Music in ancient Egypt
The ancient Egyptian knew music since ancient times. Evidence for this is the presence of many scenes engraved on the walls of temples and tombs since the era of the Old Kingdom, which shows musicians and dancers playing or participating in religious ceremonies. Various museums also acquire many musical instruments used by the ancient Egyptians, such as the lute, flute, tambourine and other instruments.
The ancient Egyptian considered music a sacred art, as it was played in temples when reciting prayers. During religious ceremonies, bands were accompanied by dancers and singers to present together with an artistic performance that expressed the occasion. The tools used in her worship rituals, as it was believed that this goddess is happy to hear the playing of this deity.
The ancient Egyptians knew many musical instruments, including wind instruments, strings, and percussion instruments
wind instruments
flute
It is a hollow reed made of wood or wood, with open ends and several holes on its side. The player blows at one end, so you sound in its hollow and cut the sound by placing the fingers of the hands-on side holes to play the different notes. In a developed manner in the era of the Old Kingdom, as we find it represented on the walls of the tombs in Saqqara.
The ancient Egyptian knew two types of flute.
It is a tall type, nearly as tall as the man, used by the instrumentalist while standing, and it is a rare type that did not appear much.
The second, more common type is a meter long, with holes on its side ranging from two to six located far from the side the player blows, who is always in a sitting position while playing.
double oboe
It was always used in musical ensembles, and it is a reed of wood with a trumpet used for blowing through the mouth. It is always used double, meaning that it is two flutes with a common trumpet that meet on the side of the mouth and then gradually diverge. Each of the two reeds has four holes, as it becomes clear to us from A rare flute preserved in the Berlin Museum, and this instrument is still used in the Egyptian countryside to this day.
According to the scenes represented on the walls of the tombs, the flute was more common than the flute in the era of the Old Kingdom. In the era of the New Kingdom, the flute lost much of its importance, and its use moved to the lower class of society in that era, while the double flute rose to replace it.
In contrast to the flute, whose voice is calm and soft, the sound of the double oboe is very sharp, as it is long and thin, as its length ranges between 5 and 7 cm, and the number of holes varies between three and eight.
stringed instruments
fugitive
The first thing this deity was created was a twistable stick, its cover was removed from the middle, and it remained attached to it on both sides, where it was used as a cotter. Then the artist began to install another string and then tried to find a way to strengthen the sound, so he placed the string on a sounding box made of wood.
The oldest type of fugitive is the great fugitive, which is about the height of a human being. His strings were usually made of palm fibres. The number of strings of the fugitive in the ancient and middle states was only four or five, then their number increased to fourteen and even to nineteen during the modern state era.
small ukulele
It is a stringed instrument made of wood that pulls its strings parallel to the soundbox. It appeared for the first time in the era of the Middle Kingdom, and its strings were five or six, and then reached thirteen strings in the era of the modern state.
Oud
The ancient Egyptians knew two types of the lute deity:
The short-necked oud, which is very similar to the oud currently used in Egypt, consists of a thin-walled sounding box of oval shape, and the neck of this oud is a round rod of wood that penetrates the sounding box from the inside, and the strings are fixed in it. Oud rope.
The long-necked lute: It has a long neck with signs showing the positions of playing the strings, which ranged in number between two and four strings.
percussion instruments
The ancient Egyptians used many machines to memorize rhythm. Perhaps the oldest means of memorizing rhythm is clapping. It appeared in the scenes taken from the cemetery “Nakhftika” in Saqqara, currently preserved in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. I found many percussion instruments used by the ancient Egyptians, including clappers, bells and drums.
clappers
Including clap bars, arms and legs, as well as heads. In the bars, we find that they are two thin wooden sticks with which the musician applauds to set the rhythm. Given the Egyptian artist’s love for taste and beauty, instead of this deity being just two ordinary sticks, he seemed to carve them in the form of arms, legs, or heads alike. Heads of different people, birds or animals.
The clappers are one of the oldest musical instruments used by an ancient Egyptian artist. They were commonly used in dance processions since the pre-dynastic era. Clappings were found in the tombs of the First Dynasty in the form of human arms ending with human hands, indicating that the hand is the original in the clap and the clappers were made of ivory. Or wood or gold, and in the era of the Old Kingdom, scenes of dancing and playing spread, and the bands were always accompanied by musicians carrying clappers to set the rhythm.
The clappers were among the musical instruments used in the rituals of the goddess Hathor, the goddess of music. Accordingly, we find that after the clappers, the head of this goddess was decorated with the ears of a cow topped with a sarcophagus.
sistrum
The idea of ​​making a tool that gives a resonant sound was not a matter of joy and happiness in the soul, whether as a children’s game or a toy.