Through the Eras

MusicDepictions of Egyptian musicians in the tomb of Iymery. CREATED BY GGS INFORMATION SERVICES. GALE.ing. This conclusion is based on an interpretation of twodifferent Egyptian artistic conventions. Relief sculpturesand paintings in tombs are divided into registers. Eachregister can represent a different place, or in some casesthe upper register can be read as located behind the lowerregister. In most Old Kingdom examples the male andfemale members of the ensemble are located in differentregisters. Yet, in the tomb of Queen Mersyankh III,the tomb owner herself is located in both registers, identifiableby her representation as a figure two times largerthan the other figures in the relief. This placement ofthe queen suggests that the male ensemble members inthe top register and the female singers in the lower registerare understood as playing and singing together. Thesame is true of the dancers, also located in the lower register.The dancers and singers are probably closer to thetomb owner, while the all-male ensemble of two harps,a flute, and an oboe are behind the dancers and singers.A similar scene in the tomb of Debhen at Giza also usesthe artistic device of the tomb owner spanning all theregisters to signal that here five registers should be readas one behind the other, the topmost at the back. Thisscene includes two harps, two oboes, a flute and twomale singers in the top register. The second register includesfour female dancers and three female singers.These examples both come from the Fourth Dynasty(2625–2500 B.C.E.). By the end of the Fifth Dynasty(2500–2350 B.C.E.), in the tomb of Iymery, a sceneshows female dancers and singers together with a maleharpist, a male singer, and a male oboe player in thesame register. Another musical scene in the tomb, however,separates four female singers and nine femaledancers from a male ensemble made up of a flute, anoboe, two harps, and four male singers in different registers.Thus it is likely that the separation of male andfemale musicians in tomb scenes was more of an artisticconvention than evidence that male and female musiciansplayed separately. The grouping of men andwomen into separate groups may have been a divisionborne more of their association with particular instrumentsthan a division based on gender. Perhaps the trueseparation is between the strings (harps), winds, andlower-voiced male singers in the back, and the highervoicedfemale singers and percussion section in the frontof the ensemble.SOURCESLisa Manniche, Music and Musicians in Ancient Egypt (London:British Museum Press, 1991).Emily Teeter, “Female Musicians in Pharaonic Egypt,” inRediscovering the Muses in Women’s Musical Traditions.Ed. Kimberly Marshall (Boston: Northeastern UniversityPress, 1993): 68–91.A MUSICAL BUREAU IN THEOLD KINGDOMKHENER. The Egyptians used the word khener torefer to a troupe of professional singers and dancers organizedthrough a bureau. Earlier Egyptologists misunderstoodthe khener to be specifically attached to theharem because tomb drawings always depicted femalesingers and dancers entertaining a man in his privatequarters. This erroneous identification stemmed fromhistorians’ misunderstanding of Islamic customs in theMiddle East and Victorian preconceptions about male/female relationships in ancient times. Victorian scholarswere often embarrassed by ancient behavior that theyconsidered lewd in their own time. European scholarsalso condemned their contemporaries in Islamic countriesthat practiced polygamy. In reality, many institutionsArts and Humanities Through the Eras: Ancient Egypt (2675 B.C.E.–332 B.C.E.) 165