Music in Ancient Egypt

Music has always played an important part in the lives of ancient Egyptians.  Temple and tomb wall reliefs and paintings often depict performing singers and musicians with the songs they sang or accompanied. Along with musical instruments,  a diverse set of objects adorned with representations of music scenes survived to this day. Statues and statuettes of musicians are also numerous and the rich textual evidence allow us to identify the titles of the musicians, names of the instruments, as well as the repertoires and techniques of playing used. Some of the performers’ names were also known, such as the singer Kahay, who was admired for his beautiful voice.

Harp was not only the most preferred instrument of ancient Egyptians but it was also shown among the offerings that would delight the god during the ritual and processions. Texts mentioned it being embellished with precious materials. King Ahmose had a harp made of ebony, gold, and silver. Thutmose III went a step further and commissioned “a splendid harp wrought with silver, gold, lapis lazuli, malachite, and every splendid costly stone.”

Singing, clapping hands and snapping fingers may be the simplest of ways to make music. Yet, a variety of musical instruments were already used in the Old Kingdom, from wind to stringed instruments as well as idiophones and membraphones.

Chordophones

Three types of chordophones were played by ancient Egyptian musicians – harp, lyre and lute. Of the three, the harp was the most popular, but also the most depicted musical instrument through all periods.
Harps can be divided into two groups: arched and angular. The arched harp was indigenous to Egypt and it was known as early as the 4^th Dynasty. Several forms of the arched harp existed, classified by the shape of its sound-box – shovel-shaped, ladle-shaped, boat-shaped, crescent-shaped.. The angular harp, on the other hand, was a later import, first appearing during the New Kingdom.

The shovel-shaped harp, consisting of   a sound-box in the shape of  a shallow spoon or spade and a gently arched neck, was typical of the Old Kingdom. The size of the instrument varied as did the number of  strings, which usually ranged from five to seven. The strings were fastened to a suspension rod at the lower and to fixed suspension pegs at the upper end. It has been suggested that the pegs were fixed on harps placed in tombs to keep the perfect tuning for eternity, but that it was possible to turn the pegs on instruments in daily use to secure the tension of the strings. On occasion, the hidden inside surface of the sound-box had painted decoration, examples of which can be seen in Berlin and Stockholm.

The shovel-shaped harp was still very much in use in the Middle Kingdom, but there were also certain developments in instrument design during this period which brought it closer to the ladle-shaped harp that became popular in the New Kingdom. Some of the harps dating to the 12^th Dynasty have a deeper sound-box and a more pronounced arched neck with the strings attached almost perpendicularly rather than diagonally.

The Middle Kingdom didn’t only see the harp’s shape evolve but also a shift towards more women as harp players. The harps in Theban tomb no. 60 played by a woman are decorated with female head and also have a checkerboard pattern on the neck, typically found on garments of paddle dolls – representations of Hathoric khener-dancers of Deir el-Bahari.

One of the three harps recovered during DAI excavations (2002-2005) in Dra’ Abu el-Naga has a shovel-shaped sound-box but the profile view of the instrument is closer to the ladle-shaped harp. This rather small harp in comparison with other instruments (about 40cm high after restoration), dating to the end of the Second Intermediate Period, is the first to be found with a stand; the only other example being a miniature harp played aboard a model boat of Meketre.

The ladle-shaped harp had a deep, hemispherical sound-box with more fully arched neck, often featuring a head of a woman (sometimes specified as Maat), a falcon or a king. The rounded part of the sound-box was decorated in semi-circular floral pattern, with lotus flower adorning the lower part of the neck. Typically, the instrument had nine strings, though the number ranged from five to eleven, and it was usually placed on a stand, often decorated with tyet-amulet. This type of harp developed into several varieties, changing shape all the time.

The ladle-shaped harp, which was for a long time seen in banqueting scenes, was also the instrument of a solo harpist. It was also offered as a special gift to a deity, as seen on a portico of Tuthmosis IV, where the harp, along with other valuables, was presented to Amun-Ra. In the temple of Ramses III at Medinet Habu, harp was offered to Amun-Ra and Mut, with the hopes that the gods would grant the king many sed festivals on the throne, while two such musical instruments are presented by Sety I at Abydos.

The crescent-shaped harp is a late development of the arched harp that appears in the Greco-Roman period. The instrument with a shallower sound-box, placed on a stand, had decorated neck with a form of a woman’s head, surmounted by the sun disc, feathers and horns. It was played by noble women, queens or the goddess Merit  as shown in the temples of Mut, Hathor and Isis.

The boat-shaped harp with its gently curving neck and a long, boat-shaped sound-box, continued the advancement in Egyptian music which accompanied the rise of the New Kingdom. This large instrument had  a sound-box covered with a membrane with spotted decoration imitating the skin of an animal, and a lotus flower concealing the joint between the neck and the body. The top of the neck was left unadorned. Its earliest appearance is a small version depicted on the wall in the tomb of Ineni (TT81).

A more marked difference in string lengths along with their greater number – usually nine to twelve, but in one case even seventeen – allowed for producing a greater range of notes, enriching the music of the time. This type of harp was mostly  played by women.

Portable versions were also used – typically held against the musician’s shoulders. The shoulder harps had fewer strings, typically four to five, but one rare example in the Metropolitan Museum has sixteen. Played by men and women alike, the instrument was held with the strings in an almost vertical, horizontal, or angled position. Many shoulder harps have survived despite the fact that the instrument was popular for a fairly brief period of time – the 18^th Dynasty.

Although shoulder harps were used on secular occasions, a cup-bearer Amenmose, had an instrument decorated with inscription on its neck, including a line of a poem to Amun: ‘Sweet is the air you give, Amun, O sweet of air.’ According to Emerit, Amenmose, however, was not a musician, and used the object as a memorial.

A wonderfully preserved boat-shaped harp from Dra’ Abu el-Naga  has a unique iconography consisting of two hunting scenes separated by a palmette on the back. In each scene, a lioness is depicted running after an ibex and two Dorcas gazelles, while the palmette seems to spring out of a lotus flower. A leather bag that could have been used to store the instrument was also found.

The neck and the sound-box of the angular harp form an angle, with the sound-box in a vertical position when in use. It could have had seventeen, nineteen or twenty-one strings – significantly more than the arched one. This made the instrument able to produce an even wider note range and make it easier to produce a progressive scale, should that be the musician’s goal.

The neck of the instrument can be decorated with a head of ram, a goose or a duck. The earliest representation dates to the mid-18^th Dynasty (TT367), while the most exquisite example found is from the Late Period, currently in the Louvre.

Lute

The lute was unknown in Egypt before the New Kingdom when it was imported from the Near East. It had a long neck connected to a sound-box that could have different forms, usually carved from wood in an elongated oval shape, with lighter ones made of tortoiseshell. The sound-box could also be pear-shaped or with concave sides, like a guitar. The neck was sometimes adorned with the head of a goose or duck, a falcon, a goddess or a king.

The instrument had two or three strings and was played by both men and women. A lute of singer Harmose, found lying beside him in Sheikh Abd el-Qurna, was equipped with three strings. The so-called dancer’s lute from a tomb in Deir el-Medina with a tortoiseshell sound-box had two. Strings were kept in place by cords tied around the neck and ending in tassels, while a small wooden device secured the strings at the lower end of the neck.

The musician would use a plectrum to play the lute, which was suspended from the instrument. The player produced notes of different pitch by pressing the strings against his/her neck thereby shortening their vibrating lengths. Testifying to the virtuosity and the ability of ancient Egyptian lutenist to produce a wide range of notes is the positioning of the frets- transverse marks on some representations of lutes. It is, indeed, difficult to precisely specify the intervals resulting from their positions, but it is highly likely that they were close together. 

Tomb paintings frequently show the lutenist performing together with other musicians in the banquet ensemble, with the lightness of the instrument allowing the performer to dance, sing and play at the same time.

The instrument was also used in processions and religious ceremonies and on occasion famous harper’s songs were accompanied by lute. During the New Kingdom, the girl with the lute became a very popular decorative motif, which adorned objects such as cosmetic spoons and faience bowls.

Lyre

The lyre was brought to Egypt from the Near East during the Middle Kingdom. Its first appearance is in the tomb of Khnumhotep II (No.3) at Beni Hassan where it is shown in the hands of an Asiatic bedouin. Both asymmetrical and symmetrical lyres were known in Egypt with giant lyre appearing in the Amarna Period.

The sound-box of the lyre is rectangular or trapezoidal in shape, from which project two arms joined by a yoke. Between four and nine strings  are shown in representations, though some surviving instruments have provision for as many as thirteen. Strings were attached at the upper end to the yoke, where they were fastened by cords and pieces of cloth or papyrus,  while at the lower end  they could either be fastened to a metal hook, or inserted into the holes of a wooden box fixed to the sound-box. The instrument might be elaborately decorated with arms in the shape of a papyrus column, or featuring a head of an ibex, a horse, a goose or a duck. Curved arms occasionally resemble figures 5 and 7. In addition to arms of differing lengths, asymmetrical lyres usually have an oblique yoke. 

Typically, the lyre was played by women, held with the strings in a horizontal or vertical position. The player would brush all or most of the strings with a plectrum, muting the strings that were not to be sounded with the other hand. The instrument could be played without plectrum as well, as was also the case with the giant lyre, which was large enough to accommodate two players who would pluck the strings with their fingers. The giant lyre was played by men.

Several lyres have survived and one from Leiden of New Kingdom date bears a hieratic inscription on the side facing the musician, seemingly as a memory aid for the player. However, it is possible that the instrument was reused and the song inscribed in Graeco-Roman times.

The lyre was a popular orchestral instrument, but it was also associated with gods. Thoth is said to have invented the lyre and Bes is often shown playing it. The decoration of a goose might connect it to Amun as well, if indeed it was the head of a goose that decorated it (and not that of a duck/or a swan as suggested by Störk). On a 22^nd Dynasty stela, a lyre decorated with a head of a lion is played in front of Sekhmet.

Aerophones

Flute

Of the wind instruments, the oldest was the flute, represented on a Predynastic sherd (CG 2083) and the famous two-dog palette from Hierakonpolis. Usually accompanied by harps and clarinets, the end-blown flute was ever-present in the Old Kingdom music scene representations. It was also played alone and used to entertain workers in the field.

A predecessor of the present-day nay, the ancient flute usually had three or four holes positioned at the end of the instrument. Despite its simple design, a wide range of notes could be produced depending on the way of blowing, though it is unknown if all its possibilities were exploited by the ancient musicians.

Held downwards at an oblique angle when played, the instrument seems to had been reserved for men in the Old Kingdom. Although it vanished from the banquet ensembles at the end of the Middle Kingdom, some of the first representations of women playing the flute appear in the tombs from this period. In the New Kingdom, representations of the end-blown flute are even more rare, appearing on religious occasions, such as the festival of Sokar, or the sed-festival of Amenhotep III.  Though showing no great variations in design, the instrument remained popular in its use in Egypt to this day.

The other type of the oblique flute, which was shorter and with a larger diameter, survived as ‘uffâtah. A contemporary ‘uffâtah has six holes divided into two groups of three; with the second hole of the first group dividing the tube exactly into two halves. Some representations seem to show this type of flute, such as a New Kingdom tomb of Ipuy, where a herdsman is showed playing such an instrument while watching his herd. One of the rarer aerophones in the Cairo Museum is a monkey-shaped ocarina (vessel flute) of Graeco-Roman date. According to Hickmann, this type of flute existed in the Predynastic period as well.

Clarinet

Dating back to at least the 5^th Dynasty, this single reed instrument consisted of two parallel pipes joined together with a string and resin. Typically played in a horizontal or slightly upward slanted position, the clarinets had four to six holes along the front of each tube. The same tune would be played on both pipes, but the notes would be slightly dissonant as the spacing of the holes was not exactly parallel.

Played exclusively by men, it found its place next to the harps and flutes in Old Kingdom orchestras, and though it disappeared from representations in the course of the New Kingdom, the clarinet never lost its role in Egyptian folk music. Identical in appearance, it exists today as zummâra, with its loud and rich tone enlivening the sound of ancient Egyptian clarinet.

A curious representation of a clarinet appears in the tomb of Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep, where a longer instrument is held at downwards-slopping angle similar to modern day mashûra, or arghul, but since the representation is incomplete, it is impossible to be certain.

Oboe

Upon its introduction to Egypt by the beginning of New Kingdom, the oboe overtook the place of the clarinet. Played by women with their feet positioned to suggest dancing, the instrument was particularly favored in ensembles entertaining at banquets.

The oboe was played in pairs, with the tubes held at an angle or in an almost parallel position. Tubes were less than a centimeter in diameter and usually had from three to seven holes at the front. Up to three thumb holes were sometimes also positioned on the back of the instrument, some of which may have been blocked with resinous paste to correct tuning or fix a manufacturing error. The melody was only played on one of the pipes, the other giving a held note.

Professional musicians often kept a selection of tubes of different lengths in their case. The cases helped preserve the fragile instruments and also served to store the resinous paste for tuning and the rushes for reeds. One such case from the Egyptian Museum in Turin is particularly beautiful: made of wood with preserved leather covering with floral motifs adorning object’s registers framing the central scene of music and dance.

Music was important in transmitting the offerings and the oboe appears on its own in associated scenes, as shown in the tomb of Amennakht (TT218) or in the second oboe case with leather covering in Louvre. The Egyptian draftsmen amused themselves by placing oboe in fox’s paws and monkey’s or baboons’ hands when portraying animals behaving like humans. The instrument was also played by Bes.

Trumpet

The trumpet required more complex manufacturing than the other wind instruments. It consisted of a conical-cylindrical tube provided with a bell, and was standard military equipment, but it also appeared in religious processions. Ancient Egyptian trumpet, capable of producing only the harmonic series of a note, was used for passing on orders, as is also indicated by the name of the instrumentalist ḏd-m-šnb: “The one who speaks on the trumpet.”

Used exclusively by men, the instrument often appears in pairs, though only one of the players is depicted blowing his instrument.  In the tomb of Tutankhamen two trumpets were discovered, with representations of Amun, Re-Horakhty, and Ptah giving them sacred associations. Thanks to a BBC recording from 1939 we are able to listen to these trumpets being played. Several titles of trumpeters are also associated with the names of deities. On the coffin of a Roman date the deceased is depicted blowing a trumpet before Osiris. 

Although the trumpet was used since the New Kingdom, its forerunner appeared in the Old Kingdom iconography, where the instrument was typically shown in the hand of a musician standing on the prow of a boat. One example is a scene from the tomb of Kagemni where a boy is shown with a couple of birds in one hand and the instrument in another. More convincing representation appears in the tomb of Kaikhent in el-Hammamiya where the boy on the prow of a vessel holds an object similar to trumpet, with decorative transverse lines and a clearly visible bell.
The Greco-Roman Period saw the enrichment of the instrumentarium with the addition of newly popular instruments including aulos, panpipes and the hydraulic organ invented in Alexandria in third century BCE. Horns and rhytons were also used as musical instruments,  with rhytons often being decorated with a figure of Bes.