A Short Prehistory of Western Music, Chapter 3

Egypt P Tagg: A Short Prehistory of Western Music 3
Egypt
3:1 Old Kingdom tomb fresco representing a feast for the dead. Each musician is led by a
cheironomer. According to Hickmann (1961), the hieroglyphics above the musicians mean
‘sing and make the sign to play’ for flute, clarinet and harp.
It is perhaps appropriate to start this account of music in ancient riverine civilisations
with Egypt for two reasons: (i) it is probably the earliest of such civilisations;
(ii) many of the general observations about Ancient Egyptian civilisation apply to
the other riverine cultures accounted for subsequently. 6
The history of Ancient Egyptian civilisation is usually divided into five main periods:
(i) The Two Kingdoms (c.4000-2850 BP), (ii) The Old Kingdom (2850-2052 BP),
(iii) The Middle Kingdom (2052-1570 BP), (iv) The Empire or New Kingdom (1570-
715) and (v) The Late Period (715-332 BP). It is The Old Kingdom, including its
several dynasties of Pharaoh kings, that is of particular interest here. Before presenting
a brief summary of music during that period, however, it is important to
bear in mind that sources of information from the period are, by virtue of their almost
exclusively iconographic character, open to considerable interpretation and
that the following account constitutes no more than a summary of just one set of
such interpretations.
Egypt during the time of the Pharaohs was a complex society. Agriculture, the basis
of Egyptian prosperity, was totally dependent on the right amount of water coming
down the Nile. Unfortunately there was often too little (drought) or too much
(flooding). 7 The waters had therefore to be regulated. This meant carrying out
works of civil engineering for purposes of irrigation and flood protection, i.e. digging
canals and ditches, erecting dams, dikes and embankments etc. Such construction
demanded that some people — the happy few with suitable education and
‘background’ — would specialise in measuring, planning, calculating and administrating,
while others — the majority — would have to do the actual digging, lifting,
carting and dragging.
As with many riverine civilisations, the ruling classes of Ancient Egypt imported
cheap labour in the form of slaves from peoples living in areas conquered by their
army. 8 Some slaves (such as the Hebrew Joseph, son of Jacob) may have ended up
6. Most of the information presented about music.in Egypt comes from two main sources: Elsner
(1975) and Ling (1983: 14-18). Ling bases much of his description on Hickmann (1961, 1965).
7. According to Kinder and Hilgemann (1978: 17), the Great Deluge (Noah’s Ark etc.) probably took
place around 3000 BP in the form of repeated flooding and other natural catastrophes. Dams and
canals were consequently built in both Egypt and Mesopotamia.
8. e.g. the Israelites who, led by Moses, fled slavery in Egypt and reached Canaan in about 1500 BP.