Musicians in the Near East

[N. Ganesan]

Dr. Bjarte Kaldhol wrote:
>Regarding the status of leather workers (called A$GAB and a$kapu), which
>Naga Ganesan asked me about in private correspondence, they were highly
>respected and in fact among the most important experts in Near East
>societies, since they also made  parts for weapons, chariots, horses, and
>armour. Musicians and singers, too, were highly
>regarded, as they took part in all kinds of rituals. There were no
>"polluted" castes in Near East societies.

One key development in Indian cultural/religious history is the
Sacred Cow concept. When did this happen? After IA migrations or
before ??? Refer to "Beef eating in the Veda" thread in the archives
(Feb '97). When beef eating came to be avoided, anything to do with
the dead cow also might have become "low" in Indian societal hierarchy
over the course of centuries. But I think initially Indian society had
no untouchability.

Interestingly while we find utility objects and written documents on
leather in the  Near East, Indian written texts are found on palm
leaves, tree barks, cloth, but not on leather. Vidyasankar Sundaresan
wrote on the relations between leather and music instruments:
http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-shl/WA.EXE?A2=ind9704&L=indology&P=R2808

I do not know whether the devadasi tradition in India and the
musicians in the ancient Near East had been compared. Saskia
Kersenboom-Story in her books like Nityasumangali and articles
describe the creation of the devadasi institution invested with
auspiciousness, they show pot-lamp (kumbhaarti) in front of idols
to remove the Evil eye etc. Kersenboom compares old Tamil texts, the
saiva aagamas, with the devadasi system, And uses a sacred power
concept ( K. V. Zvelebil, The nature of sacred power, AO, 1979 ) to
describe the devadasi institution.

Eric M. Meyers, vol. 4, The Oxford encyclopaedia of Archaeology in
the Near East, 1997 has an article by Joachim Braun, Professor of
Musicology, Bar-Ilan university called "Musical instruments", p. 70-79

"In the first half of the second millennium BCE in old Babylonia
and later, but especially in the Iron age, in other Near Eastern
areas, two forms of the female drum player, the most notable
indigenous type, appear on deep-relief terracotta plaques. The figures
are naked but adorned with a wig or head cover and a disk (drum) is
pressed against the chest with both hands (Rashid, 1984, ills. 91-95)
... It is probably at this time that the drum (tOph in the Hebrew
Bible) acquired a function in both the cultic and everyday life of the
lower strata of the population."

"Harp: ... There are representations since the eighteenth dynasty of
the vertical angular harp, which is considered an import from
elsewhere in the Near East; smaller harps are depicted as well - the
portable "shoulder harp" and the "laddle harp". All of these
instruments, mostly built from expensive wood from Lebanon and
designed as works of art, seem to have been used only in the highest
circles of society."

"Lyre: The primary musical instrument in the Near East was the Lyre ...
The elaborate Sumerian assymetrical lyres have a resonator in the form
of a bull (upright, it is some 150 cm high) or are ornamental with a
bull's head (portable, 100-120 cm), ... In the late third - early
second millennium BCE, when large standing lyres were still in use
(in Babylon; in Anatolia..), and the first modified forms appeared in
the hands of naked dancing women (Negev rock etching, 19th century
BCE; Anati, 1963, p.210) ... The Sumerian grand royal lyre was
replaced by a simply built, small (some 40-50 cm), portable,
symmetrical, and sometimes asymmetrical, instrument. For the first
time it was held horizontally, in front of the musician; it was played
mostly by musicians of low social status, Semitic travelling
merchants, and women - the latter often depicted naked (Rashid,
1984, ills. 47, 59, 72, 80; Behn, 1954, p 185; Porada, 1956,
figs. g-j)."

"Lute: Instruments of the lute type are the most mobile, dynamic, and
subject to change among all chordophones.
...
In the Old Babylonian period, the musicians are often naked men and
women... While attested in Canaan in two more finds (naked female
bronze statuette; IAA, no. M969; dancing minstrel on a terracotta
plaque; Hebrew Union College, no. 23.095)... In Egypt the instrument
became very popular and was played by naked females (1961a, p. 98)
and on some occasions by men, possibly in a cultic context.

  In the earliest depictions, lutes are generally shown with two-three
strings marked with decorative tassels at the tuning box. A long,
frequently fretted neck emerges from a small, resonator out of
wood or tortoise shell and covered with animal hide."

The stringed instruments were often depicted with naked women
in the ancient Near East. Probably their sacredness comparable to the
Great Goddess?

Regards,
N. Ganesan

J. Braun lists many refs. including,
Bathja Bayer, The material relics of music in ancient Palestine and
its environs: An archaeological inventory, Tel Aviv, 1963
Anne Kilmer et al., Sounds from the Silence: Recent discoveries
on ancient Near Eastern music, Berkeley, 1976
Claire Polin, Music in the ancient Near East, NY, 1954
S.A.Rashid, Musikgeschichte in Bildern; vol 3, Mesopotamien.
Leipzig, 1984
Joan Rimmer, Ancient musical instruments of Western Asia
in the British museum, 1969.


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