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| Who Sings to His Ka Every Day: Discovering the Music of Ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt Magazine November / December 2001.Vol. 2 Issue 3 |
Ambient Egypt
Sounds from Ancient Sources |
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Who Sings to his Ka every day: The Music of Ancient Egypt In a previous issue of Ancient Egypt, Douglas Irvine described how his interest in the music of ancient cultures developed. In this detailed article he goes on to explain that while Egypt has not yielded a set of written music theory or notation from antiquity, there are other sources of information at our disposal. Doug Irvine and Miriam Bibby investigate ancient Egyptian musical traditions. ‘While we don’t know how ancient Egyptian music sounded, there’s a set of basic sources that inform us about ancient music in Egypt,’ explained musician and composer Doug Irvine. ‘Students of Egyptology will be familiar with the many representations of musicians and musical instruments from tomb paintings, reliefs, graffiti and sculpture. We depend quite a bit on these visual sources to determine who played what instruments, how the instruments were grouped and held, the performance contexts and how instruments changed over time.’ The vivid, lively images of ancient Egyptian musicians, often women, are tantalising in their silence. They represent some of the most relaxed and intimate scenes from ancient Egyptian art. Textual sources yield further information in the form of titles, particularly in funerary contexts, of musicians and families of musicians. ‘One could labour over the interpretation of an ancient musician’s specific action in a tomb painting or relief, but a literate scholar could simply read the caption over the subject’s head: “Oh well, it says right here that her name is Ity and she’s a singer.” Mystery solved,’ continued Doug. Those ancient musicians, often laid to rest in relatively wealthy burials, the fine condition of their skin and hands providing further evidence of their profession in life, cannot reveal to us the details of their work. However, thanks to Egypt’s preserving climate, some of their instruments have survived in good shape and from these, the modern investigator can learn much about construction techniques without having to apply destructive methods, an opportunity which does not extend to other climates such as Mesopotamia. ‘X-rays were made of an Egyptian angle harp at the Louvre, for instance,’ explained Doug. ‘Without having to tear into the instrument, a lot of construction details were discovered.’ Evidence from reliefs, wall paintings and some of the hieroglyphic inscriptions and texts of hymns and songs do mean that we are well advised on the contexts in which ancient Egyptian music was played. ‘Musicians played an important role in religious ceremony. Music placated the deities and it was an important part of numerous festivals and banquets. Music was connected to work and labour and there are beautiful depictions associating music with intimacy and sexuality. The Egyptians loved music,’ is Doug’s belief. Although there is no evidence for notation, Doug is of the opinion that a strict musical formula must have operated, for temple and courtly music, at least. ‘I don’t see musicians taking requests in the Temple of Amun during a ceremony! It is possible that, within a well-established structure, some kind of improvisation could have taken place. Today, Egyptian music incorporates the use of musical improvisation. However, this only works within an established and sophisticated set of musical rules, and Arabic music, with a 24 tone musical structure and numerous modes or tunings, is among the most highly evolved musical systems in the world. A skilled musician knows those rules and knows how to convey individuality and expression within a set structure. It’s possible that ancient performances could have worked this way.’ The art of ancient Egypt cannot be taken at face value, but since artistic representations provide one of the principle sources of evidence, art has been used to attempt to identify possible tuning systems. ‘For example, people have looked at instruments in tomb paintings to examine and compare the lengths of strings on a harp. Doing this, it was thought, would help decipher specific ratios between string lengths which could then translate into pitch intervals and possibly musical scales. All of this from pictures!’ Doug concedes that this is ‘an intriguing idea, though nothing conclusive has been reached from this approach and it assumes that the ancient artisans were highly accurate in recording all the details of the instruments they rendered. One can actually take string lengths from tomb paintings and create a system from which music is made. I’m not sure it would have much to do with the sounds the ancients were making, but it would fit in nicely with 20th century experimental music concepts.’ In recent years, the music of ancient Egypt has begun to receive, at last, greater investigation than ever before. During the 1930’s, a famous radio broadcast of the sound of the silver trumpet from the tomb of Tutankhamun was made (and this can be heard, if the listener has the appropriate software, on the website www.newton.cam.ac.uk/egypt) However, the 1990’s have seen a different approach to research, which involves the participation of modern day musicians from Egypt. ‘During the 1990’s, a team of scholars and musicians analysed some of the Pharaonic flutes on display at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo,’ explained Doug. ‘The late Egyptian nay (flute) virtuoso, Mohammed Effat, performed on the flutes, and at the time he was considered the flute player in all of Egypt. The concept of the study was this: unlike a stringed instrument, whose open strings are capable of producing a fairly broad range of possible pitches (depending on how they were tuned), a flute has fixed points from which specific pitches are made through finger holes. ‘In the study, they recorded both surviving and reconstructed flutes and gathered tables of information on tunings, etc. It was a very sophisticated study. The real questions and criticisms came in the interpretation of the data. It’s too complex to get into, but the authors drew conclusions based on a small number of instruments, and the experts were divided on the conclusions reached with the information they analysed. ‘No matter what the results were, it’s another good example of the ways in which people have attempted to uncover some of the deepest mysteries surrounding ancient Egyptian music. My feeling is that the music made by ancient Egyptians will remain elusive, and will simply keep us wondering.’ While studying ancient texts and images relating to music is of interest in itself, there is a further value to the subject. Musical instruments changed over time, with new items coming into Egypt and perhaps new traditions and influences. ‘That is the great thing about ancient Egypt. The evidence is so rich, for so long a period of time, that one can trace musical evolution across thousands of years without ever having to leave Egypt. What we see is that specific traditions existed during certain times in Egyptian history,’ explains Doug. ‘During the Old Kingdom, for example, certain instruments were used that are unique to that time. The end-blown flute is depicted most frequently in the Old Kingdom. This was also a time when chironomists were employed, a group of musicians that made sets of hand signals, the meaning of which is not known. Sometimes chironomists made hand signals and sang. Even the way the musicians sat was unique in the Old Kingdom, with one leg tucked under and the other knee pointing upward. A good example of this comes from a 5th Dynasty scene in the tomb of Nenchefka from Sakkara from 2400 BC. ‘The scene depicts a flute player, a clarinet player, chironomists and a floor harpist. We know the chironomists appear only in the Old Kingdom and that the end-blown flutes enjoy prominence then. The floor harp with its gradually curving neck, a large instrument, is a type seen only in the Old Kingdom.’ The period providing the least amount of information is the Middle Kingdom, but there is enough to show that new instruments such as the lyre and lute were imported. ‘The lyre first appears in tomb paintings not in the hands of Egyptians, but in the hands of foreigners, Bedouins. The famous lyre player from Beni Hassan from about 1850 BC depicts this very clearly.’ These and other images show that some instruments fell from fashion while others became popular, and that ‘depictions of female musicians dominate the New Kingdom, along with new instruments. Cultures may not take immediate acceptance to new instruments. By the New Kingdom the lyre becomes an Egyptian favourite. The evidence really helps us to see that Egyptian culture evolved over time and that music evolved right along with the changing tastes of the culture.’ Ancient Egyptian musical instruments also reveal the ingenuity and skill with which the manufacturers worked the natural resources around them. ‘They had access to various types of wood, some domestic, some imported. Wood was used for sound boxes and necks of instruments, or drum shells. Animal skin was widely used as the sound board of stringed instruments and for drum heads. Images of harps even depict the spots on animal hide indicating the type of animal that was used in the making of an instrument.’ The ancient Egyptians made use of both domesticated and wild animals in the production of musical instruments. Animal gut and sinew were used for strings. Simple rattles were made of clay, and bronze was used in the construction of sacred instruments such as the sistrum and cymbals. Doug is intrigued by the possibilities of home-made instruments ‘that could have been crafted from recycled materials. So far I have no evidence for this type of instrument, but it would be hard to imagine someone not using basic objects at hand to make some music with.’ While Hathor and Bes are the Egyptian deities perhaps most associated with musical traditions, it is evident that music was an important part of all temple rituals and a requirement of all the gods. ‘Bes is so often depicted with the frame drum (one of my favourite instruments) and I will continue to refer to him in upcoming recordings that incorporate the frame drum, an instrument that thrives in modern day Egypt, North Africa and across the Arab world,’ said Doug. ‘Hathor is connected to love, beauty and fertility and she’s a patron of women and of music. Her associations are numerous and often those associations include music. She’s seen holding the sistrum, the sacred rattle. Even the handle of the sistrum will, at times, have her head carved into the handle. She also plays the frame drum. ‘Thanks to written records, we find that many Egyptian gods and goddesses were honoured with music making and with musical references. For example, carved hieroglyphs on a surviving shoulder harp reveal the words ‘sweet is the air Amun’. Ceremonies praising Amun definitely involved music, and the textual sources go on to reveal whole classes of singers, such as “Singers of Amun” and the very top echelon of musicians, referred to as “Singers in the Interior of the Temple of Amun”.’ The importance of the musician’s role is evident in the ‘Short Hymn to the Aten’: ‘Singers, musicians, shout with joy, In the court of the benben-shrine, And in all temples of Akhet-Aten, The place of truth in which you rejoice.’ (trs. M Lichtheim) We are still left with the mystery of these sweet-voiced singers and the music they made. The songs must have been many and varied, from work-songs to bawdy music in the brothel at Deir el-Medina, from sacred music to martial tunes, from love songs to the complex thought regarding existence in the words of the blind harper from the tomb of King Intef: ‘Those who built tombs Their places are gone, What has become of them? I have heard the words of Imhotep and Hardedef, Whose sayings are recited whole. Their walls have crumbled, Their places are gone, As though they had never been! None comes from there, To tell of their state, To tell of their needs, To calm our hearts Until we go where they have gone!’ (trs. M Lichtheim) The passing of time, the mysteries of death, the crumbling of ancient works, have provided a theme for poets that has lasted longer than the builders and the buildings they created. This theme occurs in an Anglo-Saxon poem, set to music by Peter Hamill in the late 1970’s, in which an observer comments on Roman stonework: ‘Strange to behold is the stone of this wall broken by fate The strongholds are bursten The work of giants decaying the roofs are fallen the towers are tottering Mouldering palaces roofless Weather marked masonry shattering Shelters time-scarred tempest-marred undermined of old Earth’s grasp holdeth Its mighty builders tumbled, crumbled in gravel’s harsh grip Till a hundred generations of men pass away.’ Human fears and hopes are recognisable across the centuries, and it is left to the musicians and poets to express these ideas to the rest of humanity. Does music make the concept more palatable, or is it simply that they dare to address it? If complex and subtle thought was made available in Egyptian songs, then this must surely have been the case with the accompanying music. ‘There are also many musical subtleties we’ll never know about. The virtuoso musician who played the lute like no-one before or since, the singer whose vocal abilities were known up and down the Egyptian empire,’ Doug believes. ‘There are many questions in my mind concerning how music at any one specific time changed as you travelled up and down the Nile. I would be very surprised if local songs didn’t differ depending on where in Egypt you were. ‘When people ask me what I think the music sounded like, I ask them about their impressions of ancient Egyptian architecture, artwork, and so on. Their music must have reflected the culture’s many other great achievements that we in the modern world admire so deeply.’ Suggested further reading: Music and Musicians in Ancient Egypt by Lise Manniche, published by the British Museum Press, London 1991; Catalogue of Antiquities in the British Museum III: Musical Instruments, by R D Anderson, BMP, London 1976; Les instruments de musique égyptiens au Musée du Louvre by C. Ziegler, Paris 1979. |
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| "‘While we don’t know how ancient Egyptian music sounded, there’s a set of basic sources that inform us about ancient music in Egypt." | |||||||||||||||||||
| "My feeling is that the music made by ancient Egyptians will remain elusive, and will simply keep us wondering." | |||||||||||||||||||
| "Bes is so often depicted with the frame drum (one of my favourite instruments) and I will continue to refer to him in upcoming recordings that incorporate the frame drum, an instrument that thrives in modern day Egypt, North Africa and across the Arab world," said Doug. | |||||||||||||||||||
| "‘When people ask me what I think the music sounded like, I ask them about their impressions of ancient Egyptian architecture, artwork, and so on. Their music must have reflected the culture’s many other great achievements that we in the modern world admire so deeply.’" | |||||||||||||||||||
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Ambient Egypt
Sounds from Ancient Sources |
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