Harper (Ancient Egypt)

Harp in hieroglyphics
Old empire	benet bn.t harp
Harpist ( Tomb of the Night, 18th Dynasty )

Harper and Harfnerinnen took with her harp in ancient Egypt an important religious function. In the Old Kingdom , the production of a harp is attested for the first time in Egyptian history on the 5th dynasty annal stone for King Snofru ( 4th dynasty ). Harpers are mentioned in the pyramid texts in connection with the cult of the king. They were assigned to the temples in loose associations, but mostly without a fixed position.

After the collapse of the Old Kingdom and the religious reorientation of the cult of the dead in the Middle Kingdom , "professional harper" appeared more frequently, as only with the addition of the Duat to the ancient Egyptian worldview did broader strata of the population gain "access to the hereafter ". The further development is documented by the newly appearing coffin texts . With the beginning of the New Kingdom and the introduction of the Book of the Dead , the harper's field of activity expanded in the 18th dynasty .

During Akhenaten's reign and the associated closure of temples of ancient deities, the influence of the Aton cult led to a reorientation of the harper songs, the text of which now focused on a critical questioning of the meaning of life. However, the opening and restoration of the partially destroyed temples after Akhenaten's death was not able to revive the old harp songs in a sustainable way. The shine and the carelessness of the old texts remained in the memory of the Egyptians only as a "shadow of earlier carefree times".

Mythological background

In the cult of the dead , the harp is closely linked to the deities Hathor and Haroeris , as Haroeris is not only known as a “musician” and “head of the singers” but also as the “eyeless” god of harp playing. Singing and dancing have shown a close connection to the temple cult since the Old Kingdom .

Hathor's name means "house of Horus ", the name component "house" being derived from the meaning "mother's womb", which surrounds Horus. As the later wife of Re and mother of Horus, she formed the enclosing womb from which Horus as her son arose. Among other things, she was also known as “master of the music for which one plays”, “mistress of the harp game” and “mistress of dance”.

Singing and dancing are an indispensable framework for "drunkenness festivals" and symbolize the "opening of heaven" and the "appearance of the gods". The resulting “drunkenness” includes the memory of the gods: “How nice it is to remember Amun . Amun, the heavens were lifted up for you, the earth spread out for you ”. In this context, Hathor is considered to be a "glorious goddess who is now content and comes as the cloudy face of truth".

Forms of representation

Blind Harper
(Tomb of the Night, 18th Dynasty)

In ancient Egyptian history, harpists always appear in connection with other musicians and singing groups. They are often depicted blind, which indicates their connection to the sky gods. Accordingly, the harps are usually provided with the heads of those heavenly deities, for example the falcon head of the "eyeless god of the harp game", the head of Hathor adorned with a sun disk and cow horns, the feathered head of the mate or a woman's head to which special insignia are attached. Since harps were viewed as divine instruments, they were made of valuable wood with processed gemstones as offerings to the temple .

While they are playing, the harpers sit on a mat behind their harp, whereby the harp can be artfully supported on a shoe. Harper images are often seen because they were associated with the love of the heavenly gods. Her hands usually move the harp. The harpists mostly show their posture with the head bowed slightly forward, empty eyes and slightly open mouth as an expression of self-forgetfulness. With the harper, beat-beating singers appear as a choir, often seated behind him or shown in the next row of pictures. The choirs provide musical accompaniment to the harper's playing, so that after his report on ancient rites and quoting sayings from the gods, the chorus intones the refrain .

Statue dressed only with apron ( Luxor temple )

Up to Thutmose IV, singers wore an apron , which was then replaced by a long robe. However, harpers still performed with a folded apron. Without knowing this background, the observer is tempted to assume that the harpists are full-fledged singers. However, they still carry under Amenhotep III. singing and reciting the old traditional homage to the gods.

In the grave representations of that time, the harpers appear as a crowd of blind beggars wrapped in rags. They went from temple to temple at the respective festivals in order to earn alms by playing the harp in addition to their otherwise meager income. A youngster took over the function of the alms collector, who sat down with the sticks of the harper and the accompanying alms sack and received gifts from the festival participants.

Harp types

Among the plucked instruments , the almost two-meter-high benetharp played the main role as a bow harp from the fifth dynasty and enjoyed great popularity throughout ancient Egyptian history. This type of harp consisted of a neck, a sound body and an extension covered with fur . Three to 14 strings were stretched between the ends of the bow harp  . The reference to the hunting bow is striking . In the Middle Kingdom , the harpists developed the kettle harp, which was adapted to the playing habits in a crouching form with a humped, curved and compact structure.

Ancient Egyptian angle harp

Ancient Egyptian shoulder harp

With the beginning of the New Kingdom, the new model of the suspension harp was developed in continuation of the kettle harp, which had a better sound due to a curved support. The six to seven-string angled harp can now also be seen more often, the neck and bell of which are bent at right angles to one another.

With the increase in festive occasions, the easy-to-use shoulder harp with only three to four strings came to the fore with harpers, which had the great advantage of being able to be played while walking. During the valley festival , the old standing harp was used as an additional orchestral instrument. All types of harps were played with the fingers without aids.

There were also other types of harps that were probably introduced from neighboring countries in the course of ancient Egyptian history; for example Nablium , Trigonon , Psalterium , Sambyke and Magadis . Further details are missing, as these models are only described in parts in poetic works.

Harp songs

From the reign of Thutmose III. and Hatshepsut , forms of older harper songs are documented. The later harper songs differ in the deliberately induced break with older harper song templates and thus connected with traditional content that is replaced by new critical text compositions.

The early harper songs are limited to the form of the singing recitation of ancient statements of the gods, for example the slogan of a harpist from the Theban grave 24: "You shine, the heads of Amun-Re shine " or the further text of a harper from the same grave: " You (as the grave lord) embrace eternity and enjoy the future. They give you life in your nose and lovely air in your throat ”. The early texts of the 18th dynasty document the original form of sung homage to the gods:

“Hail to you who shines in the now . Amun, strongest of the gods. Lord of heaven, Lord of earth, Lord of water and Lord of what there is. Who (Amun) created everything that exists. He gives it to those who [...] and encourages those who follow him. "

- Song of a harper at the time of Hatshepsut, grave 11, hall, east wall.

“How beautiful is Amun's house of God on New Year , renewed for Amun. Lord of the thrones of the two countries, the Almighty when he receives his beauty of the temple. His temple oxen are slaughtered by the hundreds, his wild animals in the desert by the thousands, for Amun as his sacrificial foundation, at the festivals of the year. "

- Song of a harpist at the time of Thutmose III, grave 82, Halle, west wall.

Women's orchestra with standing harp
(Tomb of the Night, 18th Dynasty)

When Thutmose IV took office, the harper appeared with other lute players, later portrayed sitting alone. Singing and beats show a new form of performance. In addition, there are also orchestras of dancing women who take over the musical direction from the harper with a large standing harp.

With Akhenaten's elevation of the deity Aton to the only life-giving deity, the notion of survival after death in the duat came to an abrupt end. Akhenaten's theology was unable to give an answer to what happens to the dead after death. This break with previous beliefs marked the hour of birth of the “new harpist songs”, the content of which was based on the Middle Kingdom and at that time embellished isolated thoughts about death in a new poetic framework.

The harper song of the Antef is a classic model for all later harper song versions of the new form, which, as variations of this song, found central entry into the belief in the dead; it comes from the Amarna grave of Pa-Atonemheb and refers to the meaning of life. In the tomb of Neferhotep , which was laid out a few years after Akhenaten's death at the time of Haremhab , three harper songs are written which are similar to the harper song of Antef. In one of them it says:

“I have heard these songs that are in the graves of the ancestors and what they tell about the exaltation of this world and the degradation of the duat . Why is this done to the land of Ta-djeser ? The righteous that knows no horror, its disgust is the quarrel. Nobody terrorizes the other there. This land that has no adversary, our people have rested in it since the earliest times, and those who will be there in infinite years, they all get there. There is no staying in Egypt. There is no one who got there. The time one spends on earth is only a dream. But welcome, safe and sound , they say to those who have reached the West. "

- Harper song, grave 50, Neferhotep

literature

• Jan Assmann : Death and the afterlife in ancient Egypt. Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-49707-1
• Jan Assmann: Harper Song and Sons of Horus. In: Journal of Egyptian Archeology. No. 65, London 1979, ISSN  0307-5133 , pp. 54-77 (on- line ).
• Hans Hickmann: Miscellanea Musicologica, Les harpes de la tombe de Ramsès III. In: Annales du Service des Antiquités de l'Égypte. (ASAE) No. 50, Cairo 1950, pp. 523-536.
• Christian Leitz u. a .: Lexicon of the Egyptian gods and names of gods . (LGG) Vol. 8. Peeters, Leuven 2003, ISBN 90-429-1376-2 , pp. 441-450.
• Siegfried Schott : Ancient Egyptian love songs: fairy tales and love stories. Artemis, Zurich 1952.
• Siegfried Schott: The beautiful festival of the desert valley. Festival customs of a city of the dead. Publishing house of the Academy of Sciences and Literature, Mainz 1953.
• Siegfried Schott: God of harp playing. In: Mémoires publiés par les membres de l'Institut francais d'archéologie orientale du Caire. No. 66, 1938, pp. 457-464.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Christian Leitz u. a .: LGG, vol. 8 . Leuven 2003, pp. 447-448.
2. ^ Kurt Sethe : Contributions to the oldest history of Egypt, Vol. 3 . Olms, Hildesheim 1964 (reprint of the Leipzig 1905 edition), § 145.
3. ↑ Norman de Garis Davies : The tomb of two sculptors at Thebes . Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 1925, p. 31, note 4.
4. ^ ^{A b} Siegfried Schott: The beautiful festival of the desert valley. Festival customs of a city of the dead. Mainz 1953, pp. 128-129.
5. ↑ Jan Assmann: Death and Beyond in Ancient Egypt. Munich 2003, p. 195.

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on May 19, 2009 .