6. Peripherals, Hybrids, Cognates

This chapter presents a selective survey of mainly LBA texts and iconography from cultural areas peripheral to, and closely engaged with, the Syro-Levantine linguistic and cultural sphere in which kinnāru was at home. From a vast body of more general evidence, I have assembled the material bearing most closely on the Kinnaru-Kinyras question. This investigation helps flesh out a larger background for both Kinnaru of Ugarit and that city’s lyre-culture (Chapter 7), and the Syro-Levantine lyric heritage of the Biblical world (Chapter 8). Beyond this, it provides compelling parallels for the diffusion of the knr and associated ideas to Cyprus already in the second millennium (n.b.). It also clarifies the cultural motivations that can account for such a development, including various ritual uses to which lyres were put, especially in royal contexts. Finally, it illuminates the processes by which such cult importations transpired; I pay special attention to ‘Ishtar’—vitally relevant for Kinyras given the goddess’s persistent association with stringed-instruments, and his intimate relationship with ‘Aphrodite.’

We have seen that both kinnāru and zannāru were defined as ‘Inanna-instrument’ (^za-anMÙŠ, ^giš.zaMÙŠ) by Mesopotamian scribes probably already in the OB period. [1] An equivalent expression, ^giš.dINANNA, is well-attested in Hittite sources. That this ‘Inanna-instrument’ was normally (if not exclusively) a lyre in the Hittite world is established by several sets of overlapping evidence. [2] First, ^giš.dINANNA is the most frequently attested instrument in Hittite texts, while lyres are the most commonly represented in a rich iconographical record. [3] Second, the common qualification of the ‘Inanna-instrument’ as ‘large’ or ‘small’ (^giš.dINANNA.GAL and ^giš.dINANNA.TUR) may be correlated with the famous Inandık vase, which shows two sizes of lyre (Figure 7, and below). Third, the same size-distinction is reflected in the equivalent Hattic-Hittite terms ḫun-zinar and ippi-zinar, where the linguistic kinship of zinar to both kinnāru and zannāru is obvious to the eye (though the precise historical-cultural explanation is debated). [4] It is thus quite certain that ^giš.dINANNA typically means ‘lyre’, and that ḫun-zinar and ippi-zinar, though themselves but lightly attested, are regular referents of the Sumerograms.

Still we should not be too categorical. [5] The Hittites embraced many regional cults, maintaining them with the appropriate liturgies. We hear of those who sang in Hittite, Hattic, Hurrian, Luwian, and ‘Babylonian’ (that is, Akkadian); some festivals brought together musicians from different parts of the kingdom. [6] Since Sumerograms can represent various languages, and since ^giš.dINANNA is often found in connection with foreign musicians and/or rites deriving from different ethnic spheres, [7] the expression must sometimes have designated instruments not called zinar. In rituals of Hurrian extraction, we shall see, the underlying word was, or at least would once have been, kinnāru.

This point bears especially on the position of harps (not lyres) in second-millennium Anatolia, Syria, and the Levant, where they are represented much less frequently than lyres—a sign of some exceptional and/or exotic status. This, when combined with clear morphological sympathies, shows that these instruments were more or less consciously Mesopotamianizing; and that in turn raises questions about the retention and development of associated theological concepts as they passed beyond the two rivers. Representing Syria is a fifteenth-century cylinder-seal from Alalakh, showing a female harper performing with a female drummer and dancer before an enthroned goddess; stylistic parallels corroborate an eastern origin or antecedents for the seal. [8] The numerous angle-harps of NK Egyptian art may be explained as musical imports from Levantine imperial holdings and/or the Syrian diplomatic periphery; at least some of those from the palace of Amarna (Figures 9, 10) probably derive from dynastic marriages with Mitanni (see below). [9] A final example, one of several Anatolian representations, returns us to the question of Hittite scribal usage. This is a Syro-Hittite-style seal of Hittite OK date, from the palace of Konya-Karahöyük, which probably shows Ishtar playing a harp before Ea and his vizier (Figure 8). [10] If so, the instrument would clearly deserve the title ‘Inanna-instrument’ as much as zinar, kinnāru, or zannāru. In other words, the designation’s essential ideas will have been predicated less upon narrow organological distinctions—partly or largely modern—than such factors as performance context and ritual poetics. In practice this means that, when seeking sympathies between Mesopotamian and western musical theologies and ideologies, we need not be strictly bound by morphological constraints. These points will be important for understanding a key piece of LBA Cypriot evidence. [11]

Since ḫun-zinar and ippi-zinar contain Hattic prefixes, it is generally and rightly held that zinar itself was borrowed into Hittite from Hattic. [12] This must relate to the integration of Hattian mythology, festivals, cult, and ritual processes into Hittite life after Hattusili I (ca. 1650–1620) transferred his dynastic seat from Kanesh to Hattusha. [13] The long-term impact of Hattic cult-lyric per se is indicated by the Hittite use of zinar/zinir to mean ‘music’ generally; thus, for the Hittites, as doubtless for the Hattians, ritual music was preeminently lyre-music, whatever other instruments may have complemented it.

The early Hattian-Hittite use of large and small lyres is best illustrated by the Inandık vase of the seventeenth or sixteenth century (Figure 7)—a piece which also gives a vivid impression of the potential complexity and grandeur of Hittite music-rituals generally. Various stages of action are presented across four registers involving priests, priestesses, offering-bearers, libation-preparers, acrobats, and musicians—with lyres predominant, but also cymbals and lutes. [14] The whole composition, and the ritual actions shown therein, climax in a scene of explicit sexual intercourse. Here, if anywhere, one might hope to vindicate the kind of ‘hands-on’ hierogamy once readily imagined by many scholars not so long ago. The objections and cautions raised by more recent critics have certainly done much to refine our understanding of the disparate phenomena traditionally grouped under ‘Sacred Marriage’, some of which we encountered in connection with Shulgi of Ur. [15] The carnality of the Inandık vase, however, is hard to dismiss completely. Some would see the ritual depicted as a local emulation of contemporary Mesopotamian practice, a royal rite in honor of Inanna/Ishtar or an epichoric equivalent. [16] Others look to an indigenous procreation festival and royal initiation rites. [17] Be this as it may, the scene should be born in mind when considering the connection between Kinyras and Aphrodite in Greco-Roman mythology, and the church-fathers’ allegations of orgiastic sexual rites at Paphos. [18]

Hittite texts of the NK show that the zinar and other cult-objects enjoyed devotions similar to what is found in Sumerian sources. [19] One example relates to the Festival of the Crocus (AN.TAḪ.ŠUM), a major Spring celebration for the “Sun Goddess of Arinna and the Gods of the Hatti Land,” during which king and queen traveled to various temples to oversee a series of appropriate rites, involving at different junctures singers and incantation priests, including lamentations for several forms of Ishtar. [20] The numerous offerings prescribed during the preliminaries at Hattusha itself include the following: Presumably, this initial offering to the lyre helped ensure the efficacy of the lyre-performances that would transpire during several of the ceremonies. These included, among many drinking and offering rituals for various gods, one at the ḫešti, a temple associated with the underworld goddess Lelwani and royal ancestor cult; and a major performance of massed lyres at the ‘great assembly’. [22]

Similar procedures are found in other texts. [23] Offerings of sheep, cheese, bread, honey, groats, and libations of wine and beer, are attested for lyres alongside other cult-equipment and temple-furniture. [24] Another ritual, going back to the Hattic cult-stratum, calls for a soothsayer to anoint various utensils of the gods, including lyres, drums, and cymbals, alongside the god’s statue itself. [25]

Hittite sources are equally valuable for their comparatively detailed documentation of the cultic use of lyres. One tablet calls for lyre-music, accompanied by drums and cymbals, during a royal ritual connected with the Storm God of Zippalanda. [26] This ensemble predicts the pairing of lyre with frame-drum in several of the so-called Lyre-Player Group of Seals from eighth-century Cilicia (Chapter 21). Another drinking ritual has the royal couple sitting while a priest-singer plays the large lyre. [27] In a third, cymbals are given to the royal couple while lyres and drums continue to play. [28] Others again call for unaccompanied lyre-music. [29]

Several texts bring the lyre into connection with funerary and/or mortuary rituals. [30] One deals with the decoration of a lyre with silver (perhaps sheeting) for such a use. [31] Sometimes lamentation singers (^lú.mešGALA) are specified as playing the instrument. [32] One ritual calls for drinks for the soul of the dead, with lyre accompaniment. [33] In other cases, however, lyre-music is specifically prohibited. [34] Thus, during a drinking ceremony for the soul of a deceased king or queen, on the second day of the royal funerary rites after cremation and gathering of the bones, the lyre was required to be still. [35] Nor were lyres to sound during a ritual for the death-goddess Lelwani (part of the AN.TAḪ.ŠUM festival). [36]

There was another such prohibition during the KI.LAM (‘gatehouse’) festival, an autumnal event designed to display “the unity of all parts of the core of the Hittite empire by bringing in regional performers and administrators to the Hittite capital, including male choruses and female choruses of maidens, each ceremonially presenting the results of their labor that sustained the kingdom.” [37] Lyres—variously large or small, with and without singing—accompanied royal drinking ceremonies in honor of different gods at different junctures (including the ‘great assembly’), as well as a procession of cult-objects. But on the second day of the festival there was to be no music at all. [38]

Another major contribution made by the Hattusha archives comes from ritual texts deriving from the Hurrian cultural sphere. These, complemented by sources from elsewhere, especially North Syria, present further parallels for the veneration of cult-objects, including lyres, and illuminate other phenomena relevant to the Kinnaru-Kinyras question.

Hurrian is a non-Semitic, non-Indo-European language with debated affinities. Hurrian-speakers are attested already in the Old Akkadian period (ca. 2340–2159) around the Khabur river valley to the north of Mesopotamia. By the early second millennium, they were spreading westwards through North Syria and as far as the area later known as Cilicia in southern Anatolia. [39] Key evidence comes from Alalakh (Tell Atchana), which in the early second millennium belonged to the kingdom of Yamhad, centered on Aleppo (where Zimri-Lim passed his youthful exile [40] ). Although this city was largely Amorite at the time, its onomasticon indicates a major Hurrian cultural presence; within several centuries half the population bore such names. [41] The city was then controlled by the substantially Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni, which emerged in the power vacuum following the Hittite sack of Babylon by Mursili I (ca. 1595). Mitanni came to dominate much of North Syria and southeast Anatolia in the fifteenth and fourteenth centuries, and its cultural influence in the larger region was considerable—including on Cyprus, Ugarit, and Kizzuwatna, an important Hurro-Luwian state that included the later Cilicia. The Hittite annexation of Kizzuwatna occasioned a major Hurrian cultural and religious influx in the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries. [42] Consequently much of what we know about Hurrian culture comes, in this Syro-Hurrian form, from the Hittite archives.

Already the texts of OB Mari, we saw, probably attest Hurrian musical engagement with Mesopotamia and the Amorite world. [43] The same city has produced a collection of Hurrian incantations, which, along with later examples from Ugarit and Hattusha, show that “Hurrian incantatory craft extended … from the Middle Euphrates through north Syria … for over at least half a millennium.” [44] Further evidence of Hurro-Mesopotamian musical interface comes from the songs of the Kumarbi Cycle, as retold in Hittite, which integrate Mesopotamian gods and cosmological elements into an otherwise Hurrian armature. [45]

But the most spectacular evidence of Hurro-Mesopotamian musical hybridity comes from Ugarit—the famous cult-hymns containing schematic representations of harmonic sequences based on the Akkadian terminology for musical intervals that goes back to the OB period or earlier. These terms were strongly Hurrianized through several centuries of oral transmission. [46] Although the hymns themselves were composed in Hurrian, the one complete specimen is addressed to Nikkal (< Ningal), an originally Sumerian moon goddess associated especially with Ur. These complex musical artifacts were more than learned curiosities, since they were archived according to the practical criterion of tuning, and therefore saw active liturgical use at Ugarit. [47] This living tradition explains the not-infrequent appearance of Hurrian hymnic elements embedded in other Ugaritian ritual texts. There is an example of this in one of the tablets that record offerings for Kinnaru (alongside many other gods). [48] So while Ugarit was apparently never a Mitannian vassal, Hurrian cultural influence on the city was nevertheless quite extensive, with Hurrian hymnography vital to “l’aspect lyrique du culte”—whether or not, by the thirteenth century, the actual language was kept alive only by priests and other liturgists. [49]

The Hurrians may seem a world away from Greece. But the Song of Kumarbi’s startling and celebrated anticipation of the Hesiodic succession myth, including the castration of Ouranos, vividly illustrates the material’s potential relevance to Classicists. [50] While western Anatolia is likely to have been a productive Aegean interface, for Cyprus we should look rather to Cilicia/Kizzuwatna and coastal North Syria, both before and after the EIA Aegean migrations. Cilicia is the setting, for instance, of Zeus’ battle against Typhon, which clearly echoes another early Anatolian myth, the Tale of Illuyanka. [51] This Syro-Cilician theater is important for the Kinyras question, because several traditions trace his origin thence (Chapter 21).

The kinnāru was certainly current among Syro-Kizzuwatnan Hurrians. An administrative text from fifteenth-century Alalakh records a PN beginning with Kin(n)ar[- (the rest is damaged) as a recipient or possessor of a royally owned vineyard. [52] (Compare the use of Sum. balaĝ as a name-forming element, including two cases of temple musicians. [53] ) Although any ethnic affiliations of this person are unknown, a roughly contemporary text from the same city puts down an individual’s profession as ^lúkinnāruḫuli (ki-in-na-ru-ḫu-li). This is a hybrid linguistic formation using the productive Hurrian agent suffix ḫuli, and so means ‘kinnarist’. [54] The Hurro-Semitic fusion of this word, with its agentival force, echoes the active cultivation of Hurrian hymnography at nearby Ugarit.

A second Hurro-Semitic agent form, ^lúkinirtallaš, occurs in a Hittite lexical text. This must relate to the influx of Hurrian ritual and cult in the NK, since Hittite, we saw, had its own word for lyre, zinar. The meaning of ^lúkinirtallaš is established by an adjacent entry, ^lúNAR-aš, where the Sumerogram NAR makes the effective meaning ‘kinnāru-singer’; similarly its counterpart in the Akkadian column, if correctly restored as za-am-ma-]ru, is simply ‘singer’. [55] These correspondences show that lyric accompaniment was often a normal part of song; conversely, a ‘kinnarist’ (^lúkinnāruḫuli, ^lúkinirtallaš) was not only a lyre-player, but a lyre-singer. This will be an illuminating parallel for the otherwise ambiguous ‘singers’ of Ugarit, the Cypro-Greek form kenyristḗs, and ‘Kinyras’ himself. [56]

Two further Hurro-Hittite texts may bear on Syro-Hurrian kinnāru-culture. One belongs to the Itkalzi series, royal purification rites deriving from Kizzuwatnan tradition, conducted by a divination/incantation-priest (AZU). The text in question was a ritual for Tašmišari, probably the Hurrian throne-name of Tudhaliya III (ca. 1360–1344). [57] Although largely damaged—the moon-god Kušuḫ is mentioned for some reason—one clause contains signs interpretable as the instrumental case ki-na-ra-a-i (‘with the lyre’); the next line, from an adjoining fragment, may contain the injunction ‘hear!’ (Hurr. ha-a-ši), though ‘salve’ is also possible. [58] A musical reading would accord well enough with the larger generic context. [59] The second is a liver-omen text from the citadel of Hattusha, again highly fragmentary (Aleppo is mentioned), whose apodosis (‘then’ clause) contains the sequence ki-in-na-a-ri. [60] The divinatory context may make a musical interpretation seem unlikely. [61] Still, not only was Kinyras himself considered a diviner, but the Kinyradai of Roman Paphos (and doubtless earlier) practiced divination by entrails (extispicy)—an art which they believed came to them from Cilicia. [62] There are also signs that in third-millennium Mesopotamia extispicy was coordinated with the singing of Emesal prayers/laments. [63]

Even without these two highly suggestive texts, the Hurro-Semitic agent-forms establish Kizzuwatna and North Syria as loci of a Hurrianized kinnāru-culture. We may thus presume that, in the many Hittite ritual texts that call for the lyre, those of Hurrian extraction presuppose not Hatt./Hitt. zinar, but kinnāru; or at least that this would have been true for the Hurrian archetypes from which they descend. In one sense, of course, the semantic distinction was slight, since Hittite scribes must have regarded kinnāru as basically synonymous with zinar and zannāru. [64] But given the Hittite practice of maintaining adopted cults using the appropriate traditional idiom, significant contextual differences probably remained.

As a case-in-point, we may take the so-called Ritual and Prayer to Ishtar of Nineveh, an invocational rite that also provides crucial evidence for Ishtar-cult on LBA Cyprus (see Chapter 15). The deity in question, Ishtar of Nineveh, was a Mesopotamianized version of the Hurrian goddess Shaushka. She is invoked in many Hurro-Hittite magical texts against plague and curses, often containing Hurrian incantations and technical terms; and she herself bore the title ‘woman of incantations’. [65] These same texts show that singer-musicians were quite constant participants in her cult. [66] Ishtar-Shaushka was also associated with a Hurrian genre of songs called zinzabuššiya, named for a kind of bird (perhaps dove). [67] In the Ritual and Prayer to Ishtar of Nineveh, immediately after the damaged opening, ‘singer-men’ (^lú.mešNAR) are instructed to perform as the priest makes ritual preparations. When his incantation is finished, they play again, with the instruments now being specified as galgalturi (cymbals?) and the lyre (^giš.dINANNA). [68] Given the Hittite lexical conjunction of ^lúNAR-aš and ^lúkinirtallaš, we may accept this text as evidence, if only palimpsestic, of Syro-Hurrian kinnāru-culture.

The Hurro-Hittite texts are also important for having produced our most detailed evidence for the processes by which cults were transplanted from one place to another—‘dividing’ a god so that it could take up residence in a new temple while simultaneously remaining in an earlier home. The key witness, recently dubbed Establishing a New Temple for the Goddess of the Night, is vital for also attesting the concomitant transfer of cult-music. [69] The Goddess of the Night was regarded as a form of Ishtar, although she equally exhibits local (Hurro-Hittite) features distinct from her Mesopotamian counterpart (notably an infernal aspect). [70] The exact occasion of the text in question is unknown, though some would connect it with Tudhaliya I/II (early fourteenth-century) and a division of the Goddess of the Night of Kizzuwatna-city to establish a double in Šamuḫa. [71] Later Hattusili III (ca. 1267–1237) cloned an Ishtar of Šamuḫa for a new cult at Urikina. [72] While both cases were presumably driven by specific geopolitical motivations, they must equally represent more general and far-reaching procedures. [73] Thus, while the present text derives from a real occasion, it also envisions other such endeavors in the future (“When] someone settles [the deit]y separately, for her/it [th]is is the ritual,” §32). [74]

Composed by a priest of the goddess (§1), the ritual prescribes in minute detail and at great length the preparation of a near-identical copy of the goddess’s statue and all necessary furniture, jewelry, clothing, vessels, and other accessories for her new home (§2–8). There follows a series of rites, offerings, and sacrifices—inflected with considerable seven-magic—designed first to draw the goddess into her old temple and propitiate her; and then persuade her to “divide your divinity, come to these new temples, take an honored place” (§21). The goddess’s infernal aspect is shown by offerings in ritual pits, from which she herself is somehow drawn. [75] Her international profile and cultural ancestry, however, is equally evident, fossilized it seems in Hurrian ritual poetics: when invited to her new temple, the goddess is evoked (by “seven roads” and “seven paths”) from ancient Mesopotamian and Elamite cult-centers (Akkad, Babylon, Kish/Ḫursagkalamma, Susa, §24).

Crucially, the new goddess’s attributa include three beloved musical instruments (§4): a set of ḪASKALLATUM (probably an Akkadogram for Hitt. galgalturi, cymbals); a set of ḫuḫupal (drums? lutes?); and an arkammi (probably drum). [76] While these instruments are not written with divine determinatives, they must have enjoyed cult-devotions analogous to the divinized instruments of Mesopotamia and Ugarit. For a number of Hittite ritual texts, deriving from both Hattic and Hurrian cult-practice, [77] document offerings for instruments and anointings with oil. [78] In one salving rite, a soothsayer anoints both the galgalturi and arkammi. [79] Magical properties are attested for the ḫuḫupal, with a remarkable parallel—surely a survival—in the later Phrygian mysteries of Kybele and Attis. [80] Whether or not the actual instruments dedicated to the Goddess of the Night were themselves ever played, rather than simply venerated, their placement in the new temple certainly indicates a parallel transposition of the appropriate cult-music. For when the goddess has come to her new temple, a number of offerings are made to the accompaniment of precisely the galgalturi and arkammi (§26).

We may reasonably deduce that such formal divisions of gods typically entailed parallel musical transplantations. The dividing ritual presents, mutatis mutandis, just the context and combination of elements needed to explain the arrival to Cyprus of a Divine Kinnāru beloved of ‘Aphrodite’—recalling Kinyras’ intimate relationship with the goddess, and the Divine Balang Ninigizibara’s treatment as Inanna’s counselor and husband. [81]

While no stringed-instrument is specified for the Goddess of the Night, other forms of Ishtar-cult must often have employed chordophone music, given the persistent description of lyres and perhaps harps as ‘Inanna-instrument’. [82] Indeed the ^giš.dINANNA is the instrument most frequently attested in Hittite texts, by a wide margin, as the beneficiary of offering and salving rituals. And the evidence for its use in ritual—typically royal—is abundant. This clearly privileged position of the ^giš.dINANNA among the Hittites may be compared with the evidently unique divinization of the kinnāru at Ugarit.

Also illuminating is the Hurrian veneration of cult-objects more generally, including thrones, footstools, incense-containers and -stands, model temples, and many other things still unidentified. [83] One Hurrian text from Ugarit, which will be important later for its evidence about Alashiyan cult, is a list of gods receiving sacrifice. These include, besides the WS El, Kothar, and several Hurrian deities, two cult-objects used for the preparation and burning of incense. [84] That they were regularly venerated in the Hurrian cult of Kizzuwatna is shown by their recurring appearance in Hurro-Hittite texts relating to the divine-circles (kaluti) of the storm-god Teshup, his consort Hepat, and Shaushka-Ishtar. [85] Similarly an offering-list for the cult of Hepat of Aleppo and Hatti and her circle prescribes bread-offerings for the lyre and other cult-objects. [86] These texts present clear parallels to the pairing of Divine Censer and Divine Kinnaru in the Ugaritian pantheon texts. [87] The Hurro-Hittite material, when combined with the importance of Hurrian hymnography at Ugarit, urges us to regard Kinnaru there as locally embodying the lyric dimension of a complex cultural amalgam prevailing in North Syria during and before the thirteenth-century.

Finally, another Hurro-Hittite text arguably provides the most vivid example, outside of Sumerian sources, for the mythological treatment in song of a cult-object. This is the Song of Silver, a damaged episode of the so-called Kumarbi Cycle. [88] It parallels the Song of Hedammu and the Song of Ullikummi in that Silver is a son of Kumarbi who challenges the storm-god Teshup; evidently triumphing at first, ultimately of course he must fall to the prevailing world order. The story also exhibits striking parallels with the Greek myth of Phaethon—Silver is a fatherless child who, taunted by an age-mate, seeks out his father and ultimately drags the sun and moon down from heaven. [89] That Silver is to be understood precisely as the homonymous metal is supported by the ‘elemental’ nature of the forces that Kumarbi elsewhere enlists (Hedammu is a sea-monster; Ullikummi is the diorite-man, begotten through intercourse with a rock). V. Haas is thus probably right that the song personifies and mythologizes silver; of various animated, magical metals and stones found in Hurro-Hittite ritual, silver was the cathartic material par excellence, used to ward off demons, curses, and sickness. [90] Silver’s power over sun and moon may also correspond to aspects of ritual magic. [91] And we saw, in the Assyro-Babylonian lilissu ritual, that the positioning and manipulation of god-figurines endowed the proceedings with a cosmogonic dimension, and that such procedures could effectively generate or replay myths. [92]

The Syro-Hurrian and Kizzuwatnan material seems to present all essential conditions for linking the sacred lyres of ritual to Kinyras the cult-musician of myth, and for connecting this in turn to still older Mesopotamian cult-music practices. [93] While the Hittite archives are valuable generally for their detailed information about lyre-cult in action, the constellation of elements just considered has enhanced probative value, given Syro-Hurrian cultural influence at Ugarit, and the proximity to Cyprus of Cilicia (Kizzuwatna), which one set of traditions saw as Kinyras’ original home (see Chapter 21). Some form of Ishtar-cult, quite possibly a specifically Syro-Hurrian strain, provides one (n.b.) likely context for the importation to Alashiya of a Divine Knr—as reflecting an essential performative dimension in the rites of the goddess, who was herself, in some forms, closely allied to the ideology of LBA kingship. [94]

Here I shall briefly sketch the history of musical contact between Egypt and ‘Asia’ during the second millennium, especially the diffusion and purposeful transplantation of Syro-Levantine lyre-culture beyond its home-range, and the factors that account for it. The phenomena were naturally shaped by specific political and cultural forces, notably long-term NK control of Canaan and the unusual modulations of the Amarna Age (fourteenth century). Still the Egyptian material complements the Syro-Hurrian and Hurro-Hittite sources just discussed, for together they circumscribe a larger musical periphery around a Syro-Levantine center. If this circle were completed on a map, it would comfortably include Cyprus. This procedure may seem forced, but it is not unjustified. For we must assume Cyprus’ close political and cultural engagement with Egypt, Canaan, Syria, and Anatolia throughout the LBA, even when not explicitly documented—as it often is by texts from Amarna, Ugarit, and Hattusha. The Egyptian patterns can therefore contribute useful approaches for navigating the dire straits of LBA Cypriot music.

Plato caricatured Egypt as a musical Never-never Land where no innovation was ever permitted. [95] But Egyptian interest in foreign music is attested from the earliest times. Already in the OK, while tomb-paintings establish curved-harps, end-blown flutes, double (parallel) clarinets, and sistra as basic to the native tradition, [96] we read of royal patronage of musicians and dancers imported from the south (Nubians and pygmies). [97]

As to musical exchange with the Levant, this goes back at least to the MK, when the Beni-Hassan tomb-painting first depicts a lyre-player—in an ‘Asiatic’ troupe that confirms the instrument’s Levantine origin (Figure 3). While the overtly foreign context of the Beni-Hassan painting might discourage one from inferring any real Levantine musical ‘presence’ in MK Egypt, this is counterbalanced by a variety of textual sources referring to ‘Asiatic’ singers and dancers, often in the contexts of cult and festival. Especially notable are the temple archives from Illahun (Sesostris II, ca. 1897–1878, Twelfth Dynasty), with one papyrus listing as many as fifty cult-performers of ‘Asiatic’ origin (the term could include not only the Levant, but Syria and Mesopotamia). [98] The Beni-Hassan painting has prompted the suggestion [99] that simple rectangular-lyres entered Egyptian life at this time and were gradually elaborated into the instruments with curving, asymmetrical arms of the NK. On this theory, the lovely lyre of the Megiddo plaque (Figure 11 = 4.1p), for instance, would represent an Egyptianizing fashion in the Levant during the period of NK control (with the ‘Eastern’ lyres of the Cypro-Phoenician symposium bowls following suit [100] ). But the comparable, early lyres of the Inandık vase (Figure 7) make the Syro-Levantine sphere epicentral to the elaborate morphology, broadly speaking, and thus its more probable home—although one may certainly allow for synergy with neighboring regions. [101]

The Hyksos period (ca. 1648–1540), when a still-mysterious ‘Asiatic’ dynasty established itself in the eastern Nile Delta, must have marked a new stage of Egyptian-Levantine musical interaction. [102] As matters stand, however, the great mass of evidence dates from the NK, making it impossible to ignore imperial expansion to the north, initiated in the Eighteenth Dynasty by Thutmosis III (1490–1436), as a major determining factor. The forceful acquisition of Levantine musicians worthy of royal service is proven by a record of Amenhotep II (ca. 1438–1412), itemizing many musiciennes among the captives of his first campaign: At nearly fifteen percent of the total, ‘songstresses’ were clearly desirable booty, deliberately gathered. Doubtless this text represents a more general pattern under other pharaohs. ‘Asiatic’ musicians will also have attended the various foreign princesses wedded by the pharaohs, for instance those of Mitanni with whose marriages several Amarna letters are concerned. [104]

But NK ethno-musical diversity was not restricted to the royal sphere. Numerous paintings from elite contexts (tomb, domestic, and other) represent banquets, many for the deceased and/or the Feast of the Valley (a celebration of the dead), [105] featuring mainly female musical ensembles that appear to be deliberately cosmopolitan. They play various combinations of Syro-Levantine instruments—lyres, double-pipes, lutes, and Mesopotamian(izing) angle-harps—alongside a contemporary form of Egyptian curved-harp. [106] Representative is a Theban tomb-painting, again from the reign of Amenhotep II (Figure 9). [107] If Syro-Levantine lyres did not catch on in the MK, they clearly did so now; no fewer than six actual instruments, more or less intact, have been recovered, the earliest from sixteenth-century Thebes. [108]

As at OB Mari, imported musicians will have been prized for their ability to provide variety. One must therefore suppose that Syro-Levantine musical traditions were perpetuated within NK Egypt in some form. [109] Accordingly foreign musicians can be indicated by non-Egyptian dress. [110] This also explains the Egyptian retention of the Canaanite loanword represented as kn-nù-rú which, though not attested before ca. 1200 (Papyrus Anastasi), must be centuries older. [111] Several NK texts refer to performances by foreign musicians as part of Egyptian festivals. [112]

Yet the desire to hear exotic music clearly did not entail a complete segregation of foreign and Egyptian practice. In the period’s paintings it is often impossible to distinguish between Egyptian and foreign. [113] What do we make of women who play lyres and other Levantine instruments, often alongside Egyptian harps, but wear Egyptian-style hair and traditional Egyptian sheath-dresses, or a variety of other garments fashionable in the NK? [114] Are they acculturated foreigners; natives who have embraced novel fashions; or a mixture of the two? While lyres and angle-harps appear to be shown in mainly convivial scenes, lutes at least, played by men, were sometimes integrated in hieratic contexts, joining the traditional curved-harp. [115]

These trends persisted into the Amarna period, when, however, novel twists were induced by the revolutionary theology of Akhenaten (1364–1347), who proclaimed the Aten or Sun-Disk as sole god, established a new capital at Akhetaten (el-Amarna), and cultivated an innovative iconography in support. Of the huge number of reliefs originating in the palace and Aten temples (including those at Karnak and Luxor), and further images from officials’ tombs, a startling proportion shows musical scenes transpiring in temples and especially around the palace, where a variety of musical ensembles play before the royal family during banquets and festivals. [116] Given the period’s novel artistic conventions, and that this is our first detailed view of Egyptian royal life, we often do not know how far iconography reflects musical innovation, even if this seems likely enough in general. This reservation applies for instance to unparalleled details of instrument morphology, and playing positions. [117]

More reliable are the varying details of clothing, hairstyle, and instrumentation, which indicate purposeful diversity in the ethnic and gender makeup of the many ensembles. The general validity of this principle is established by the harem scenes. [118] Figure 10, for instance, shows a schematic suite with guarded doors; its furnishings are dominated by musical instruments, not only reflecting a major aspect of female palace life (as at OB Mari), but equally serving as conspicuous iconographic markers of ethnic diversity. [119] Within six rooms one sees an Egyptian curved-harp, five Syro-Levantine lyres, two Mesopotamian(izing) angle-harps, six lutes, and a ‘giant’ lyre—apparently introduced in this period, and perhaps best paralleled by the instruments of the Inandık vase (Figure 7). [120] Most have minor variations to enhance the impression of diversity. There is also significant differentiation in their distribution. The women of the ‘upper’ chamber have long curling hair; two wear three-tiered Levantine robes, and one plays a Mesopotamian(izing) angle-harp; the giant lyre is found in their adjoining rooms. Although the lower register also includes Syro-Levantine instruments, as had made their way into earlier NK tomb-paintings, these rooms’ Egyptian character is confirmed by the women’s hairstyle and an Egyptian curved-harp. The composition clearly represents segregation of the several harem communities. The ‘upper apartments’ would perfectly suit, for instance, the female entourage of a Mitannian princess.

Similar diversity characterizes musical scenes set elsewhere in the palace, although now male groups are also found, both Egyptian and foreign. The latter wear conical headgear, long narrow sleeves, the same triple-tiered Levantine robes as women in the foreign harem, and again play (in pairs) the ‘giant’ lyre. [121] Female Egyptian groups continue the iconography of earlier tomb-paintings with their combination of Asiatic and Egyptian instruments. [122] Some of these groups were probably drawn from the ‘Egyptian harem’, which exhibits just the same variety. [123]

Such female groups must also have been patronized by earlier pharaohs. But with Akhenaten as the terrestrial embodiment of the Sun-Disk, palace life took on a newly sacred dimension. This is vividly illustrated by the male palace musicians who are always depicted with blindfolds. This detail is clearly reminiscent of the traditional (MK) representation of temple-harpers as actually blind; the latter convention probably had some basis in reality, although it became stereotyped in iconography and literary sources. [124] At Amarna, clearly, male musicians were actually blindfolded, as they are shown without blindfolds when not playing. The practice is best explained as ‘symbolic blindness’ while performing in the presence of the god-king, whose splendor was perhaps overwhelming when hymned as a god. [125] Female musicians, never blindfolded, were apparently better able to withstand his radiance.

This clear collision of musical practice and religious meaning encourages further correlations of theology and music-iconography. Compare the sistra of this period, which lose their traditional Hathor-heads. [126] The cosmopolitanism of Akhenaten’s court-music may echo the universalism of the Aten-hymns, which refer to the many languages embraced by the Sun-Disk’s domain, and to kings coming from Syria and Kush to venerate him (“Singers, musicians, shout with joy … in all temples in Akhetaten”). [127] While musical diversity must have been cultivated by other Great Kings of the time, Akhenaten evidently made the most of musical forces available from his imperial holdings and royal peers abroad. The foreign male musicians are especially diagnostic. Since the massive, unwieldy giant lyres will have been cultic instruments in their native traditions (so in the Inandık vase, and like the later Ethiopian begena), foreign religious ‘lyric’ has evidently been repurposed for Aten-worship. This trend could also explain the increased appearance of Levantine lutes—and the new appearance of lyres—in the hands of men. [128] Others see here a purposeful gender-blurring, in accord with a larger ‘unisex’ tendency in Amarna art, whereby Egyptian male ensembles now emulated the convivial female groups of earlier tomb-paintings. [129]