Through the Eras

MusicTHE HYMN TO THE ATENINTRODUCTION: The Hymn to the Aten is attributed toKing Akhenaten. In this hymn Aten receives creditfor all creation, and this extract specifically includesmusic as part of Aten’s ritual.SOURCE: “Akhenaten,” in Music and Musicians in AncientEgypt. Trans. Lisa Manniche (London: British MuseumPress, 1991): 93.SOURCESRobert D. Anderson, “Music and Dance in PharaonicEgypt,” in Civilizations of the Ancient Near East. Ed.Jack M. Sasson (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons,1995): 2555–2568.Lisa Manniche, Music and Musicians in Ancient Egypt (London:British Museum Press, 1991).SEE ALSO Dance: Cult Dances; Religion: Myth ofOsirisMUSIC DURING THE REIGNS OFAKHENATEN AND NEFERTITIRICH MUSICAL DOCUMENTATION. The reigns ofAkhenaten and Nefertiti spanned only seventeen yearsfrom 1352 to 1336 B.C.E. Yet Akhenaten’s artists decoratedthe palace, tombs, and temples with manyscenes of music making. This brief period witnessed adramatic change in Egyptian religion. Akhenatenabandoned the worship of Amun, the King of theGods, and substituted the god Aten, the physical diskof the sun. He closed Amun’s temples and moved theroyal court from homes in Thebes and Memphis to anew city at the site of Tell el Amarna. Thus this periodis called the Amarna Period and includes the reignof Tutankhamun, who restored the religion of Amunand returned the royal court to Thebes. The richnessand diversity of the scenes of music-making demonstratesome key trends in music during this time. Manyscenes show Akhenaten’s six daughters playing thesistrum and menat—two sacred rattles used inworship—suggesting that the royal daughters had aprominent role in the musical life of Aten’s cult. Also,the presence of foreign musicians at court in drawingsdemonstrates the cosmopolitan nature of Akhenaten’sreign. The foreign musicians may have accompaniedforeign wives to court, though the evidence that Nefertiti,his primary wife, was a foreigner is not conclusive.MUSIC AT THE PALACE WOMEN’S QUARTERS. Ascene from a tomb in Amarna representing the women’squarters at the palace of Akhenaten and Nefertiti atAmarna includes many musical instruments. The sceneshows six different rooms. In one room, musicians manninga harp, lyre, and lute play for a woman who issinging and perhaps dancing. In a second room, awoman dressed in foreign clothing dances to a harpplayer and another instrumentalist whose image is toodamaged to interpret. Four other rooms appear to befor instrument storage. Included in them are lutes, lyres,and the giant harp imported from Mesopotamia in thistime period. Akhenaten’s many wives and daughtersclearly spent some of their time at home playing music.Notably the instruments shown in their domestic quartersare not the same instruments that they played inreligious settings. In the temples they played mostly thesistrum, an instrument not depicted in this private, domesticscene.SISTRUM PLAYING IN THE AMARNA PERIOD. Duringthe Amarna Period the royal daughters and the queenplayed the sistrum for the Aten rather than Hathor.Though Hathor had been the main deity associated withsistrum playing in traditional Egyptian religion, her worshipwas not practiced during the Amarna Period. Thusthe two sistra found in the tomb of Tutankhamun andthe sistrum depicted on a block from an Amarna buildingomit the normal decoration with Hathor’s head. Insteadthe sistra from this period have simple handlesshaped like papyrus plants. The rattle disks themselvesare housed on snake-shaped rods. Perhaps the sound ofthe sistrum was associated with the cobra who protectsthe royal family.CLAPPERS. Included among the treasures buriedwith Tutankhamun were a pair of ivory clappers.Amarna artists depicted men playing clappers during172 Arts and Humanities Through the Eras: Ancient Egypt (2675 B.C.E.–332 B.C.E.)