On drums and strings and trumpet blasts.

• Author: Kilmer, Anne Draffkorn
• Position: Book Review

THIS IMPRESSIVE BOOK'S CHAPTERS are divided into numbered sections, and the illustrations are numbered accordingly, e.g., "plate III/2-4" indicates chapter III, section 2, fourth illustration. Chapter I, the introduction, traces the history of scholarship on the music of ancient Israel/Palestine and notes the predominance of evidence from the Hebrew Bible up until about the middle of the twentieth century. This concentration on biblical sources led to misperceptions about the music cultures in the non-Israelite local cultures of Israel and to misidentification of the names of instruments. It was only toward the end of the twentieth century that research began to pay attention to extra-biblical evidence that, in turn, has helped to objectify and enrich scholarly discussion, which fully acknowledges that music was "a power interwoven in all human affairs" (p. 1, after H. Avenary). Many misconceptions concerning music in the Bible were carried through Greek and Latin studies, post-biblical Jewish literature (such as the Mishnah and Talmud), and the European Middle Ages.

The author reviews carefully and in detail the growth of historical studies of ancient Jewish and early Christian music that, beginning in the seventeenth century, produced some encyclopedic works that resonated in the general musical historical literature up to the twentieth century. Many treatises, especially from about the eighteenth century, included commentaries on the kind of music (i.e., nomadic psalms, or folksongs) supposed to have been typical of ancient eastern Mediterranean cultures, in addition to repeated attempts to identify biblical names of instruments. The nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw increasing attention paid to iconographic sources related to music and dance (such as the Bar Kochba coin that depicts a string instrument) as well as to comparative materials from neighboring countries. It was in 1941 that the biblical kinnor was correctly identified as a lyre, and shortly thereafter (1950s and 1960s) that the excellent and still valuable studies of Sachs, Sendrey, Bayer, and others appeared. Increasing attention was paid to the archaeological record, which has culminated in the riches now available, e.g., in the latest edition of MGG, where textual study is combined with archaeology and iconography.

A complete accounting of all available sources--literature, archaeology, iconography--as well as the comparanda (both literary and archaeological) from ancient Israel/Palestine's neighboring countries is presented in sections 2 and 3 of the introduction. Section 4 begins the detailed chronological review of the music-historical aspects, from the Stone Age to the Hellenistic-Roman period. Section 5 is devoted to biblical evidence concerning instruments, organology, mythological/theological aspects, as well as symbolic use of certain instruments in figurative language. Section 6 begins the detailed discussion of each individual Old Testament instrument: its textual citations, its varieties or shapes, its materials and archaeological evidence, its function in cult, military, or daily life, and its "ethnicity." Braun's conclusions on identifying the instruments are the following (the tables/ plates provide illustrations):

asey brosim cypress-wood clappers halil pipe or double pipe (of reed, metal, bone) hasoserah long metal trumpet kinnor lyre mena ane im idiophone mesyltayim selselim cymbal(s) nevel, nevel asor a particular type of lyre, sack lyre(?) pa amon bell qeren hayovel ram's horn sofar, sofrot hayovelim goat's or ram's horn tof frame-drum ugav (long) pipe, "all pipes" (perhaps even "organ pipes") For the instruments from the Book of Daniel (including Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek words):

qarna (natural animal) horn, or metal horns masroqita (whiffle-sounding) pipe, shepherd's pipe qaytros small symmetrical lyre sabka small vertically-held angle harp pesanterin struck harp/psaltery sumponyah ensemble performance(?), or dialect for tympanon; drum(?) kol zeney zemarah all kinds of (foreign?) music and song kli (musical) instruments minim "strings'" Pages 57-60 discuss the musical "labels" that precede the Old Testament Psalms. The history of ancient and modern interpretation of the psalmic rubrics is given together with an etymological analysis of each term. Chapter I concludes with discussion of New Testament musical terms under section D. The four instruments are the Greek [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], and [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII].

Chapter II, on the Stone Age, pulls together all known evidence from the Natufian culture (ca. 12000-8000 B.C.) and the Chalcolithic (4000-3200 B.C.). Archaeological finds from more than a hundred excavations constitute a great variety of skeletal remains, artifacts, and depictions. Many of the objects were noise producers or "Schmuck"-idiophones such as rattles, clackers, and scrapers that could have accompanied dance and song. One of the earliest is a female pelvic bone embedded with fox teeth that must have functioned as an ornament and an idiophone, as did pierced dentalia shells. More acoustic properties can be suggested for many of the carefully crafted pierced bone or stone finds, some of them in pairs, which suggests a "Gegenschlag-idiophone" function. The latter do, in fact, exhibit thicker and thinner points which enhance their resonance (the effect was tested in 1987). Bull-roarers of wood are also found associated with cult objects as early as 10,000 B.C. and continue in ancient Israel/Palestine (and Egypt) into later times; they may have been shamanistic tools.

With the advent of the Chalcolithic period (ca. 4000 B.C.), evidence for artifacts and music is greatly enriched by finds of well-crafted objects and individual art works that are both natural and abstract. Bone, ivory, wood, terracotta, and copper objects point the way to an "acoustical-organological revolution" of the fourth millennium. A painted terracotta, seated female image (probably a fertility figure) holds a container on her head and under her left arm an object which looks like an hour-glass drum like the darabukka, having parallels in neighboring cultures.

Section B discusses the earliest-known depictions of triangular, closed (or "frame-") harps with eight or nine strings from the excavations at Megiddo, one of the most important ancient Canaanite sites of ca. 3300-3000 B.C. These drawings (of animals and humans) were found on pavement stones from an inner courtyard of a temple. Among nine figures of warriors and dancers are a frame-drum player and a female harpist. The triangular frame-harp has close parallels in the third-millennium Cycladic culture and may be compared with similar instruments from the Caucasus to Siberia. The Megiddo harp appears to be the prototype not only for all known triangular frame-harps but also for later bow-harps that are not closed or framed. The author inclines toward the belief that a systematic development of music culture may have originated in the Levant. It may also be true that the music culture developed together with the specialized priestly cults and professional and individual differentiation. (For the Megiddo frame-lyre, correct on p. 331 the list of plates II/2B-4a-d, which should be labeled: a) Cycladic, b) Megiddo.)

Hereafter I shall divide this review after the chapter and sections headings of Braun's book. "Chapter III: The Bronze Age. Section 1: Dance with Lyre and Percussion Accompaniment." Nomadic rock art from the region stretching from the Negev and Sinai to northern Arabia (dating from the Paleolithic up to the Byzantine period and including as well today's Bedouin culture) provides us with depictions of musical instruments amidst hunting scenes. Notable are two lyres played by females and one male(?) frame-drummer together with male line dancers and a jackal(?), dating to the second millennium B.C. (or perhaps earlier, to the third millennium?). These asymmetrical Canaanite lyres are compared with lyres from Egypt and Mesopotamia as depicted on pl. III(!)/1-2a-1 (note correction from "II/1-2a-1"). One of the Negev lyres with a double cross bar is unique; the depiction is probably inaccurate, perhaps a "correction" made by the original artist.

The same Negev rock art scene gives us more dancers who hold rattles, accompanied by a frame-drum and dancing female(?) lyre players. Therefore, we have evidence of dance together with rhythm, percussion, and stringed instruments from the early second (or third?) millennium. Braun presents all comparable materials from Egypt and Mesopotamia. (On p. 234, correct "II/1-3" to III/1-3 for the depiction of the Beni-Hasan lyre.)

III/2. This section deals with the long-necked lute that brought a new technique and new possibilities for musicians. The music revolution may have coincided with the revolution in writing in the form of the birth of alphabetic scripts. The lute was introduced into Israel/Palestine in the first half of the sixteenth century B.C. It is known in Mesopotamia from about the end of the third millennium, and also in Egypt from the time of the arrival of the Hyksos. The Late Bronze Age saw a proliferation of this innovative instrument that...