoying for the future a profound peace,{a}{This section is a very remarkable one, and shows that, in the opinion of Josephus, David composed the Book of Psalms, not at several times before, as their present inscriptions frequently imply, but generally at the latter end of his life, or after his wars were over. Nor does Josephus, nor the authors of the known books of the Old and New Testament, nor the Apostolical Constitutions, seem to have ascribed any of them to any other author than to David himself. See Essay on the Old Testament, pp. 174–75. Of these meters of the Psalms, see the note on Antiq. 2.16.4. However, we must observe here, that as Josephus says, Antiq. 2.16.4, that the song at the Red Sea, Exod. 15:1–21, was composed by Moses in the hexameter tune, or meter; as also, Antiq. 4.8.44, that the Song of Moses, Deut. 32:1–43, was an hexameter poem; so does he say that the Psalms of David were of various kinds of meter, and particularly, that they contained trimeters and penta meters, Antiq. 2.12.3; all which implies, that he thought these Hebrew poems might be best described to the Greeks and Romans under those names and characters of Hexameters, Trimeters, and Pentameters. Now, it appears that the instruments of music that were originally used, by the command of king David and Solomon, and were carried to Babylon at the captivity of the two tribes, were brought back after that captivity; as also, that the singers and musicians, who outlived that captivity, came back with those instruments, Ezra 2:41; 7:24; Neh. 7:44; Antiq. 11.3.8; and 4.2; and that this music, and these instruments at the temple, could not but be well known to Josephus, a priest belonging to that temple; who accordingly gives us a short description of three of the instruments, Antiq. 7.12.3; and gives us a distinct account, that such psalms and hymns were sung in his days at that temple, Antiq. 20.9.6; so that Josephus's authority is beyond exception in these matters. Nor can any hypothesis of the moderns that does not agree with Josephus's characters, be justly supposed the true meter of the ancient Hebrews; nor indeed is there, I think, any other original authority now extant, hereto relating, to be opposed to these testimonies before us. That the ancient music of the Hebrews was very complete also, and had in it great variety of tunes, is evident by the number of their musical instruments, and by the testimony of another most authentic witness, Jesus, the son of Sirach, Sir. 1:18, who says that, at the temple, in his days, "The singers sang praises with their voice; with great variety of sounds was there made sweet melody."} composed songs and hymns to God, of several sorts of meter; some of those which he made were trimeters, and some were pentameters. He also made instruments of music, and taught the Levites to sing hymns to God, both on that called the sabbath day, and on other festivals. (306) Now the construction of the instruments was thus: The viol [kinnor] was an instrument of ten strings, it was played upon with a bow [plectrum]; the psaltery [nevel] had twelve musical notes, and was played upon by the fingers; the cymbals were broad and large instruments, and were made of brass. And so much shall suffice to be spoken by us about these instruments, that the readers may not be wholly unacquainted with their nature."
Special thanks to John Wheeler, for providing me with the ancient 1st century literary source quoted above. John Wheeler is a Biblical musicologist with whom I have corresponded considerably during the course of my own research into the music once played in the Temple of Jerusalem:
KABBALAH AND THE SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE NUMBER OF STRINGS ON THE BIBLICAL LYRES?
I recently have realized an absolutely astonishing implication about the number of strings used on the Biblical Kinnor and Nevel Lyres, whch I am quite dumfounded that nobody else to my knowledge, seems to have realized before! The Kinnor specifically had ten strings - what is the most likely reason for this? The most obvious explanation to me, is as a reminder of the Ten Commandments?
What of the specific number of twelve strings on the Biblical Nevel? I am almost certain, that this also was not just a random number, but that this specific number of strings also had profound spiritual significance - the most obvious reason to me, that the Nevel was made with 12 strings, was surely to represent The Twelve tribes of Israel? Indeed, the Levitical Priests of the Temple of the Jersualem also wore a breastplate with 12 gems to represent the 12 Tribes...
I then realized another astonishing fact - the total number of musical tones which could be played on the Kinnor and Nevel, were 12 tones on the 12 strings of the Nevel, plus 10 tones produced on the 10 strings of the Kinnor - totalling 22 possible tones...corresponding to the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet!
If I am correct in there being an intended spiritual significance in connection with the relationship between the total number of 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet corresponding with the total number of 22 tones capable of being played by the combination of the ancient Kinnor and Nevel lyres once played by the Levitical Ensemble in the Temple of Jerusalem, then this must surely be one of the earliest examples of Kabbalistic philosophy...
Kaballah is an ancient form of Jewish mysticism, and amongst its many fascinating views of the Universe, it places enormous significance on the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet - according to the Kabbalists, since it was the "Word of God" which brought about Creation, and the "Word of God" was spoken in Hebrew, the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet are therfore regarded by the Kabbalists as the literal "Building Blocks of Creation"...
Below is a link I found, with further information on this intriguing aspect of Kabbalah:
IMPROVISATION ON A 3500 YEAR OLD ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SCALE!
Although the ancient Egyptians did not have a written form of musical notation, they did have a system of musical notation wherby specific hand gestures represented the changes of pitch in a melody. This ancient form of musical notation was used since the 4th Dynasty, and is known as "chironomy"...amazingly, chironomy still survives in Egypt today, preserved in the music of the the Coptic Church! The ancient art of chironomy is discussed at length in this fascinating article:
Below is my improvisation on an ancient Egyptian minor pentatonic scale, as deciphered by the late Professor Hans Hickmann of the Museum in Cairo:
AN ANCIENT CROSS-CULTURAL EXCHANGE OF MUSICAL IDEAS?
I am increasingly fascinated by the similarities between the Lyre of the Ancient Hebrews, and the possible evidence of ancient cross-cultural connections with ancient Egypt - as so vividly described throughout the Biblical text. In this section of the website, I will explore these ideas, with evidence found from both ancient Egypt, and from illustrations of the ancient Hebrews.
To take us into this ancient world, below is a reconstruction of an actual ancient Egyptian melody, from c.1400BCE...
A RECONSTRUCTION OF AN ANCIENT EGYPTIAN MELODY, c. 1400BCE!
Below is my arrangement for solo lyre, of an academic reconstruction of a genuine 3400 year old ancient Egyptian melody! The scale used, was taken from a three-holed Egyptian vertical flute, still in a playable condition. The images in the video feature incredible, vibrant illutrations of ancient Egyptian Theban Banquets and ancient Egyptian dancers...
I learnt this incredible melody, from an amazing CD album, "Music of the Ancient Sumerians, Egyptians & Greeks" by "The Ensemble De Organographia".
The academic reconstruction of the melody heard here, was deciphered from illustrations on a tomb painting of a Banquet Scene found at Thebes - the specific hand gestures of the individuals depicted in this scene were found to be an example of an ancient system of musical notation often used in antiquity, called called "Chironomy" - this is a system of hand gestures which were used, to denote both the pitch and ornamentation of a melody, as discussed above.
The Theban Banquet Scene depicting these chironomy gestures from which this academic reconstruction of the melody was derived, shows a scene of four rows of seated guests preparing to attend a banquet, with the guests on the left of each row displaying these chironomy signs, depicting the melody being played by the musicians on the sitting on the right.
In my arrangement of the melody, I have used many lyre-playing techniques also used in antiquity - finger-stopping the strings & strumming rythm,using plectrum for tremelo accomaniment,glissandos and simple chordal accompaniment in the left hand, whilst the melody is being plucked with a plectrum in the right hand.
It may be of significance, that the tonality heard in this reconstructed melody, is very similar to the Natural Minor - the Natural Minor scale can still be heard today, in almost all traditional Egyptian folk music (as can be heard in the later series of videos in this section of the website ).
THE LYRE IN THE TIME OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS
By the time of the Lyre of the Ancient Hebrews (c. 2000 BCE) the Kinnor had become portable. This could well be due to the nomadic origins of the Hebrews, as described in the Biblical text! Since the same Biblical text describes how Abraham was actually born in Ur, it could even have been Abraham himself, who actually had the idea of scaling down the “Harp-Lyres” he heard at Ur, to a played a convenient-sized, portable lyre, which could be played on the move?
The very first illustration of nomadic Semites playing such a lyre, is seen in the tomb of a prosperous ancient Egyptian baron named Knumhotpe - he had a forty-foot-long mural painted in his tomb at Beni Hassan, about halfway up the Nile to Nubia:
The mural clearly depicts "A group of Semitic traders, smiths, and musicians at a custom post set up on the Middle Nile by an Egyptian Baron, Knumhotpe about 1892. The leader is identified with the Hebrew name Abushei, the same as that of one of King David’s two generals. The lyre being carried by one of the family group was at that time unknown in Egypt. During a two-hundred-year period, referred to by archaeologists as the Second Intermediate Period, Semitic kings ruled Egypt. In that period Egypt was thrust from the Chalcolithic (Copper-Stone) Age into the Late Bronze Age. In addition to many technological and agronomic innovations, the Semites introduced the lute, harp, tambourine, chalil (a precursor of the oboe), new forms of music and dance" (quoted from:
"By commemorating the lucrative trade he had had with the nomaidc Semites in his final resting place, Knumhotpe sought to assure an eternal traffic of tradesmen paying tribute to him in the afterworld.
The painting evidently registers an actual event which Knumhotpe felt worthy of eternal repetition.. It depicts a group of thirty-seven Semites in full size in the act of paying customs duties to the nomarch's officials. A bold hieroglyphic text states that these Asiatics are supplying him with such important items as stibium, a mineral required for eye makeup acquired in Mesopotamia. Knumhotpe evidently feared that the place he would occupy in the hereafter might lack the mineral, as was the case in Egypt. The date given is the fourth year of Sinusert II's rule, or about 1892 B.C.E" (quoted from:
The most fascinating details, which are immediately evidient in this magnificant ancient mural, is the striking similarity between the illustrations of the these ancient Semites, and the Biblical narrative of the patriarch Joseph - this group of nomadic Semites can clearly be seen, wearing their immediately distinctive "coats of many colours", so vividly mentioned in the timeless Biblical text!
EGYPTIAN MUSIC PLAYED ON THE LYRE OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS?
Regarding the ancient connections between the ancient Egyptians and the ancient Hebrews, I recently have discovered that traditional Egyptian folk music works amazingly well when played on my replica Lyre of the Ancient Hebrews!
Indeed, the lyre played in the New Kingdom of ancient Egypt, almost 3000 years ago, is almost identical to the illustrations we have of the Lyre of the Ancient Hebrews (as seen in the Beni Hasan Mural above)...coincidence, or evdience of an ancient cross-cultural exchane of musical ideas, whilst the Hebrews, according to the Biblical text, were present in ancient Egypt? A fascinating possibility...
Here is an illustration of such an Ancient Egyptian Lyre, as seen on my album, "An Ancient Lyre":
In the section which follows, there is are a selection of videos of my own arrangements for solo lyre, of some wonderful Egytian folk songs I had the pleasure of learning by ear, from the amazing CD "Between the Desert and the Sea" (2006) and "The Simsimiyya of Port Said" (1999), by the Egyptian Simsimiyya Band, "El Tanboura".
The Egyptian simsimiyya (Arabic: سمسمية) which is primarily featured in the music of "El Tanboura", is an amazing wire-strung lyre, still played in Egypt today..which may have had its origins, 4000 years ago, in the Middle Kingdom of ancient Egypt:
Below is a fascinating link with more information on both the simsimiyya & the fabulous recordings of El Tanboura:
Here is my arrangement of for solo lyre of one of the oldest Egyptian folk songs, "Salah"..."The song's origins can probably be attributed to the ancient tribal groups from Arabai and the Persian Gulf through a lyrical refernece to Indian girls tending to the sick" (quoted from the liner notes, "Between The Desert & The Sea"):
This is my own arrangement of "I Saw the Moon" - one of Egypt's most well known traditional songs. It is found across the Suez and in costal areas around the Red Sea: "The main melody of the song is common in each of the areas it can be found, but the lyrical content changes from place to place. El Tanbura's own rendition recalls the plight of two star-crossed lovers who send secret messages to eachother via carrier pigeons, often used for sending letters in Pharaonic times,,," (quoted from the insert booklet of El Tanbura's album, "Between the desert and the Sea").
For my solo arrangement on replica 3000 year old lyre of this beautiful Egyptian melody on album "Ancient Times - Music of the Ancient World", remnamed this song "Hymn to Thoth" - Thoth was he ancient Egyptian god of the Moon...
My newest album, "Ancient Times - Music of the Ancient World" is available now, from Apple iTunes & cdbaby.com:
Below is my own arrangement of "My Heart Was Burnt by Love"; a popular folk song from Port Said, in which the lovelorn singer laments his weakness for beautiful women, and asks how he can resolve the torment of his heart:
Finally, this is my arrangement of track 4 of the album, called "Sar A Lay" - "...a desert song from Sinai, sung in Bedouin dialect, with some Nubian lyrical influences" (notes taken from the CD insert booklet of the album, "Between the Desert and the Sea"):
It may be of significance to note, that all of these traditional Egyptian melodies are in the Natural Minor Mode - just as are many, many ancient Jewish folk melodies. This could well indicate that the Natural Minor Mode was a musical scale with particularly ancient roots, which seem to have spread throughout almost the entire Middle East?
Full details of El Tanboura's incredible albums of Egyptian music can be found at:
Respect, to the amazing musical culture of Egypt...
السلام عليكم
ANCIENT EGYPT, CANAAN AND THE MUSIC OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS
Canaanite female lyre player - The Megiddo Ivory, c.1300BCE
The influence of the musical culture of ancient Egypt, was firmly in place in ancient Canaan, well before the conquest (or gradual infiltration followed by eventual conquest?) of the the land of Canaan by the ancient Israelites! Indeed, the pre-existing Canaanite musicians guilds found in Canaanite cultural centres, such as Ugarit, may in fact be the ultimate origin which influenced the formation of the Levitical Musicians Guild for the music which was to be later performed in the Temple of Jerusalem...
In the 18th and 19th Dynasties of ancient Egypt, Canaanite slave girls, particularly musicians and dancers, "were a highly valued commodity..." ( p.86, "Music in Ancient Israel/Palestine", Joachim Braun).
Fascinating contemporary descriptions from ancient Egypt of this phenomenon can be found in the Amarna Letters, from the 14th century BCE, "To Milkilu, Prince of Gezer. Thus the King. Now I have sent thee this tablet to say to thee: Behold, I am sending to thee Hanya, the commissioner of the archers, together with goods, in order to procure fine concubines: silver, gold, garments, turquoise, all sort of precious stones, chairs of ebony, as well as every good thing. Total: 40 concubines in whom there is no blemish" (ANET, 487; Amarna-Letter RA, xxxi) . These Canaanite slave girls were also dancers and musicians...
Braun goes onto say "The singers of the local Canaanite aristocracy, however, were even more popular", and quotes a further fascinating ancient Egyptian letter from c.1500BCE - in the fifteenth century BCE, an Egyptian governor in Canaan wrote to Rewasha, Prince of Tannnach near Megiddo, regarding Rewasha's daughter, " As for your duaghter who is in the town of Rubutu, let me know concerning her welfare; and if she grows up you shall give her to beomce a singer" (Albright, 1944; ANET, 490). In other words, a daughter from the Canaanite aristocracy was to become a singer in the Temple of Amun at Karnak, and to take a vow of chastity.
One of the actual names of these musicians from Canaan who went to Egypt to become a singer in the Temple of Amun is also documented - she was called Kerker, and she was the minstrel of the ancient Egyptian god Ptah, who also had a shrine in Ashkelon. Braun goes on to describe how four ivory tablets dating from the 14-13th century BCE describe both the god Ptah and his servant and musician together: "Servant of her Mistress every day, the singer of Ptah, Lord of the Life of the Two Lands, and Great Prince of Ashkelon, Kerker" (Loud, 1939; ANET, 263).
Regarding Kerker, Braun goes on to mention the work in a paper from 1956 of the musicologist, Albright: "Albright believes that the Kerker goes back to biblical Calcol, whom in I Chronicles 2:6 mentions together with the musicians Heman and Ethan, possibly documenting the emergence of musicians' guilds and as such a Canaanite origin of Judean temple music"
Later, (in the section of this website discussing the work of Suzanne Haik-Vantoura, "The 3000 Year Old Music of the Bible Revealed?" in how she claimed to have found representations of "chironomy": a form of ancient Egyptian musical notation in the mysterious "Te Amim" accents, attached to the oldest surviving Masoretic text of the Hebrew Old Testament! ), this ancient musical exchange of ideas between ancient Egypt and the land of Canaan, prior to the inflitration/conquest of Canaan by the ancient Hebrews. may well be one explanation of how this alleged ancient Egyptian musical notation found its way into the Hebrew Bible...
THE ORIGINAL 3000 YEAR OLD MUSIC OF THE BIBLE REVEALED ?
This section concerns the incredible work of the late Jewish organist and composer, Suzanne Haik-Vantoura, in claiming to have discovered the original 3000 year old music of the Hebrew Bible, as once sang by the Levites in the Temple of Jerusalem...
Following the tragic destruction of the Second Temple, the entire musical legacy of the Temple, both vocal and instrumental, seemed to be forever lost. However, the Masoretic scribes preserved (along with the biblical consonantal text itself) an ancient "reading tradition" dating back (according to themselves) to the Second Temple Era; and beginning about 1200 years ago, they painstakingly copied that tradition out in exacting detail. The Masoretic Text is still the oldest complete copy of the Hebrew Bible that we have.
Part of the "reading tradition" the Masoretes preserved was a series of "accents" ("te amim" - in Hebrew: טעמים), which occur throughout the entire Tanakh (Torah, Nevi'im and Ketuvim) in two systems. The Masoretes did not understand the meaning or the monumental significance of these accents, and for centuries, there have been countless theories as to what their original meaning was.
Most theories have started from the assumption that they were to emphasize precise points of grammar in the text. Leaving aside all these debates, Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura concentrated soley on finding a musical meaning of these "accents".
Through countless experiments and a laborious process of irrefutable verification (using the Hebrew verbal phrase structure itself as her "Rosetta Stone"), she finally realized that all these symbols represent musical tones: the 7 degrees of a heptatonic scale, or else ornaments of one to three notes!
The genius of Suzanne Haik Vantoura, was how she painstakingly derived exactly which musical mode/scale corresponded to the specific Hebrew text of the Bible. Out of all the possible combinations of 7 note heptatonic scales, the correct scale for the specific Biblical text examined, will be the scale which brings the correct empasis and meaning to the original Hebrew text - a truly monumental process of musical logic & an unbelievably labourious process of elimination!
In other words, SHV used the actual syntax of the original Hebrew scriptures of the Old Testament as the deciphering key of the Biblical scales. John Wheeler, one of the leading experts on the work of Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura, recently expained this process to me in more detail:
"Occam's Razor is at the very heart of SHV's work. SHV's deciphering key is not a scientific theory that can be refuted by a single contrary observation (as even Albert Einstein described his own powerful theories of relativity). It is rather a model, a framework of interpretation that is able to adjust to new facts as they come in. About the only thing that could really refute it is an undisputed "Rosetta Stone" from antiquity giving a simpler and more complete explanation of how the accents work. Hand me such a record and I'll be the first to welcome it.
But there is indeed an element of religious faith involved here: faith that an infallible personal God can work through fallible human beings to preserve His "oracles" despite themselves, if necessary. We should expect the authoritative received text to be as good as an original document, or very nearly, when dealing with the meaning of the accents. When one examines just how carefully the Masoretic Text was preserved, and how even the disagreements among the Masoretes give us such a valuable "paper trail" as to what the accentuation is all about, that faith becomes self-authenticating without ever becoming "blind". There are always new challenges to face in dealing with the evidence, and in so doing, knowledge grows and faith in one's model is confirmed.
Meanwhile, like a good theory, SHV's model passes a very close shave with Occam's Razor. Not every combination of accents found in the manuscripts and printed editions (which arose out of the Masoretes' and grammarians' own model or framework for the accents' meaning) leads to equally felicitous musical results. Not every possible mode within SHV's own model will work within a particular verse or clause. SHV herself had to adjust the modality on some texts, notably the entire Book of Ruth as the maximum test case, as a deeper understanding of the structure of the book became apparent.
On another subject, there is a needless prejudice in our society for "objective" over "subjective" thinking. Carl Jung was wiser. He understood that both are equally valid perspectives of human thought. The only difference is that objective cognitive processes are turned outward, subjective cognitive processes are turned inward - it is not a question of one kind being more reliable or more accurate than the other. The processes have to do with how we take in information and how we then decide based on that information. And we are also biased in our society toward three of the eight or nine intelligences that Howard Gardner has discussed in his model of multiple human intelligences. Again, it is not a question of any of these being superior. Each has its proper role.
To discern the modes in an ancient notation that by its very design demands that one infers the modality (and the te`amim are far from alone in this), one has to make subjective value judgments. That doesn't make such judgments less valuable or less valid than objective value judgments, let alone objective or subjective logical judgments. Value judgments take into account the effect on the person and/or other people. But there's a catch. In the case of subjective value judgments - what the Jungians call Fi or Introverted Feeling - there is a strange connection in the human mind between one's personal values and what are universal values. These two are often mistaken (one reason there is so much religious, political and philosophical confusion in the world). We can come to prefer some musical effects on ourselves, which constitutes our personal taste. But to come to terms with a decipherment like SHV's, one must be willing and able to put such personal preferences aside. One must discern what is really "hard-wired" in the human brain with regard to musical responses (an astonishing amount, as it turns out, far more than in linguistic responses). This is not easy, but it is possible.
SHV listed in her book a number of examples illustrating how modal inferences are made. One is able increasingly to make distinctions between what one prefers by nurture and what one responds to be nature as one works with the material. One might argue over the mode used in Genesis 1:1, for example, but once one comes to verse 2 one may be sure of what mode is used. As one proceeds through the chapter the mode is verified, verse after verse, one melodic-verbal linkage after another. The wrong mode will emphasize important words too little and unimportant words not enough, and thereby give an overall ill-fitting "mood" to the words, not bringing out their meaning. The right mode will emphasize the words properly and the meaning of the whole "leaps out at you". And it helps that in general, a self-contained melodic-verbal text from antiquity had the same mode throughout, with at most the use of accidentals for nuancing. The First Pythian Ode is like that"
Here is a fascinating video by John Wheeler, describing how her alleged reconstruction of the original 3000 year old music of the Hebrew Bible was made possible:
The "accents" were, in fact, representations of hand gestures, which were known to be used in antiquity (e.g. in ancient Egyptian music) to denote both the pitch and the ornamentation of a melody. Such a system of hand gestures is known as "chironomy" - John Wheeler also gives a fascinating series of lectures on this subject:
John Wheeler recently clarified for me, some more details about the mysterious "Te Amim" Biblical notation, and the reasons why these particular accents can be interpreted as the original accents, which preserve the lost reading tradition of the Levites - the musical notation once sung by the Levites in the Temple of Jerusalem.
Before the first appeance of the meticulouly preserved Tiberian "Te Amim" accents in the Hebrew Bible, other accents also appeared, known as the Babylonian & Palastinian accents:
"SHV alludes to the belief by some, when the Tiberian notation first appeared, that it and the Palestinian and Babylonian notations were three different ways of representing the same thing. But how can that be? The other two are more or less unsystematic by comparison, first of all. The Palestinian notation consists of dots, while the Babylonian notation - while more complex and sharing a few of the same signs - doesn't even put the same signs in the same places as the Tiberian notation does.
In the ENCYCLOPEDIA JUDAICA we have typical accent clauses for the Babylonian notation. It seems syntactically consistent enough so that its function in that area is understood. I list the two subsystems on my Web page here. Most are letters and are thought to represent the names of the accents involved. As far as I've ever read, no one understands what these are supposed to represent melodically, especially given the nature of Babylonian Jewish chant. But if I can trust the charts, then their syntactic role is self-evident enough.
The evidence is most consistent with each of these three notations representing three different traditions which may have some common ground. The argument that the Tiberian notation represented the truly ancient and prophetic tradition (and not just a local and synagogal one deriving from an older and purer tradition) couldn't rest on an understanding of its meaning; there was no such thing then. The argument apparently rested ultimately on the notation's source: via the Karaites, heirs of the priestly Elders of Bathyra or Boethusians, who themselves were called "the heirs of the prophets" by the Karaites. Its syntactic clarity - even though it still took several centuries to work out its rules systematically even in that area - must've been persuasive in that direction also. Moshe ben Asher, next-to-last of the Masoretes, mentions both the source and the clarity of the notation in his various discussions of it. Maimonides ultimately accepted the Tiberian accents as authoritative, and the rest of medieval Judaism followed suit. Beyond that, one had to demonstrate what the notation actually meant, and how that it correlates with the words in a way that only something created simultaneously with the words could do. That, of course, was SHV's contribution.
To answer another part of your question: SHV didn't know when she did her work about the other synagogal notations. It wouldn't have mattered if she did. They're considered by all to represent local traditions. Judaism long since accepted the Tiberian notation as the most complete and correct, even if it also accepted it as a notation of local synagogue traditions. One might as well start with the best data base one has.
What SHV did know was the assessment (in a French encyclopedia of music, no less) that the (Tiberian) te'amim were ancient, musical and of unknown meaning. That was the opinion of musicologists specifically. I like to say that in this and several other matters, SHV was led down the right path by sheer serendipity. She didn't have to unlearn almost two millennia of false assumptions about the notation's meaning and origins, and she didn't have to go to what would've been ultimate dead ends first.
It would be interesting for its own sake to discover if the Babylonian notation, at least, presents enough information for an independent decipherment. I've thought about that for some time. But like as not it would be consistent with the structure of Babylonian synagogue chant, which isn't consistent with the structure of the Tiberian notation on a meaningful level beyond very basic syntactic coincidences. And for me or anyone else to attempt an independent decipherment, one would have to have access to all the texts containing the Babylonian notation. No doubt they are published somewhere, or many of them, but the trouble is the Babylonian notation got mixed in with the Tiberian notation after the latter's appearance before being supplanted and the Babylonian notation may not be consistently applied. Just dealing with the complications of variant readings in the Tiberian notation is challenging enough. There again SHV had to have serendipity on her side; Gerard E. Weil directed her not to the BHS text he was editing, but to the Letteris text. And that has got to be the strangest circumstance in the whole history of this thesis"
In summary, from what I understand, the earlier occurence of the Babylonian & Palestinian notations possibly represent respective local traditions of singing (whose original meaning and interpretation is now lost, compounded by the fact that it got mixed up with the later Tiberian notation). This Tiberian "Te Amim" notation (from the Hebrew "ta`am"- "to taste") later added by the Masoretes, has its credentials to Levite antiquity, thanks to it being preserved & handed down by the Karaites: heirs of the priestly Elders of Bathyra or Boethusians.Thus, according to the claims of Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura, the entire Bible was revealed as one immense musical score - the musical legacy once thought forever lost, after the destruction of the Temple, had been rediscovered...
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE "TE AMIM" ACCENTS - EVIDENCE OF A BIBLICAL LINK BETWEEN THE ANCIENT HEBREWS AND THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS?
If the "Te Amim" accents attached to the entire text of the earliest surviving examples of the Hebrew Bible really do represent Egyptian-style chironomy musical notation, then there is another amazing implication - this could be tantalizing evidence of the link between ancient Egyptian culture, and the ancient Hebrews, as so vividly described throughout the Hebrew Bible!
There are, however, essential differences between ancient Egyptian chironomy, and the chironomy used by the ancient Hebrews, as John Wheeler recently explained to me:
"Egyptian chironomy and the chironomy behind biblical Hebrew chant are based on different scale systems, different hand-gestures, and the presence or absence of the use of fingers and of one or two hands. Egyptian chironomy could use both hands, but rarely is shown to do so. Hebrew chironomy required both hands regularly, according to my model of it. So while Egyptian chironomy could be the technology that inspired Moses' adaptation of the technology to the Hebrew language and liturgical spirit, just as the Tabernacle has clear Egyptian forebears in architectural technology, in neither case is one technology or product thereof the slavish imitation of the other. On the other hand, chironomy was widely known and used in the ancient world and well into the Middle Ages; some places still maintain it in liturgy"
Despite the fact that Egyptian chironomy and Hebrew chironomy differ in subtle details, to me, it is a reasonable assumption that the latter was borrowed and adapted from the former. Indeed, if Moses had the privilege of being educated in Pharaoh's Court during his youth, he certainly would have been trained in learning the ancient Egyptian Art of Chironomy...the Te Amim accents depicting the Hebrew version of chironomy musical notation could have even been put there by Moses himself!
THE PRE-EXISTING INFLUENCE OF EGYPTIAN MUSIC ON CANAANITE MUSICAL CULTURE?
An alternative explanation to account for the ancient Egyptian-based chironomy musical notation (assuming that this is what it actually is!), found in the earliest surviving Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible, may alternatively be explained by the often overlooked Egyptian cultural influence on Canaan, prior to the conquest of Canaan by the ancient Hebrews (or more likely, the gradual infiltration of the Hebrews into Canaan followed by eventual conquest - similar to the infiltration into Egypt by the Canaanite Hyksos at the end of the Egyptian Middle Kingdom, c.1650BCE, until their eventual conquest and rule of Lower Egypt for the next century or so) ...
The troubling fact is, that during the proposed traditional historical period when the Biblical Exodus took place (in 19th Dynasty during the reign of Ramses II), the land of Canaan, was, in fact, a Provence of ancient Egypt, firmly under Egyptian control - and indeed, the very reason why Ramses built is city of Pi Ramses where he did, was to maintain this control of Canaan!
This controversial matter of the actual historical era of the Exodus could be discussed in a whole website of its own, but the musical significance is what matters to me here in this discussion...
In the 18th and 19th Dynasties of ancient Egypt, Canaanite slave girls, particularly musicians and dancers, "were a highly valued commodity...The singers of the local Canaanite aristocracy, however, were even more popular" ( p.86, "Music in Ancient Israel/Palestine", Joachim Braun). This ongoing exchange of musicians, and hence an exchange of musical ideas and musical concepts, between ancient Egypt and the land of Canaan, therefore, may be an alternative explanation of the existence of ancient Egyptian musical notation appearing in the olest surviving Hebrew text of the Bible?
THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ORGINAL 3000 YEAR OLD MUSIC OF THE BIBLE?
The video below features Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura 's reconstruction of what she claimed to be the original melody to Psalm 137, which famously mentions the Kinnor (as can be read in the English transliteration of the Hebrew text which Wheeler supplies) - the Kinnors were the very lyres hung in the willow trees as the Jewish musicians who were exiled to Babylon describe so poignantly, how they wept, "when we remember Zion..." If this is indeed the original 3000 year old melody which accompanied the timeless words of this Psalm, it certainly makes the power and spiritual impact of the words of the Hebrew text come to life! Indeed, the intention of the original music written by the Psalmist to accompany his words, was to give every single word of the Psalm its intended emphasis, and its intended meaning :
SUMMARY
Most musicologists fail to understand the sheer monumental significance of Suzanne Haik-Vantoura's work - if Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura's monumental decipherment process is correct, then these spiritual treasures, once sang in the actual Temple of Jerusalem, would be the first ever discovery of complete "Art Music" from Antiquity...predating the 1st century ancient Greek "Song of Seikilos" (the only other complete surviving piece of music from the ancient world so far discovered), by at least 1000 years!!!
I think that most of the critics of Suzanne Haik Vantoura make the logical fallacy of putting up "strawman arguments" - by not actually knowing & understanding all the immense mesh of syntactical/grammatical stages of SHV's actual decipherment process, before they attempt to "refute" them - it is like trying to argue that the Earth is curved because we don't fall off it, without first knowing all the facts about the nature of the gravitational attraction!
For me, even though I do not claim to understand all the intricacies behing the immense grammatical & sytactical basis of Suzanne Haik Vantoura's reconstruction of these ancient Biblical melodies, the actual melodies she deciphiphered speak for themselves - they fit the ancient Hebrew text so perfectly, and bring out the such perfect meaning and emphasis to the text to which they accompany, that the most logical explanation, is that these melodies were written at the same time as the ancient Hebrew text.
It is unfortunate that there are not better quality recordings of Suzanne Haik Vantoura's work. Her original 1976 recordings "La Musique de la Bible Revelee" are now no longer available on CD, (to my knowledge) and the vocal style used in these recordings is far too "modern" and filled with excessive operatic vibrato, for a reconstruction of what the original Levitical Choir may have sounded like.
Modern orchestral intruments, (eg harps and trumpets) rather than authentic replica lyres were used - although the tonal colour is similar to what the original instruments sounded like, it still sounds far too modern, for a reconstruction of the original Levitical Ensemble.
"The Shofar Group" recently did a better album of some of Suzanne's work, but although the vocal style was much better & mercifully less "operatic" sounding, they substituted the sound of authentic replica lyres for an acoustic guitar - which for me, certainly spoils the ancient feeling of the music.
The "San Antonio Vocal Arts Ensemble", however, recently did a much more authentic-sounding arrangements of some of Suzanne Haik Vantoura's reconstructions in their album, available from Amazon, "Ancient Echoes - Music From The Time of Jesus & Jerusalem's Second Temple"...this album features replica lyres, authentic silver trumpets, shofars etc:
If Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura's claims to have re-discovered the 3000 year old music of the Hebrew Bible are true, then it was to spiritually profound, ancient melodies such as these - the original melodies of the Psalms, as sung by the legendary Levitical Choir in the Temple of Jerusalem, that the Levitical Ensemble of Kinnor Lyres once accompanied, so beautifully & harmoniously...
THE ORIGINAL 3000 YEAR OLD BIBLICAL SCALES?
My various deductions outlined ealier, regarding finding "authentic" tunings for my replica Kinnor (based on survivng Jewish musical modes, still heard today), are also further verifed, by the actual 3000 year old Biblical scales Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura claimed to have discovered during the course of her life's work.
In some of these 3000 year old Biblcal melodies, one of the original Biblical scales Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura claimed to have discovered (from which the traditional Jewish Ahava Raba mode is no doubt ultimately derived from), sometimes has either a F natural or an F sharp after the tonic E - the "true" Ahava Raba mode in use today, only has an F natural after the E tonic.
When just the F is used, the resulting musical mode sounds "major" at the bottom end of the scale, yet sounds "minor" at the top end of the scale –
E F# G# A B C D E
The original "Biblical" version of the Ahava Raba mode, can best be heard in the fantastic video below. This is Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura's restitution of the orginal Priestly or Aaronic Blessing (Numbers 6:22-27), as performed by the San Antonio Vocal Arts Ensemble (aka SAVAE) on their truly monumental CD album "Music from the Time of Jesus & Jerusalem's Second Temple".
This is the track on the SAVAE album, which almost physically transported me back in time, the very first time I heard it, to the distant days of my very own, very ancient Levite ancestors playing their Lyres in the Temple of Jerusalem:
The "major-minor" effect of this Biblical mode I described above, can be very clearly heard in the link below, which is the original melody of Psalm 113:
Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura's also claimed to identify a scale which is strikingly similar to the traditional "Misheberakh" Klezmer mode discussed earlier.
The "Misheberakh" mode in use today is :
E F# G A# B C# D E.
The Biblical scale used in the original melodies of the Psalms (as claimed to be deciphered by the late Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura) is a very close match to the scale used in the example above - the only difference being the use of D sharp instead of D natural:
E F# G A# B C D# E
This is the original 3000 year old music she caimed to have deciphered for Psalm 27, in which the distinctive augmented 4th of this scale can clearly be heard:
The oldest known scale, the Major Heptatonic Scale, also features in many of the orginal Psalms, which Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura caimed to have deciphered:
E F# G# A B C# D# E
This can be heard in her painstaking deciphering of the orginal music of Psalm 96. Here is an orchestral arrangement of the 3000 year old melody to this Psalm, which she claimed to have discovered:
The Natural Minor Scale also is prominent throughout Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura's painstaking reconstructions of what she claimed, was the original 3000 year old music of the Hebrew Bible:
E F# G A B C D E
Here is her reconstruction of the original music of Psalm 19, in this haunting Natural Minor Scale:
As I also noted in the videos in this section of this website, of my arrangements of traditional Egyptian folk music, the Natural Minor Scale can be heard in all of these traditional Egyptian melodies...as it still does in many examples of traditional Jewish music (e.g. "Hatikvah", "HIne Ma Tov", "Yigdal", "Artza Alinu", "Havenu Shalom Aleichem", "Ose Shalom" etc). This could well be an indication that this scale has incredibly ancient roots, throughout the entire Middle East?
Here is Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura 's reconstruction of Psalm 148, in which all the 3000 year old Biblical scales she claimed to have discovered, can be heard:
Although the chironomy notation describes the changes in pitch and ornamentation of the melody, it does not actually notate the specific musical scale/mode being used - how did Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura achieve this monumental feat?
The process of elimintation she used must have been staggering in its complexity, but in short, from what I understand, with any given text in a song, the use of different musical musical scales to accompany the same specific text, will result in emphasis on different words and phrases in the text of the song.Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura's genius, was to analyse every single syllable of the specific ancient Hebrew text, and by using her incredible musical intuition as a composer and musician, had the breakthough of realizing that only certain specific musical intervals would giove the Hebrew text the correct emphasis and accentuation, in order to convey the actual meaning of the words - she used the actual syntax, meaning and grammatical structure of the ancient Hebrew text of the Bible as the deciphering key to find the correct musical modes to which the chironomy notation actually referred to, 3000 years ago when the words and music of the Hebrew Bible were written!
I am not a trained musicologist, but as a musician, I too possess musical intuition - although I do not know all the enormous technical musical, syntactical and grammatical convolutions entailed in the deciphering process of the Te Amim, every time I actually hear the music which Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura claimed to decipher, I become more and more convinced of the truth of this monumental, and amazingly, almost unhear of, musical discovery of the Millenium!
Finally, here is John Wheeler's explanation to me, (one of the leading experts on the work of Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura), about how this almost incomprehensible musical feat was made possible:
"The Hebrew verbal syntax was the guide to figuring out the basic musical syntax: the framework of sublinear notes and superlinear ornaments. The question of musical mode (which isn't stated by the accents) is parallel to that of verbal grammar (which is stated by the parallel words). The "wrong mode" will make grammatically unimportant words seem too important and vice versa, by putting too much pitch inflection on some words and not enough on others. The "right mode" will give a balanced interpretation; it just "falls together" to the ear and into one's mind. And when this happens, one finds that the verbal meaning is clarified as well. There are only four modes in psalmody - not some vast number of modes. The picture is complicated in some Psalms by the use of accidentals in "modes with variable degrees" and with the use of more than one mode, but in general one Psalm has one mode without accidentals. Likewise there aren't all that many modes in prosodia. I counted nine in the Song of Songs, but that's only because this page's list defines some modes with variable degrees as separate modes (which, from another point of view, they are not). I only counted six basic modes in prosodia...although I was then unaware of a seventh (common in the Prophets - it is the last mode that Suzanne inferred, late in her life, because it is so "bizarre" from our modern point of view). You can decide between whole categories of modes in one blow by figuring out how the tonic and the 3rd degree relate (is the interval major or minor?). You can further pare one's choices down by looking at the 4th and 6th degrees, relative to the tonic. Finally, you can look at the 2nd degree. Some combinations of intervals simply don't exist in either prosodia or psalmodia, so not all theoretical possibilities confront you in practice..."
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Special thanks to John Wheeler, for all the fascinating, detailed musicological information on the monumental musical discovery of the late Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura...
Besides the similarity between the Lyre of the New Kingdom of Anient Egypt and the Lyre of the Ancient Hebrews, there is also striking similarities, between the Lyre of the Ancient Hebrews, and the "Kithara" - the Lyre of the Ancient Greeks!
The Kithara, was the large wooden lyre, favoured by the professional musicians of ancient Greece:
Note the amazing similarity, between this ancient Greek Lyre, and the ancient Hebrew "Kinnor" - the Lyre of of the Ancient Hebrews, as seen here on illustrations found on ancient Jewish coins, from the time of the Simon Bar Kochba Revolt against the Romans in 134CE:
The only physical difference, was that usually, the Kithara had 7 strings, wheras the Kinnor had 10 strings - presumably as a reminder to the ancient Levite musicians in the Temple of Jerusalem who played them, of the 10 Commandments?
I have even experimented in playing ancient Greek music on my replica Lyre of the Ancient Hebrews, and the results are amazing...
Here is a video of my arrangment of "Song of Seikilos"(c.200BCE - 100CE):
Below is another video, featuring my arrangement for lyre, of "The First Delphic Hymn To Apollo"(c.138BCE):
Here is an incredible video I found of ancient Greek music from the 2nd century CE ("Hymn to the Muse", by Mesomedes of Crete), performed by Michael Atherton & Melismos, which features an actual replica of the ancient Greek Kithara, and the similarity between both the sound and the appearance of the Kithara & the Kinnor becomes even more obvious:
Here is my own arrangement of "Hymn to the Muse". In my arrangement, I have also added the accidentals indicated in the ancient Greek alphabetical musical notation of this ancient melody. Accidentals were achieved on the diatonically strung lyres of antiquity, by pressing either the knuckle or nail of the finger of the left hand onto the string, which shortens its length just like a fret on a guitar fingerboard, thus raising the pitch of the string by the required semitone:
THE POSITION OF THE LEFT HAND?
I have often read in various musicological articles, that all ancient music was monophonic, with no harmony as we know it today. They claim that the left hand of the lyre player, was simpy used to dampen the strings (just as harp players do today to remove any unwanted sustain), and played no part in adding harmony to the melody being played with the plectrum in the right hand.
However, in my opinion, these statements are not verified by people who have actualy played a lyre! In my extensive experience of gradually mastering the lyre, I have found that, unlike the harp, due to the smaller size of the lyre, there is virtually no unwanted sustain - the left hand, in my opinion, was therefore more likely used to provide basic harmonic accompaniment (as heard in the Michael Atherton video), or else it was used in the "Block and Strum" lyre-playing technique - whereby basic chords/intervals can be strummed on the lyre (just like on an acoustic guitar), by blocking with the left hand, notes not required, and leaving open the strings which are to be stummed.
This ancient string-blocking technique of lyre playing, can still be heard today, in the "Krar" lyre-playing musicians of Eritrea, in East Africa:
AN ANCIENT JEWISH SCALE - HEARD IN A FRAGMENT OF AN ANCIENT GREEK MELODY!
I was recently astonished to find evidence of an ancient Jewish scale, still heard today, appearing in a geniuine fragment of ancient Greek Music called "Tecmessa's Lament"!
This Jewish scale is called the "Misheberakh Mode". This is a variation of the ancient Natural Minor mode, still often heard in instrumental Jewish Klezmer music today, is the basic natural minor scale, but with the addition of an augmented 4th and a whole tone between the 5th and 6th intervals of the scale:
E F# G A# B C# D E
Here is an example of this scale, as hear in my arangement for lyre, of the Klemzer classic, "Odessa Bulgar":
Here is a video I found, of an orchestral arrangement of the ancient Greek melody, "Techmessa's Lament" - exactly the same intervals of the Jewish "Misheberakh Mode" can be clearly heard:
Coinicidence, or yet more evidence of an ancient cross-cultural exchange of musical ideas?
Finally, another intriguing similarity between the ancient Hebrew Kinnor and the ancient Greek Kinnor (and maybe even the Krar, still played to this day!), is the actual sound of the name of these instruments - it is virtually the same! Again, coincidence, or maybe the similar root of the words of the portable wooden lyres of ancient Greece, the ancient Hebrews, and the the Krar lyre of East Africa, may suggest evidence of yet another example of some ancient cross-cultural connection between these various cultures?
THE OLDEST WRITTEN MELODY IN HISTORY, c.1400BCE!
The unique video below, features my arrangement of the 3400 year old "Hurrian Hymn no.6", which was discovered in Ugarit, northern Canaan (now forming the Southern part of modern Syria) in the early 1950s, and was preserved for 3400 years on a clay tablet, written in the Cuneiform text of the ancient Hurrian language - it is the oldest written song yet known!
The lyre on which I play my own arrangement of the 3400 year old Hurrian Hymn from ancient Canaan, is an instrument which would be almost tonally identical to the wooden asymmetric-shaped lyres played throughout the Middle East at this amazingly distant time...when the Pharaoh's still ruled ancient Egypt:
A photograph of the actual clay tablet on which the Hurrian Hymn was inscribed, can be seen here:
The melody is one of several academic interpretations, from the ambiguous Cuneiform text of the Hurrian language in which it was written. Although many of the meanings of the Hurrian language are now lost in the mists of time, it can be established that the fragmentary Hurrian Hymn which has been found on these precious clay tablets are dedicated to Nikkal; the wife of the moon god. There are several such interpretations of this melody, but to me, the fabulous interpretation just somehow sounds the most "authentic". Below is a link to the sheet music, as interpreted by Clint Goss:
In my arrangement of the Hurrian Hymn, I have attempted to illustrate an interesting diversity of ancient lyre playing techniques, ranging from the use of "block and strum" improvisation at the end, glissando's, trills & tremolos, and alternating between harp-like tones in the left hand produced by finger-plucked strings, and guitar-like tones in the right hand, produced by use of the plectrum. I have arranged the melody in the style of a "Theme and Variations" - I first quote the unadorned melody in the first section, followed by the different lyre techniques described above in the repeat, & also featuring improvisatory passages at the end of the performance. I am also playing the lyre horizontally - a much more authentic playing position, as depicted in ancient illustrations of Middle Eastern Lyre players:
This also seems a much more stable playing position to me, and I find it much easier to improvise with string-blocking etc when the lyre is held in this manner.
My arrangement of the melody is much slower than the actual academic interpretation - I wanted the improvisations in the variations on the theme to stand out, and to better illustrate the use of lyre techniques by a more rubato approach to the melody. The lyre I am playing is a replica of the Lyre of the Ancient Hebrews, based on contemporary illustration on the back of an ancient Jewish coins. Travel back in time with me now, to the very Dawn of Civilization...
A studio quality recording of this piece can be now heard on track 6 of my NEW ALBUM, "Ancient Times - Music of the Ancient World" - available from Apple iTunes & cdbaby:
Here is a video featuring a clip of Dominik Johnson's masterfully mixed audio track from the album:
THE ANCIENT LYRE-PLAYING TECHNIQUES USED IN MY ALBUMS
The diverse range of lyre-playing techniques I have used in the creation of my albums, are all authentically based upon ancient lyre playing techniques which have amazingly survived to the present day, and which can still be heard in parts Egypt and East Africa. These techniques includes alternating between guitar-like, plectrum-plucked tones in the right hand and harp-like, finger-plucked tones in the left hand; which also sometimes includes providing basic harmony below the melodic line.
I have also experimented with the ancient lyre-playing technique of “finger blocking” in “Odessa Bulgar” and also in the final section of “The Music of Moses”; this is where rhythm can be strummed on the lyre with a plectrum in the right hand, just as on a guitar - notes not required in the chords are blocked by fingers of the left hand.
This particular ancient lyre-playing technique can actually still be heard today, in the traditional "Krar" lyre players of Eritrea, in East Africa:
I also ornament the melodic lines with plentiful tremolo accompaniments; a style which has also survived to the present day, as can be heard in the lyre-playing techniques of the traditional "simsimyya" lyre players of Port Said, in Egypt.
The Egyptian simsimiyya (Arabic: سمسمية) is an amazing wire-strung lyre, still played in Egypt today..which may have had its origins, 4000 years ago, in the Middle Kingdom of ancient Egypt:
Here is a video featuring one of these amazing traditional Egyptian folk songs from Port Said, as arranged on my replica 3000 year old Lyre of the Ancient Hebrews:
I am increasingly fascinated in continuing to discover, just how many types of lyres are still played in the world today! The lyre is such an amazingly and magnificantly versatile instrument, and it is such a tragic loss in the Western world, that it can now only be heard in just a few countries dotted around East Africa - it truly was, the "guitar" of the ancient world...
ANCIENT TUNING SYSTEMS
HOW TO TUNE A REPLICA 3000 YEAR OLD LYRE?
ANCIENT TUNING SYSTEMS
In antiquity, lyres were tuned using "Just Intonation." Below is a quote from Wikepedia, explaining the basic concepts...
"In music, just intonation is any musical tuning in which the frequencies of notes are related by ratios of whole numbers. Any interval tuned in this way is called a just interval; in other words, the two notes are members of the same harmonic series.
Justly tuned intervals are usually written either as ratios, with a colon (for example, 3:2), or as fractions, with a solidus (3 ⁄ 2). Colons indicate that division is not done, so it is the preferred usage in music: In practice, two tones, one at 300 Hertz (cycles per second), and the other at 200 hertz is a perfect fifth (3:2).
Just intonation can be contrasted and compared with equal temperament, which dominates western orchestras and default MIDI tuning. Equal temperament starts by arranging all notes at multiples of the same basic interval, but the intervals themselves are altered slightly, relative to just intonation. Each interval possesses its own degree of alteration. The process results in a tuning system where all intervals will have exactly the same character in any key."
Just intonation is achieved in antiquity, by either Divisive or Cyclical tuning methods...
CYCLICAL TUNING
This is the most natural way to tune a lyre, and such tuning methods are well documented in ancient Babylonian Cuneiform texts. This entails tuning the strings of the lyre in a cyclical series of perfect 4ths and 5ths. The 3rds were then finely tuned by ear.
I attempted to play my lyre in cyclic just tuning for the following performance of the "Delphich Hymn to Apollo" (c.138BCE) as seen in the vidoe below. However, not having perfect pitch, I could not quite get the 3rds sounding "right":
As a compromise, I finally decided to do my studio recordings in equal temperament...with the aid of a nice, new fangled 21st century digital chromatic tuner!
DIVISIVE TUNING
This was the most natural way to tune the ancient lutes, or any fretted instrument, and was first documented by Pythagoras. Divisive tuning entails precisely dividing the length of a monchord into specific mathematical ratios, resulting in the respective desired musical pitches being achieved. This tuning predates Pythagoras, and may have eveolved with the origin of the long-necked lute in ancient Babylonia, according to John Wheeler:
"The long-necked lute (according to Curt Sachs) was invented in Babylonia, and indeed thanks to that fact divisive tuning was invented there also. Cyclical tuning was also known there (and that got documented long after his death by the famous theory and hymn tablets from Babylon and Ugarit), but there is this curious fact: the Babylonians used divisive tuning as the basis for their symbolic correlation of the pillar degrees of the octave (e.g., C-F-G-C') with the four seasons, while the Chinese used cyclical tuning as the basis for the symbolic correlation of the same. This (wrote Sachs) is consistent as Babylon was the "home" of the lute and China the "home" of the harp (even though Babylon knew of harps and lyres too and China, if memory serves, also knew the lute from very early times). Divisive tuning is the "natural" tuning of the lute, as cyclical tuning is the "natural" tuning of the harp and lyre, according to Sachs. By that he meant that it's easiest and most natural to tune, and then to play, folk instruments of those genres that way - as I can vouch as a working musician.
There is a way that one can tune a harp or a lyre "by ear" to divisive tuning, though, one form of that method may be documented in Babylon, and really I think you could do it readily enough - you don't sound that tone deaf to me. :) [Taste in various "timbres" I might dispute, you psycho klezmer player. :)) ] Maybe some day I'll be able to squeeze in a scan of how folk harpist Sylvia Woods does it on the Celtic harp, and you can adapt it."
FINDING "AUTHENTIC" SOUNDING TUNINGS FOR MY LYRE
Regarding the tuning of the Kinnor, I have personally done much experimentation in both playing the Kinnor Lyre, & in attempting to find an "authentic" tuning; I have found that the ancient Jewish Chazzanut Modes (i.e.the modes used in cantorial singing in the synagogue) fit the 10 strings of the Kinnor perfectly. All the instrumental Klezmer modes are in turn derived mainly from Chazzanut modes, which are used in the cantorial singing in the synagogue.
It seems reasonable, therefore, to assume, that the ultimate origins of the modes used in singing in the synagogue, must in turn, have been influenced, to at least some extent, by the ancestral, aural memory of the singing of the Levitical Choir in the Temple of Jerusalem.
Since it was primarily the Kinnor Lyres which accompanied these Levitical singers, I find it logical to infer, that a tuning derived from either the Chazzanut modes or the Klezmer modes found in all traditional Jewish music to the present day, would be a fairly "authentic" inference as to what some of the original tunings of the Biblical Kinnor might have sounded like.
Here are some details of the tunings I used in the creation of my debut album, "King David's Lyre; Echoes of Ancient Israel" and my second album, "Lyre of the Levites"...
THE "AHAVA RABA" MODE
The most common Jewish scale heard in the performance of traditional instrumental Klezmer music, is known as the "Ahava Raba" Mode:
E F G# A B C D E
To play the Kinnor in the "Ahava Raba" Mode of traditional instrumental Jewish Klezmer music, I tune the 10 strings of the lyre as follows, bottom string to top:
D E(tonic) F G# A B C D E(tonic) F
I have tuned the Kinnor to the Ahava Raba mode, for my arrangements on the album of the following traditional instrumental Jewish Klezmer melodies: "Berdichiever Khosid", "Kandel's Hora", "Abu's Courtyard", "Bukovina Freylekhs" and "Der Heyser Bulgar" & "Araber Tantz" :
There are also many traditional Jewish folk songs in the "Ahava Raba" mode, as can be heard in my arrangements of "Zemer Atik" and "Hava Nagila":
The "Ahava Raba" mode can also be heard in the Synagogue, as can be heard in my arrangements of "Kol Nidre", "Avinu Malcheinu" (both traditionally sung at Yom Kippur), and the traditional melody usually sang to the Shabbat hymn "Shalom Aleichem" (this wonderful, timeless melody was, in fact, composed by the American Rabbi, Israel Goldfarb in 1918).
In my second album, "Lyre of the Levites", I also tune my Kinnor to the "Ahava Raba" mode for my arrangements of "Uzer Toyrele", "Noch Havdallah", "Sherele", Gut Morgan", "Yikhes", Firn Di Mekutonim Ahyem", "Der Yid in Yerushalayim" and "Baym Rebin's Sude".
THE NATURAL MINOR MODE
This scale has been preserved from the depths of antiquity, and can be heard in almost every traditional,
ancient Hebrew song:
E F# G A B C D E
As can also be heard in my videos of traditional Egyptian music which I have arranged for solo lyre (which can be found in this section of the website), the Natural Minor Scale also prevails - to me, this may suggests a very ancient root to the use of the Natural Minor Scale, throughout the Middle East?
To play my replica Kinnor in the Natural Minor Mode, I tune the 10 strings as follow, bass string to treble:
D E (tonic) F#G A B C D E (tonic) F#
Using a tuning of the Kinnor based around the Natural Minor Mode outlined above, this seems to work perfectly for the most famous of all Jewish melodies, "Hatikvah" (The Hope), which in 1948, became the National Anthem to the newly reborn State of Israel.
I have also used the same tuning in this album, in my arrangements of "Havenu Shalom Aleichem", "Siman Tov", "Shalom Chavarim", "Hine Ma Tov", "Oh Hanukah", "Shabbat Shalom", "Ose Shalom" and "Yigdal".
I also tune my Kinnor to the Natural Minor mode in my second album, "Lyre of the Levites", for the tracks "Artza Alinu", "Ale Brider" and "Yerushalayim Shel Zahav":
THE "MISHEBERAKH" MODE
A variation of the ancient Natural Minor mode, still often heard in instrumental Jewish Klezmer music today, is the basic natural minor scale, but with the addition of an augmented 4th and a whole tone between the 5th and 6th intervals of the scale:
E F# G A# B C# D E
This is known in traditional Jewish Klezmer music today, as the "Misheberakh" mode, as can be heard in my arrangement of the traditional Jewish wedding song, "Chusen Kalah Mazeltov" (track 3, "Lyre of the Levites"):
I also use this mode for my arrangement of "Odessa Bulgar" - track 10 from my first album, "King David's Lyre; Echoes of Ancient Israel".
THE ACTUAL SOUND OF THE LYRE OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS
This section of the website, features examples of some of the many videos I have recorded, during my countless "Experiements in Musical Archeology", as heard on my "Klefiddle1" Youtube Channel:
Unfortunately, these videos were recorded some time ago - before I was able to invest in a half-decent webcam, so apologies in advance, for the picture quality!
COMMENTARY ON THE PERFORMANCES
The first example, in the Ahava Raba mode, is the haunting Hebrew melody "Zemer Atik" (rather appropriately translated from the Hebrew as,"Ancient Melody"). This demonstrates how the amazingly beautiful sound of the Kinnor can bring an entirely new spiritual dimension to traditional Jewish music:
Below is a link to an example I have played on the Kinnor, of the ancient Rosh Hashana song, "Avinu Malkeinu" ("Our Father, Our King") which is in the Ahava Raba Mode, & this tuning of the Kinnor works perfectly, for both the melodic & harmonic structure of the song:
Another traditional Shabbat Evening song, is "Shalom Aleichem" ("Peace be Upon You"). This haunting melody was composed by the American Rabbi, Israel Goldfarb, in 1918. This beautiful melody is also in the Ahava Raba Mode, & when played upon the Kinnor Lyre, a whole new spiritual dimension seems to be added to the melody:
In an attempt to recreate some of the purely instrumental Jewish music which once must have been played upon the Kinnor, I have found that almost the entire traditional Jewish Klezmer repertoire fits the 10 strings of the Kinnor perfectly. The following video is of a wonderful traditional Klezmer melody called "Kandel's Hora" played my the Kinnor in the Ahava Raba tuning:
One of the most ancient of all musical scales in which Jewish music has been written, & which possibly pre-dates the use of the more Eastern-sounding Ahava Raba Mode in Jewish Klezmer music, is a mode based around the Natural Minor Scale:
E F# G A B C D E
This scale has been preserved from the depths of antiquity, and can be heard in almost every traditional, ancient Hebrew song.
Using a tuning of the Kinnor based around the Natural Minor Mode outlined above, this seems to work perfectly for the most famous of all ancient Jewish melodies, "Hatikvah" (The Hope), which in 1948, became the National Anthem to the newly reborn State of Israel. The following link is of Hatikvah being played on the ancient Kinnor Lyre with the following tuning, derived from the Natural Minor Mode:
D E(tonic) F# G A B C D E(tonic) F# :
The most famous of all Hebrew songs, "Havinu Shalom Aleichem", also is in this ancient Jewish musical mode:
This Natural Minor tuning works wonderfully for some of my favourite traditional Shabbat melodies. Here is my arrangement of a traditional meditative chant often sung at the beginning of the Shabbat Service:
One of my favourite traditional Hebrew songs, "Hine Ma Tov" can also be played on the Kinnor in this Natural Minor tuning:
A variation of the ancient Natural Minor Mode, which has also been preserved in Jewish music since Biblical times, as heard in many of the deciphered original melodies attached to the Psalms, is the basic Natural Minor scale, but with an augmented 4th:
E F# G A# B C# D E
This is known in Klezmer music today, as the "Misheberakh" mode, as can be heard in the Klezmer Classic, "Odessa Bulgar":
HAVE THE BIBLICAL LYRES SURVIVED TO THE PRESENT DAY?
In parts of East Africa, there is tantalising evidence, that a lyre still played today by musicians of this region, and traditionally known by them as the "Begena", is an almost exact replica of the one of ancient Jewish Temple Lyres:
There is a fascinating video clip of a Begena Lyre player which I have recently found on Youtube:
According to Ethiopian tradition, Menelik I brought the Temple Lyres to Ethiopia from Israel...crucially, the Begena Lyre also has 10 strings - identical in number to the 10 sheep gut strings of the original, ancient Hebrew Kinnor of King David!
I am almost certain that there is an amazing spiritual significance to this number of strings used on the Biblical Lyre - 10 strings, to represent the 10 Commandments? The possible links between ancient Israel and ancient Ethiopia go much further than this - also according to Ethiopian tradition, Menelik I also brought over to Ethiopia none other than the actual Ark of the Covenant, which according to the same tradition, is still kept under guard at the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Axum...
COULD THE ETHIOPIAN BEGENA BE IDENTIFIED AS EITHER THE BIBLICAL KINNOR OR THE BIBLICAL NEVEL?
The only difference I can think of, between the contemporary Begena, and the ancient Jewish Kinnor, may be one of pitch - the Begena is a bass instrument. This leads me to believe that the Begena could maybe regarded as a relic of the Biblical Nevel lyre, rather than the Kinnor. As discussed earlier, according the the Mishnah, the Biblical Nevel had thicker strings made of the sheep's large intestines, whereas the Kinnor's thinner strings were made from the small intestines.
Another clue to the hypothesis that the Nevel was a bass instrument, also comes from the number of Nevels which were used in comparision to the number of Kinnors used in the Levtical Ensemble - according to the Mishna, the use of the Nevel in th Levitical Ensemble was limited to "no fewer than two and no more than six", whereas "never fewer than nine Kinnorot, and more may be added" (Mishnah, Arak 2:5)
This implies that the Nevels provided the bass, over which the softer, treble/alto Kinnors provided the melodic lines - just as in a modern string orchestra, where the number of violins greatly outnumbers the number of double basses/cellos.
Further evidence in my attempt at identifying the Begena with the Biblical Nevel, can also be deduced from the playing style itself - according to the contemporary observations and records by Josephus Flavius, who actually witnessed the Levitical Ensemble in the 1st century CE, the Nevel was played with the fingers, whereas the Kinnor was played with a plectrum (Antiquities, vii.12.3). The Begena is always played with the fingers...just like the Biblical Nevel!
Quite often, the Begea has a soundboard of taut leather, as in the video clip - this could be evidence of the interpretation mentioned above, of the elusive Biblical Nevel as having a skin membrane.
However, what of the twelve strings of the original Biblical Nevel, which Josephus also informs us of in his Antiquities vii. 12.3? The modern Begena has ten strings, like the Biblical Kinnor. This anomaly can be explained by the Biblical reference to another type of Nevel - the "Nevel Asor". This name literally means "A Nevel With Ten Strings"!
Here is John Wheeler's thoughts on this fascinating possibility: "The ten-stringed wooden lyre I've seen from Ethiopia might well be a descendent of Egypt's version of what the Bible calls kinnor al - ha-Sheminit. SHV thought that might be like the Greek magadis with ten pairs of strings, but another possibility is that it was simply a bass lyre - a kinnor tuned an octave lover, "upon the Eighth" in Hebrew. Whereas the nevel `al -alamot "upon Maidens" or of "maidenly pitch" was more numerous and thus apparently of higher pitch than the specialized kinnor (all this referring to 1 Chronicles 15). The regular kinnor and nevel likely had a reverse pitch relationship, with the kinnor higher than the nevel (given the latter's thicker strings).
As far as I've ever seen in archaeology, bass versions of the kinnor and other bass lyres were only played with the fingers - that practice going back to ancient Mesopotamia. Lyres with plectra are at lowest of about high tenor range. I can play my Celtic harp with a guitar pick readily enough all the way down, but it sounds a whole lot better on the upper monofilament strings, again from high tenor range up."
If this hypothesis is true, then the Ethiopian Begena, therefore, could be quite literally described as the elusive Biblical Nevel...unchanged, in over 3000 years! A truly fascinating possibility...
THE SOUND OF THE BEGENA AND THE SOUND OF THE RESTORED BULL LYRE OF UR...
It is also fascinating just how similar the contemporary Begena Lyre sounds, compared to the playable reconstruction of the famous 47500 or so year old "Lyre of Ur". Mark Hammer has posted some simply fantastic videos on Youtube, of this lyre being played:
A POSSIBLE REASON FOR THE ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW WORD FOR "MELODY"?
It is particularly interesting to hear the same "buzz" the gut strings make, in both the replica Lyre of Ur, and the Begena - maybe, the reason the Hebrew word for melody; "Zemer", sounds like it does, is because originally, the word was onomatopoeic - the actual sound of the word "Zemer", sounds like the buzzing of the gut strings as they would have sounded on the original, ancient Jewish Kinnor Lyre? Yet another fascinating possibility!
THE ORIGIN OF THE CELTIC HARP AND THE LYRE OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS?
There is a fascinating LEGEND/MYTH, that the Celtic Harp is, in fact, a direct ancestor of the Lyre of the Ancient Hebrews, which was apparently introduced to Ireland 2600 years ago by Israelites who fled there in exile, after the Fall the of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 586BCE...
This is a quote from John Wheeler's fascinating website on music from the time of the Hebrew Bible...
"...The "harp of Tara", symbol of Ireland, is linked by Irish traditional history to the "harp of David". This last was said to have been brought to Ireland (among other artefacts) by "Ollamh Fodhla" (identified with the prophet Jeremiah), his scribe "Simon Brach" (identified with Baruch the scribe of Jeremiah), and "Tea Tephi" (identified with the daughter of King Zedekiah of Judah). Was this connection merely mythical, or could it have had a basis in truth?"
The Celts had lyres too; they also brought some kind of harp from the Middle East; and Jeremiah is said by Irish tradition to have brought a "harp".
In all likelihood, there was confusion in the transmission of historical facts in this little-known Gem of Irish Folk-Lore. However, in order to give this legend some of basis in truth, I have arranged several of the Irish musical gems featured on this album, on my actual replica of the Lyre of the Ancient Hebrews (the Biblical “Kinnor”), which King David himself once played, some 3000 years ago, and which was later played by my very own, very ancient Levite ancestors in the Temple of Jerusalem, to accompany the legendary singing of the Levitical Choir.
NB! I am NOT attempting to be "controversial" in trying to re-write history, and my intention is certainly NOT to offend ANY person's particular religious beliefs or traditions! It is merely a fascinating, harmless MYTH...but just maybe, with some hint of truth behind it?
The video below features a clip of track 1 of my album "The Northern emerald - Traditional Irish Music. To test the myth of the of the Levitical origin the Celtic harp in Ireland, in this track, I have arranged the haunting ancient Irish Air, "She Moved Through the Fair"...for my replica 3000 year old Lyre of the Ancient Hebrews:
Irish music really does work, when played on the Lyre of the Ancient Hebrews; the original "Harp of David" - maybe there is some truth in the fascinating legend of the Jewish origin of the Celtic Harp after all?
The pieces I have arranged for Davidic Lyre in "The Northern Emerald - Traditional Irish Music", are “She Moved Through the Fair” (track 1), “Brian Buru’s March” (track 8), “Tie the Bonnet” (track 11), “The Humours of Glendart” (track 13), and “Spancil Hill” (track 20).
"The Northern Emerald - Traditional Irish Music" is available from Apple iTunes, Amazon MP3 Store, Rhapsody, and cdbaby.com:
Michael J. King manufactures luthier quality replicas of the Anglo Saxon Lyre, which date to before the 10th century CE, as based upon the magnificant finds at Sutton Hoo:
Below is one of Michael's many fascinating videos of this intriguing lyre being played:
Here is another beautiful example of the haunting, ancient sound these Anglo Saxon lyres produce:
Finally, one of the ancient lyre-playing techniques of "string-blocking" (as will be discussed in the next section of this website) is demonstrated on a replica Anglo Saxon lyre in this very interested video by Robert Evans:
For full details on the history of the Anglo Saxon lyre, and the amazing craftsmanship which has goe into its painstaking reconstrution, please visit Michael's J. King's fascinating website:
Another fascinating European instrument which almost certainly has evolved from the ancient lyres of the Mediterranean & Middle East, is the bowed Welsh Crwth:
The modern form of this unique Welsh folk instrument is in essence, a lyre, in the sense that the strings pass over a bridge passing over a resonating body (which is very similar to the Anglo Saxon Lyre), but instead plucking open strings, the strings pass over a fretless fingerboard, and are bowed, just like on a violin.
Here is some interesting details on the historical background to this instrument, quoted from Wikipedia:
"Possible ancestors of the crwth are the lyreof the classical antiquity and the bowed Byzantine lyre of the 9th century. The modern crwth appears to date from only the late 15th or early 16th century and almost surely is not, as some romanticized accounts imply or declare, the same instrument that was played by the ancient and Medieval Welsh bards. In fact, its close ancestors became instruments of the folk culture of Wales and the West Country and West Midlands following the demise of minstrelsy in Britainat the close of the Middle Ages; and in its final form (probably emerging ca 1485-1510), it seems to have been confined to Wales. Although the modern crwth bears something of a resemblance to the classicallyre, with the addition of a bow, it is more closely related to the various plucked and bowed square and round lyres that drawings, paintings, and sculptures show to have existed throughout northern Europe from as far back as the 8th century. While the Middle-Eastern origin of the early European chordophone bow seems beyond dispute, the connections between the European round and square lyres and Middle-Eastern and Classicalprototypes are tenuous at best"
THE SURVIVAL OF THE LYRE IN AFRICA TODAY
By around 1000CE in the West, the lyre was totally replaced, not by the even more ancient harp, but by the evolution of more versatile string instruments with a fingerboard - the fingerboard meant less strings were required, and a greater range of pitches became available, in contrast to the open strings of the lyre. The last lyres played in Europe were the Anglo Saxon Lyres of the kind found at Sutton Hoo, as described earlier.
Thankfully, in many parts of the African contintent, particularly Ethiopia Eritrea, Uganda & Kenya, the lyre of antiquity was not replaced, and a precious remnant of the lyre-playing techniques and the actual sounds of the lyres of antiquity, have been amazingly preserved!
Besides the Ethiopian Begena, the Egyptian Simsimiyya and the Eritrean Krar lyres already discussed, as we shall discover, there are a whole family of lyres still being played throughout the African continent. Why might this be?
BEER, AFRICA, AND THE LYRE OF THE ANCIENT SUMERIANS???
One of my "Klezfiddle1" Youtube Channel subscribers (by the name of "leftysergeant") passed on this remarkable gem of information to me, reagarding evidence of ancient cross-cultural influences between Mesopotamia and Africa, which may suggest a Mespotamian origin of the lyre in or around Ur, in Sumeria, and why thousands of years later, the lyre is still being played in many parts of the African continent to this very day...
"I think I have another bit of evidence that the lyre got to Africa from Ur or elsewhere in Mesopotamia or Israel. It has to do with beer.
The Sumerians drank beer through a straw. I do not see any sign of this practice from Egypt. I did, however, stumble across several referrences to it, and saw one YouTube video (which I cannot now retrieve) referring to the practice in Kenya and others of the Swahili States, all of which also have the lyre in some form.
If you Google "kaffir beer" you will come across this site:
which has a picture way to the bottom of a group of Kenyans around a common beer pot with a bunch of reeds. Finding two such distinct cultural artifacts together is probably pretty good evidence for a common origin"
The more I dig, the more fascinating evidence of these strands of ancient cross-cultural connections can be found - the Ancient Legacy of the Lyre, in Africa, lives on...
THE ENDONGO LYRE OF UGANDA
Special thanks, to "leftyseargent" again, for the following gems of information about this fascinating African Lyre, which appears to be very similar to the Ancient Greek "Lyra":
"The Edongo [sometimes spelt Ndongo], is a Royal Court instrument of the Baganda people of Uganda. It is constructed rather like the Asherroo of Somalia, with the posts inserted through the covering skin from the top.
The Banganda people are not sure where it came from, but it employs leather straps to hold the strings like a traditional Ethiopian Begena, rather than tuning pegs like the typical Udungu or most Egyptian instruments"
This lyre appears very similar to the Baganda & Basoga Lyres of Uganda. Here is some fascinating information about these lyres, which I found at
"The Baganda and the Basoga lyre is made of lizard skin and laced with to a non-sonorous skin in the same manner as the harp and drums.
The strings are tied into a piece of wood and inserted into a hole where the two arms meet of the lyre meet. The 'Ganda lyre' (endongo) has one hole, the 'Soga instrument (entongoli) has two pieces of cloth, barkcloth or banana fibers wrapped around the yoke. The strings are wound round and round this material until it acts as a tuning peg.
The strings on the bowl lyre are not arranged in progressive order, as they are on the arched harp and the zither. The highest note in the scale is third from the left and the lowest, fifth. Strings 7, 2, 4, 1 and 5 are octaves"
VIDEOS OF THE LYRES STILL SURVIING IN AFRICA TODAY
The final selection of videos below testifies to this unique phenomenon, and for me, the survival of the ancient lyre-playing techniques in East Africa provides a tantilizing taste of how the music of the ancient world, was actually played...
THE OBUKANO LYRE FROM KENYA
THE LITUNGU LYRE FROM KENYA
THE NYATITI LYRE FROM KENYA
THE SHERRARA LYRE FROM SOMALIA
THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN HARP
Above is an example of an actual ancient Egyptian harp preserved at the British Museum. This is the finest surviving example of an ancient Egyptian arched wooden harp.
This harp found in the tomb of Thauenany, called Any, in a private cemetery at Qurna (Western Thebes), at the Valley of the Nobles in the necropolis of Sheikh Abd el-Qurna, from XVIII Dynasty, c.1534-1296 B.C.
Astonishingly, this archaic arched harp from ancient Egypt can still be heard in Africa today! Descendants of the original ancient Egyptian arched harp are to be found throughout the African continent...
THE ADUNGU HARP FROM UGANDA
As can be seen in the photograph below, the Adungu is virtually identical to the ancient Egyptian arched harp:
Below is a video of this incredible harp - almost identical to the harp once played in ancient Egypt, 3500 years ago...
THE BOLON BATO HARP FROM WEST AFRICA
The Bolan Bato also seems be be derived from the archaic ancient Egyptian arched harp:
THE SEPREWA HARP FROM GHANA
Another incredible arched harp, this time from Ghana, which also seem sto be based upon the ancient Egyptian arched harp:
DID THE ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIAN ARCHED HARP MIGRATE AS FAR AS CHINA?
The photograph above depicts an ancient Babylonian arched harp, in use througout ancient Mesopotamia from c. 1900BCE. There is tantalising evdience, that this ancient harp may have migrated in Antiquity, as far as China! (Special thanks again, to my Youtube Channel subscriber "Leftyseargent", for providing the following intriguing details).
The "phoenix-headed konghou", know in China since at least the 3rd Century BCE, is an almost exact copy of the Mesopotamian processional harp, with the sound box carried against the shoulder and the post parallel to the ground:
Also, The "Shoo Kong Hou" is strikingly similar to the Mesopotamian Harp! During the Xi Han Dynasty (206 B.C. to 25 A.D.), it was brought along the Silk Road to Central China. It was shaped like a bow or triangle with 7, 15, 22, or 23 strings. The bottom of the sound box sat upon a short pole, and that pole was set on a square or round block. The musician plays the Kong Hou with two arms holding the instrument. The musician plucks the strings with thumbs and index fingers only:
The ever-increasing evidence of ancient cross-cultural exchanges of musical ideas is absolutely fascinating!
CYPRUS AND THE ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIAN LYRE?
ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIAN LYRE PLAYING TECHNIQUES - IN CYPRUS!
Having recently had the pleasure of seeing the famous Mosaics at Paphos in Cyprus,(dating from the between the 2nd - 4th centuries CE) I was fascinated to see in the mosaics, a rare lyre-playing technique which until then, I thought was unique to ancient Mesopotamia!
In illustrations of lyre players from ancient Mesopotamia, (Details of a relief from SW Palace of Sennacherib at Nineveh, ca. 701 BC), instead of a plectrum to pluck the strings, the lyre players use a wooden baton to hit the strings - similar to how the hammered dulcimer is played today:
In several of the depictions of lyre players in the beautiful 2nd - 4th century CE Paphos Mosaics, almost exactly the same unusual, percussive lyre-playing technique, almost 1000 years later, can clearly be seen:
The illustrations above, clearly show Kithara players, with a wooden baton, not a plectrum, in the right hand! Yet more intriguing evidence of ancient cross-cultural musical exchange of ideas between Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean?
As these beautiful Mosaics were found in the ruins of Roman Villa's at Paphos, is this possible evidence that this ancient Mesopotamian lyre-playing technique may actually have migrated to ancient Rome?
Whether the lyre players depicted on the Paphos Mosaics represent either native Cypriot or Roman lyre players is virtually impossible to tell, but I think the pictorial evidence suggests that this unusual ancient lyre-playing technique may have migrated from Ancient Mesopotamia to both Ancient Rome & Ancient Cyprus - and by implication, the Mosaics may be just one crucial strand of evidence, to also infer that the musical culture of ancient Mesopotamia may to have radiated throughout almost the entire Ancient Mediterranean? Another fascinating possibility!
THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN LUTE - STILL BEING PLAYED IN AFRICA TODAY!
THE HISTORY OF THE LONG-NECKED LUTE
The long-necked lute has a history just as ancient than the lyre. It seems to have first appeared in Sumer, in ancient Mesopotamia, around 3500BCE:
Biblical Musicologist, John Wheeler also recentlu provided me with the following fascinating details about the orgins f the long-necked lute in the Middle East, over 5000 years ago:
"Professor Dumbrill has a "BOOK III Organology III - Lutes" as a sizeable section in his book. Lutes appeared as art of the process of the straigthening of the musical bow (in fact harps and lutes both appear as derivatives of the musical bow).
There are many illustrations of lutes given from archaeological material in Mesopotamia (such as seals), dating as far back as Period I (pre-3000 BC). I think you'll find this interesting (p. 325, with an illustration I can't give here). The lute discussed is from an Akkadian seal cylinder, Period III (2334-2000 BC) 218:
"We notice two tassels hanging from the top of the neck of the instrument, from this we deduce it was fitted with two tuneable strings. It is highly probably that the fastening of the tuned string was similar to that in Ancient Egypt, the same as used in Niger today as well as in many other African and Near-Eastern countries" (p. 325).
Finally I'll refer to a lute on seal 255 from Uruk (Period II, 3000-2334 BC): "The possible representation of a tuning peg at the side of the neck may indicate that another was placed at 90 degrees from the first and is therefore not visible. A third is just seen as a small protuberance at the other side of the first. This technique is still used on the Morrocan *genbri* to this day" (p. 322).
On the other hand, since the long and the short extension are perfectly aligned, I think it much more probable that we are seeing a single tuning stick, a device which likewise is very old (it was very frequently used on harps and lyres) and which likewise endures in practice in Africa"
From its origins in Sumeria, it then appeared in Canaan, and presumably during the Canaanite rule of Egypt under the Hyksos, the long-necked lute finally became established in ancient Egypt 3500 or so years ago, at the beginning of the New Kingdom.
Here is a detailed description of the Ancient Egyptian Lute, I found on this fascinating website:
"Classed as long necked lutes, the ancient Egyptian instruments generally had 2 - 3 strings, a semi-spike stick neck, and a drum-like body with an animal skin head. As seen in the period depiction above, the lutes' sound boxes came in two basic types:
A wooden, elongated-oval, boat-shaped body.
A semi-round body made from the whole shell of a tortoise.
The stick neck was round and generally depicted both with frets and without. The handful of extant examples reveal that the frets on the fretted variants might have been thin leather strips that were tied on to the neck or a single piece of leather or rope wrapped around the length of the neck with its protrusions serving as frets. In any case, they were not permanently fixed to the neck as integral components."
One of the most amazing discoveries I have found in my investigations into ancient cross-cultrual exchanges of musical ideas, is the survival of this ancient 3500 year old Egyptian lute in modern day Gambia, where the instrument is known as the "Xhalam":
The instrument heard above, is literally identical to the ancient Egyptian lute...once played in the New Kingdom of Ancient Egypt - almost 3500 years ago, at the dawn of the 18th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt!
There are a few differences between the ancient Egyptian lute and the Xhalam, as kindly clarified for me here here, by Ulf Jagfors:
"There is a direct link between the today existing West African lutes and the Ancient Egyptien lutes. Court bard Har-Moses lute (about 1500 B.C) which is on display in the Cairo Museum is in many ways very similar in construction. I have examine that lute on spot. There are a few differencies. The Egyptin lutes were mostly played with a wooden plectrum. They had no short thumb string as on nearly all Griot/Jali lutes. They also encompase frets made of a twisted rope around the neck. Ulf Jagfors"
Another direct ancestor of the ancient Egyptian lute still surviving in Africa, is called the "Ngoni", & it still can be heard today in Malia:
My Youtube subsciber, "Leftyseargent" kindly shared this amazing little gem of information with me about this other fascinating "living relic" of the ancient Egyptian lute, which also seems to be related to the African "Kora" lyre-harp...
"After I had commented on a Malian popular music video on YT, asking whether the instrumentation included the kora, another poster informed me that the instrument I heard was called "ngoni." I Googled that term and found that it applies to several quite different-looking instruments. The four-stringed version is clearly related to the xalam. The seven-stringed version closely resembles the kora, differing mostly in the shape of the bridge.
http://www.mandinkamagic.com/pages/ngoni.html The Malian musician/producer Salif Keita, arguably one of the greatest African stars, makes extensive use of it in his band, right along with modern stringed instruments. Generally, it is the most noticeable in the mix.
That the bow-harp appears in areas surrounding Mali in something closely rersembling the Egyptian form (with pegs) and the kora and ngoni are tuned with leather bands, suggests that they arrived in the area from different sources. This suggests to me that the lute arrived there from a Mesopotamian source, rather than from Egypt, but the various forms of bow-harp (almost exclusively tuned with pegs) arrive by way of Egypt.
In researching the Asian forms of bow-harp, I find frequent assertions that it originated in Africa, yet it arrived in Burma and China without tuning pegs. I must, therefore, question that theory"
Yet more evidence of ancient cross-cultural musical exchanges of ideas, which can still be seen and heard today!
IS THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN LUTE THE ANCESTOR OF THE BANJO?
Another interesting point gleaned from the ancient Egyptian lute, is the use of a taut leather soundboard - could the ancient Egyptians have been the first to invent the ultimate ancestor of the modern banjo?
Indeed, the Egyptian lute could be the ultimate ancestor of the "banjar" (a primitive banjo made from gourd over which leather was stretched), which first introduced to America by African slaves at the beginning of the 19th century.
In an attempt to explore the possibilty for an Egyptian origin of the banjo, below are a couple of experimental videos of my arrangements of traditional Egyptian folk songs, played on a modern 5-string banjo:
For more details about my other research into the history of the 5-string banjo, please visit:
As my research into the ultimate origins of the instruments of antiquity grows, more and more do I find evidence of there being fascinating cross-cultural exchanges of musical ideas, between cultures as diverse as Mesopotamia, Sumeria, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Israel, Ancient Greece...and surviving today, in not only Africa, but maybe even as far as the Appalachian Mountains!!!
INTERESTING LINKS & HISTORICAL RESOURCES
Below are the titles of some invaluable books relating to music in the ancient world, all of which are available from Amazon.com:
Joachim Braun: "Music in Ancient Israel/Palestine - Archaeological, Written & Comparative Sources" (Wm. B. Erdmans Publishing Company, 2002).
Curt Sachs: "The Rise of Music in the Ancient World: East and West" (Dover Publications - July 24, 2008)
Martin L. West: "Documents of Ancient Greek Music: The Extant Melodies and Fragments" (Oxford University Press, USA - September 13, 2001)
"The Music of the Bible Revealed?" - Reconstructions of the original 3000 year old music of the Hebrew Bible once sang by the Levitical Choir in the Temple of Jerusalem, as claimed to have been deciphered by the late Suzanne Haik-Vantoura, from the mysterious "Te Amim" accents attached to the oldest surviving Masoretic Text of the Old Testament...
Here is a link to videos of this incredible music, complete with Hebrew text and English translation on the fascinating Youtube Channel of Biblical Musicologist, John Wheeler:
