music and musical instruments: The Middle East trums Hand clappers produced sound with their hands, but they could also use “clappers,” which were a set of boomerang-shaped instruments that could be struck together to create sound These clappers eventually became decorated with hands to serve as a visual pun on the act of clapping Clappers, like sistrums, also could be decorated with the face of Hathor Wooden drums appeared in Egypt in the Middle Kingdom and seemed to have been introduced from Palestine There were barrel-shaped drums as well as tambourines Ancient Egyptian musicians also played string instruments, especially the lyre and lute, which were similar to those found in other Middle Eastern areas The harps, however, were distinctly Egyptian in shape and first appeared around 2500 b.c.e in Egypt Harps were made of ebony but could be elaborately decorated with gold, silver, lapis lazuli, and malachite One style of harp was arched, while the other was angular Arched harps would have had between three and 10 strings, whereas angular harps would have had 21 to 29 strings Angular harps appeared in Mesopotamia around 1900 b.c.e and eventually usurped the arched harps that were there However, the arched harp was the most popular kind in Egypt, and it took much longer for the angular harp to prevail over the arched harp than it had in Mesopotamia Ancient Egyptians played three types of lyres The thin lyres hailed from Syria, whereas the thick lyres, larger and with more strings, came from Anatolia Giant lyres came to prominence and popularity in the Amarna Period (ca 1353–ca 1307 b.c.e.), and some could even be played by two musicians at a time While lutes arrived in Egypt in the New Kingdom from the Middle East to much popularity, they became virtually nonexistent when Egypt became a member of the Hellenistic world Ancient Egyptians also played a variety of wind instruments—including flutes, divergent double pipes, and parallel double pipes—all of which were constructed from reed pipes The tomb of King Tutankhamen (r 1333–1323 b.c.e.) also contained trumpets that were made of silver and bronze fitted with gold and silver mouthpieces Trumpets seemed to have been reserved for military occasions We not know the notation of ancient Egyptian music, so it is uncertain how the music would have been sung and arranged It seems apparent from some textual evidence that there were antiphonal songs, containing verses to be sung in alternation, similar to call-and-response songs, and perhaps also a rondo form, in which a principal theme is repeated between contrasting musical sections While music was an integral part of ancient Egyptian religious and secular life, we may never know how the music sounded and how exactly it would have added to the atmosphere of sacred and daily life gatherings THE MIDDLE EAST BY LYN GREEN In the ancient Near East music was an essential part of the daily life of both gods and mortals Human beings could 765 bridge the gap between the ordinary world and the divine through music and song Music was also a sort of international language, as ancient texts tell of musicians and musical instruments being sent from country to country In the 14th century b.c.e., for example, the Egyptian king recorded the visit of a foreign princess accompanied by a retinue that included many entertainers A great variety of musical instruments are mentioned in texts or represented in art: stringed instruments, wind instruments, and rhythm instruments Defining ancient musical instruments, especially stringed instruments, can be a challenge, since their shapes often are not only different from those of today but also changed over time and from region to region We know, however, that the peoples of the ancient Near East had what we would classify as drums, cymbals, tambourines, pipes, lyres, harps, and lutes Musical instruments seem to have been highly prized, and some were elaborately crafted and decorated A cuneiform tablet from the 26th century b.c.e is the oldest-known record of musical theory and records names of musical instruments It cites 23 types of musical instruments as well as musical terms, such as the names of notes By the Old Babylonian Period (2004–1595 b.c.e.) examples of musical notation appear, as more tablets of musical terms In addition, we have the lyrics of numerous hymns, which would have been chanted or sung by trained choirs Other types of vocal performance are believed to have resembled modern Arabic and Asian singing Drums made of bull hide and wood appear in sizes from small hand-held drums to giant, shoulder-high instruments Pipes were made of all kinds of materials, including reed, bone, wood, and metal, and came in many shapes There is so little information about wind instruments, however, that we cannot say whether ancient Near Eastern musicians had flutes, trumpets, or other wind instruments familiar to us in their modern forms We know that the hollowed horns of animals, such as ibexes and bulls, were blown in the temples Although drums and tambourines are undoubtedly very ancient, some of the oldest pictures of musicians depict stringed instruments such as harps and lyres, and these are also some of the oldest instruments ever found In the Third Dynasty of Ur (ca 2112–ca 2004 b.c.e.), in modern-day Iraq, rulers were buried with their servants, animals, and a great quantity of treasures, including beautifully made harps and lyres These instruments were crafted of wood inlaid with lapis lazuli, shell, and bitumen and lavishly covered in gold foil and ornamented with sculptures of bulls’ heads Over the millennia the weight of earth entering the tombs crushed them flat, and the organic parts, such as the strings and sound box, decomposed, so that what we see in museums today are reconstructions based on photographs and records of the excavation and on ancient images of music making (One of the lyres conveniently featured an image of a lyre being played on its sound box.)