Koptische Lauten: Eine musikarchaologische Untersuchung von sieben Langhalslauten des 3.-9. Jh. n. Chr. aus Agypten.

• Author: Hickmann, Ellen

By RICARDO EICHMANN. Deutsches archaologisches Institut Abteilung Kairo, Sonderschrift 27. Mainz: VERLAG PHILIPP VON ZABERN, 1994. Pp. xxiv + 157, 71 fig., 19 tabulas, 8 enclosures, and 24 tables. DM 115.

"Coptic lutes" are chordophones with a long neck and a relatively small body, dating from Egypt's late antiquity (third to ninth centuries A.D.). They existed in two different types: one has a flat spade-shaped body, with notches or slits on its sides, the other is round and vase-shaped. The instruments were found among - and most probably were played by - early Egyptian Christians. They have not been investigated in a comparative context until now because interdisciplinary musico-archaeological methods have been developed only during the past twenty years (see the prologue). These methodologies are now applied in this study by the author, who dedicates his book to the memory of Hans Hickmann.

Lutes from the pharaonic periods, mostly from the Eighteenth Dynasty, as well as extant instruments from late antiquity to the early middle ages, are discussed in chapter one. A short history of research follows in chapter two. Musicologists have been familiar with some of the instruments for about a century and several were comprehensively studied.(1) The research methods (chapter three) used by Eichmann include detailed metrological investigations, examinations of usage by detecting various fingerprints on the surfaces of the instruments and interpretation of organological details and their function. Investigations in music theory form the central part of chapter four.

By painstakingly studying every single lute, the author has been able to describe its individual characteristics in shape and construction. He also analyses the materials with which the lutes were fabricated and discusses the way they have been preserved, used, and repaired throughout history. An unusually meaningful aspect of the research concerns music theory. The author has discovered that nearly all measurements were based on a module of 1.87 to 1.9 cm, corresponding to the ancient Egyptian "finger" (ca. 1.875 cm). Fixed stops showing in some instances these basic measures occurred in all seven instruments. These and other features of this basic construction are detected and interpreted by the author. The instruments had originally three strings and the stops were located differently at the right and the left side of the fingerboard. This setting produced intervals of different...