Tof (drum)
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Tof , also toph ( Hebrew תֹּף), Plural tuppim , is a historical, general term for drums passed down mainly from the Old Testament . With the tof of the Bible a frame drum was meant, which was mainly, but not only, played by women to accompany chants in joyful dances and ritual dances. The mythical model for the frame drum played by women in the Orient is the Old Testament prophet Mirjam and her companions. Iron Age terracotta figurines showing women drumming attest to the cultural importance of the frame drum, which arose in Palestine during the time of ancient Israel .
etymology
The Ugaritic language is based on cuneiform texts from the city-state of Ugarit from the 14th to the 12th centuries BC. Occupied. The texts were often used as a corrective to the translation of Hebrew words from the Old Testament. They contain clearly identified names for musical instruments that also appear in the Bible: knr , vocalized in Hebrew kinnor , "lyre"; msltm, Hebrew mesiltayim , " Zimbel " and tp , Hebrew tof, and probably ṯlb for "flute". In the Ugaritic script , the consonant root tp , which probably originated onomatopoeia , means "drum", "drummer" and "drumming" and obviously refers to a rather bright drum sound with little resonance. The root tp can be found in many languages in which it stands for a drum, but not always for a frame drum.
Tp and tof possibly go back to the Sumerian word DUB, which falls under the broader term for "musical instrument", BALAG. Sumerian Dub-Dub, "beat" is the Akkadian to a-da-off and adapu . The Sumerian loan word occurs in the Middle Babylonian period (second half of the 2nd millennium BC) in an Akkadian lexicon text with the determinative (classifying addition) urudu.adapa , "copper" - adapa . Initially, this drum could not have been round, but at least for a certain time it was square and covered with skin on one or both sides. That adapa was probably a percussion instrument at all is evident from the textual proximity to the word lilissu , which is used to describe the large Sumerian kettle drum .
In addition to the lilissu kettle drum used in rituals, the dub also seems to have consisted of "copper" ( bronze ) according to the determinative erû . The Sumerian DUB is also found modified in the Akkadian word dadpu and via the Persian dabdabe and the Arabic dabdāb in the old Georgian word for the cylinder drum dabdabi . The name may still survive in the north Indian rattling drum budbudika (equivalent to damaru ) and the small north-west Indian hourglass drum dhadd .
In Aramaic the frame drum was called tupa , in ancient Egypt tbu . The name daf ( ad-duff , plural dufūf , dialect variants such as deff ) is widespread in the Arab world and came to the Iberian Peninsula as adufe with Arabic-Andalusian music . In Moldova , large frame drums are called doba and small double-headed drums are called tobe and dube , in Turkmenistan a small frame drum with a diameter of 26 centimeters is called dap .
Tof is mentioned in 16 places in the Old Testament: Genesis 31.27 EU ; Exodus 15:20 EU ; Ri 11.34 EU ; 1 Sam 10.5 GNB ; 2 Sam 6.5 GNB ; Isaiah 5.12 EU ; Isaiah 24.8 EU ; Jer 31.4 EU ; Ps 68.26 EU ; Ps 81.3 EU ; Ps 149.3 EU ; Ps 150.4 EU ; Job 21.12 EU and 1 Chr 13.8 EU .
In Job 17.6 EU (“He stood me up as a mockery of the people, I became someone who spit in the face.”) The verb “spit” is the translation of tofet (תֹּפֶת), a derogatory expression used in Tanach in the figurative sense stands for the altar of the religious child sacrifice. The dubious derivation tofet from tof occurs predominantly in biblical commentaries up to the 19th century , an association that is based on the drums played in the sacrificial ritual. Their beating should drown out the cries of the burned alive victim.
In the ancient Greek translation of the Bible, the Septuagint , tof is translated as tympanum (τύμπανον), in the late ancient Latin Bible the Vulgate is translated as tympanum. In both texts a drum is undoubtedly meant. The tympanum in the shape of a flat kettle drum has been on Greek vases since the 4th century BC. Pictured BC. From tympanon the name for the frame drum with jingles, was in English timbrel (first time in King Alisaundre , the romantically embellished Versdichtung to life of Alexander mentioned, early 14th century), and the timpani , timpani .
Origin and design
Mesopotamian frame drums
Neither the Sumerian nor the Biblical names of musical instruments contain specific statements about their design, which is why the forms of musical instruments are only known from images and can only be assigned by inferences. The Sumerian word BALAG for "musical instrument" could mean stringed instruments (in the narrower sense lyres ) or drums. In Mesopotamia appeared in the first dynasty of Uruk in the 4th millennium BC. On clay seals in the royal tombs of Ur and at the same time with lyres and harps in the first half of the 3rd millennium BC. On inlay work in the city-states of Kiš and Mari blow idiophone as counterstrike sticks and rattles . In the graves of Ur and Kiš, some metal rattles were found, which the musicians hit in pairs with both hands. The pictures show that dancers use the rattles to accompany them rhythmically.
From the 3rd millennium onwards, drums are also shown. On a clay pot found in Tell Agreb , three women are depicted who, according to an uncertain reconstruction drawing, hold up a round drum or possibly a plate in their left hand, which they beat with a stick in their right hand. More precisely recognizable are drums on clay tablets from around 2000 BC. BC, the beginning of the Ur-III period . Dancers hold circular objects in front of their chests with both hands, so that, according to Wilhelm Stauder, they could have been frames covered with skin on both sides, filled with beads and shaken like a rattle drum . Rattle drums preceded the struck frame drums, which were widespread in the Middle East and Egypt in the Babylonian period in the first half of the 2nd millennium.
Clay tablets from Nippur and Babylon from the 18th century BC Chr. Show a different playing position of the round frame drum, which is now pressed with the left hand on the left shoulder and hit with the right hand without a stick. The images appear strict, which could indicate a cultic connection. It is possible that the musician practiced the style of playing that is still common today by hitting the edge of the head with the fingers of her left hand and the middle with her right hand in order to create different volumes and timbres. Another figure from the 18th century BC. Chr. Depicts a dancer who holds a frame drum at head height far from herself and acts in a less strictly defined way to accompany a lyre. During this time, the frame drum seems to have been used by the Babylonians and, according to similar illustrations, by the Assyrians living further north, rather than as a soloist in cults, now more for entertainment and in conjunction with other instruments.
Probably the oldest surviving figure with a drum from Cyprus is a bird-headed female terracotta statuette from the Late Bronze Age , dating from 1400–1230 BC. Dated (late Cypriot II). The standing musician is holding a round flat object, which is interpreted as a drum, across her left breast with her arms bent sideways. Until around 700 BC No further drum representations from Cyprus are known.
Bell-shaped female drummer figurines
According to current knowledge , the tof mentioned in the Bible was a circular frame drum with a diameter of 25 to 30 centimeters (the length of a forearm). Such a drum beats one in the 9th to 7th centuries BC. Female terracotta figure from Schiqmona (today Tell as-Samak, an Iron Age settlement near the Carmel mountain range in northern Israel), dated to the 3rd century BC. This female drummer is one of 14 specimens that are grouped together as bell-shaped (conical) female drummers and make up a tiny part of the more than 700 Iron Age terracotta figures from the coastal areas of Palestine . The oldest bell-shaped female drummer comes from the 11th / 10th centuries. Century from Mount Nebo ; from 8./7. Century BC They are attributed to the Phoenicians . Three figures were found in Samaria , the location of three others is unknown. The stylistically different figures are 15 to 25 centimeters tall and hollow on the inside. In contrast to the finely worked out facial features, only the outlines of the schematic flat hands can be seen without fingers. In contrast to the Babylonian musician, the drummer depicted in the bell-shaped clay figures from Palestine holds her instrument lower, closer to the body and directed almost at right angles to the upper body. Such an attitude is otherwise only found in some younger (6th century BC) figures from Cyprus. Terracotta drummers from northern Phenicia hold their instrument similarly, but stiff and with their hands symmetrical on either side of the membrane. In such a position, drums are hardly playable, they could also be cymbals.
Terracotta plaques with female drummers
In addition to the hollow, bell-shaped figurines that have been described since the 1930s, there are figural terracotta plaques from biblical space. In the early 1940s, James B. Pritchard classified 294 from the 18th to the 6th centuries BC. Terracotta plaques from Palestine dated to the 4th century and depicting naked or half-naked standing women in eight groups. His theme was to connect these figures with deities known in writing; for many he saw a connection with motherhood or fertility cults. To group 5 ( Figurine Holding Disc ) he counted 14 plaques showing fully plastic figures with a round object pressed flat in front of the left breast. The left hand holds the edge of the suspected frame drum from below, the flat right hand covers the middle of the skin. The women mostly wear headgear and are richly hung with jewelry. The question of whether these Iron Age female clay figures from Palestine hold round metal plates, drums or something else in their hands was left unanswered by Pritchard and provided frame drums, cakes / bread (as offerings, as documented several times in the Old Testament), kettle drums, frame rattles or Plate / bowl. Iconographic research has since occupied this question intensively and most recently answered it in favor of the frame drum (without bells).
The parallels to the Mesopotamian forerunners show a historical continuity of the female drummer motif in the Middle East. Pritchard's group Figurine Holding Disc (“female figure with disc in hand” or “... in front of the breast”) has grown to over 40 today. Eight plaques come from Megiddo , four from nearby Bet Sche'an , three from Gezer , two from Hazor and two from Amman .
It seems clear that the terracotta drummers represent a deity or priestess. The figures could have symbolized a house god ( terafim ) as an image of a saint , as an amulet or simply as a toy. The latter interpretation seeks to counterbalance the often blanket appropriation as mother goddess. Judging by the places where they were found - tombs, living areas and cult areas, the depictions of the drummers appeared in a sacred and probably predominantly secular environment. The archetypes of the clay figures, the real female drummers, obviously belonged in this context. They are also mentioned in the Old Testament with sacred and secular references.
According to the archaeological finds, the tof is understood as a circular frame drum made of wood without bells. According to post-biblical sources, it was covered with the skin of a ram. In 2 Sam 6,5 GNB , King David and all Israelites dance to the accompaniment of musical instruments whose names can be translated as two different lyres (not "harp"), frame drums, rattle made of clay and possibly cymbals. It is unclear whether the frame drum was covered with a membrane on one or both sides. In the case of the figurines, the drum could also be double-skinned; in the case of the plaques it appears to be single-skin. Earlier suggestions for the drum type were also square frame drums and hourglass drums . Clay figures like the representation of a standing woman from Cyprus ( Metropolitan Museum of Art , 74.51.1675) are to be distinguished from the drummers , whose hands stretched out in parallel hold a vertical disc on both sides, which clearly appear as a pair of cymbals (in biblical texts mesiltayim, selselim ) can be identified.
How to play and spread
Five scriptures mention women drumming:
- The tof is first and foremost associated with the Old Testament prophet Mirjam, who, according to Genesis 2,15,20-21 EU, performs a joyful dance with her companions when she leaves Egypt and after successfully crossing the Red Sea . The dancers beat the rhythm with drums.
- In Judge 11.34 EU it says: “When Jiftach returned to his house in Mizpah, his daughter came to meet him; she danced to the drum. She was his only child; he had neither a son nor any other daughter. ”The book Richter, in which this sentence is contained, was written at the end of the 8th century BC. BC, before the revision by the Deuteronomists , already completed. The joy dance of Jiftach's daughter describes the mood in the southern kingdom of Judah after the destruction of the kingdom of Israel . After his daughter's father declared that he would have to sacrifice her because she was the first to meet him, she asked for a two-month period in which to complain about her virginity.
- 1 Sam 18.6 EU : "When they returned home after David's victory over the Philistines , the women from all the cities of Israel went to meet King Saul singing and dancing with drums, shouts of joy and cymbals."
- According to Ps 68,26 EU, God's entry into the sanctuary is followed by a solemn chant ( Paian ) “... the singers ahead, the string players afterwards, in between girls with small kettledrums.” Psalm 68 seems to belong to the tradition of the northern kingdom of Israel .
- The sentence in Jer 31.4 EU contains a sublimated reference between drum and women: “I will build you up again, you shall be built anew, Virgin Israel. You should decorate yourself again with your kettledrum, you should undress in the dance of the happy. ”The drum is called a tabret here .
However, the tof was not a musical instrument played exclusively by women; this only applies to solo drumming. In the orchestra with other instruments, men could also play the tof . No scripture mentions the use of the tof for ritual music in the temple . String instruments and cymbals played by men were used here. In contrast, drums were beaten during cult dances outside the temple, religious festivals and processions. Women took part as singers and musicians. The order of processions is given in Psalm 68:26: singers, drummers and behind them the other musicians. Genesis 31,27 EU describes Jacob's separation from Laban . He says to Jakob: “Why did you hide from me that you wanted to run away, and why did you outsmart me and tell me nothing? I would have liked to have accompanied you with singing, kettledrums and harps. ”This passage is an example of the secular use of the tof on happy occasions , probably from an earlier time .
In the Old Testament, as in other cultures - from the ancient Greek Cybele cult with the tympanum to the Tsar cult in Islamic countries to the pre-Columbian myths and rituals in the Andes - the drum is a feminine attribute and an instrument for cult dances. The naked terracotta figures contain the idea of fertility and eroticism. This sensual aspect, which is widespread among the people, was exaggerated by the priesthood, as in Jeremiah 31.4, with the metaphor "Virgin Israel".
An early Christian depiction of Miriam was preserved on a sarcophagus made in Rome from the 4th century. There are four sculptural figures on a relief that stand together in a group. The female figure on the right presents herself as the leader of the group. She holds a frame drum flat in front of her left chest and in her right hand grips a mallet that rests on the eardrum. In contrast to the pre-Christian terracotta images, it is not a purely female group and the people do not perform a dance. The essential features of the Hebrew Mirjam iconography are therefore missing. Most of the Mirjam representations date from the late Middle Ages. The fact that women's dance with singing and drum accompaniment continued to be cultivated during this time can be seen from the corresponding illustrations. In the illuminated Byzantine manuscript Homilies of Gregor von Nazianz created around 880 , Mirjam holds bells and bells in his hands. In another Byzantine, illustrated octateuch from the 11th century (kept in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, signature: MS gr. 747, fol . 90 v. ) Mirjam beats a cylinder drum. The faithful image of a frame drum appears on a miniature in Ripoll's 11th century Bible . Mirjam shows herself dancing and beating the drum with outstretched arms (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS lat. 5729, fol. 82 r. ). A psalm illustration from north-eastern France (early 13th century, London, British Library, MS Egerton 2652, fol. 146r.) Is an example of the representation of a square frame drum, as it appeared on the Iberian Peninsula and corresponds to today's Portuguese adufe . The associatively illustrated verse ( Psalm 98.1 EU : "Sing to the Lord a new song; for he has done wonderful deeds.") Corresponds to the content of Miriam's praise. In Hebrew Bibles, the square frame drum is always a feature of the Sephardic tradition, while a round drum does not necessarily suggest an Ashkenazi origin.
The Sarajevo Haggadah , an illustrated manuscript stored in Sarajevo that contains instructions ( Haggadah ) for carrying out the Passover festival, shows in fol. 28r. below a classic scene of Mirjam with a frame drum and five girls dancing happily. Four of the five dancers depicted in long, slim robes in an elegant S-shaped bent posture have their gaze directed at Mirjam, who is standing calmly on the left edge of the picture. Mirjam is an old woman according to her strict facial features and wears a headscarf that hangs over her shoulders. She plays a round, one-sided covered bells drum, the metal plates of which protrude clearly from the frame. Bell drums ( tambourines ) have been known throughout Europe since the beginning of the 13th century, and they are the most common of all musical instruments in Italian illustrations from the 14th and 15th centuries. In England in the 18th century the bell drum ( tambourine ) replaced the older frame drum without bells ( tymbre ). A bells drum could also be seen on the Ashkenazi Haggada manuscript produced in Lombardy at the end of the 14th century (Jerusalem, Jewish Theological Seminary, Schocken Bibliothek, MS 24085, fol. 32r.). Three women standing in quarter profile can be seen, of whom the middle one, Mirjam, seems to be shaking her drum, while a dancer on the right is stretching her arms up and the dancer on the left is striking a rattle.
Moses dal Castellazzo (1466-1526), a living in Venice Jewish portrait painter, created a woodcut to an illustrated Bible on which six women who hold each other's hands, in a circle a round dance. There is a copy of this in the form of a pen drawing from 1521 (Warsaw, Zydowski Instytut Historyczny, cod. 1164, fol. 90). A single woman stands on the left edge of the picture. With a twisting movement of the upper body, she looks over her shoulder at the dance group and hits a pair of pools with both hands. The women all wear headscarves and long, peasant-looking, flowing clothes.
A southern German manuscript from around 1320 by a Machsor (Jewish prayer book) depicts two groups of people moving from right to left (Budapest, Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Kônyvtára , A384, fol. 197r.). Below, Egyptians go to war with chariots, horses, flags and lances, led by the Pharaoh on horseback. In the upper field of the picture, Moses leads the group of Israelites and divides the Red Sea with a staff. The third of the not chronologically reproduced acts shows the group of women celebrating the successful escape of the Israelites from the persecuting Egyptians. The woman standing in front holds a flute in her right hand and a drum that appears to be attached to her right arm, which she beats with a mallet in her left hand. Mirjam in this scene plays the combination of a one-handed flute and the Tabor drum, popular in the Middle Ages .
Joachim Braun sees the Old Testament tradition of women drumming in a special way in the dance songs of Jewish women in Yemen , which they cultivated there as a diaspora until the middle of the 20th century . He believes the old age of Yemeni- Jewish music is borne out by Yemeni folk tales. The leader (poet, meschoreret ) of the round dance recites the verses and - as modern Mirjam - sets the rhythm for the women's group with her drum. Whether and to what extent an ancient Israelite musical culture was preserved through oral tradition in Yemen cannot be proven, however. After all, the psalmody , which has been passed down exclusively orally in Yemen, seems to be based on relatively old melodic forms. The Yemeni women accompanied their singing with clapping hands, various drums and the sahn nuhasi , a flat copper plate hit with their hands. These are the same rhythmic instruments with which the Muslim Yemenis accompany their songs to this day. The tradition of secular and religious women singing with drums is widespread in the Orient from North Africa to Central Asia. The frame drum daira , which occurs with pronunciation variants of this name in the entire region mentioned , is also played by men, but is more closely associated with the music of women .
literature
- James Blades: Percussion Instruments and their History. 5th edition. Kahn & Averill, London 2005, ISBN 978-0933224612
- András Borgó: Miriam's musical instruments in late medieval Hebrew representations . In: Music in Art, Vol. 31, No. 1/2 (Music in Art: Iconography as a Source for Music History, Volume II) Spring – Fall 2006, pp. 175–193
- Joachim Braun: Biblical musical instruments. In: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present . (MGG) Volume 1, Bärenreiter, Kassel 1994, Sp. 1503-1537, here Sp. 1516f
- Joachim Braun: Biblical Instruments. In: Stanley Sadie (Ed.): The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 524-535, here pp. 526f
- Joachim Braun: The musical culture of old Israel / Palestine: Studies on archaeological, written and comparative sources. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1999
- Jeremy Montagu: Tof . In: Stanley Sadie (Ed.): The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments . Volume 3, Macmillan Press, London 1984, p. 603
- Sarit Paz: Drums, Women and Goddesses: Drumming and Gender in Iron Age II Israel . (Biblicus et Orientalis, 232) Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007
Individual evidence
- ↑ Matahisa Koitabashi: The deification of the Lyre in Ancient Ugarit. In: Bulletin of the Society for Near Eastern Studies in Japan 36 (2) , 1993, pp. 1–17, here p. 1
- ^ Richard J. Dumbrill: The Archaeomusicology of the Ancient Near East. Trafford Publishing (Ebookslib), 2005, pp. 363, 389f, ISBN 978-1412055383
- ↑ Farshid Delshad: Georgica et Irano-Semitica. Studies on the Iranian and Semitic loanwords in the Georgian national epic "The warrior in a panther's skin". (Ars poetica. Writings on literary studies 7; PDF; 3.1 MB) Deutscher Wissenschaftsverlag, Baden-Baden 2009, p. 124f, ISBN 978-3-86888-004-5
- ^ Francis W. Galpin: The Music of the Sumerians and their Immediate Successors, the Babylonians and Assyrians. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1937; 2nd unchanged edition: Strasbourg University Press, Strasbourg 1955, pp. 5f
- ^ Valeriu Apan: Romania. In: Thimothy Rice, James Porter, Chris Goertzen (Eds.): Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. Volume 8: Europe. Routledge, New York / London 2000, p. 877
- ^ Jean During, Veronica Doubleday: Daf (f) and Dayera. In: Encyclopædia Iranica .
- ↑ Cf. Christoph Starke, Johann Georg Starke, Johann Bernhard Hassel (eds.): Synopsis Bibliothecae Exegeticae In Vetus Testamentum: Brief excerpt of the most thorough and useful interpretations of all books of the Old Testament. Heilmann, Biel 1751 ( online at BSB )
- ↑ James Blades: Percussion Instruments and their History, p. 177
- ^ Sibyl Marcuse : Musical Instruments: A Comprehensive Dictionary. Doubleday, New York 1964, keyword timbrel , p. 524
- ^ Wilhelm Stauder: The music of the Sumer, Babylonier and Assyrer. In: Bertold Spuler (Hrsg.): Handbuch der Orientalistik. 1. Department: The Near and Middle East. Supplementary Volume IV: Oriental Music. EJ Brill, Leiden / Cologne 1970, pp. 182-184
- ^ Wilhelm Stauder: The music of the Sumer, Babylonier and Assyrer, S. 198f
- ↑ Erin Walcek Averett: Drumming for the Divine: A Female Tympanon Player from Cyprus. In: MVSE. Annual of the Museum of Art and Archeology, Vol. 36-39. University of Missouri, 2002–04, published Fall 2008, pp. 15–28, here p. 16
- ↑ Joachim Braun: The music culture of old Israel / Palestine, p. 104f
- ↑ James B. Pritchard: Palestinian Figurines in relation to certain goddesses known through literature. American Oriental Society, New Haven 1943
- ↑ Joachim Braun: The music culture of Old Israel / Palestine , p. 108
- ^ Sarit Paz: Drums, Women and Goddesses , 2007, p. 54
- ↑ Joachim Braun: Biblical musical instruments . In: MGG , Sp. 1527
- ^ Carol Meyers: A Terracotta at the Harvard Semitic Museum and Disc-holding Female Figures Reconsidered . In: Israel Exploration Journal, Vol. 37, No. 2/3, 1987, pp. 116-122, here p. 119
- ↑ Urs Winter: Woman and Goddess: exegetical and iconographic studies on the female image of God in ancient Israel and its environment. (Dissertation) Catholic Theological Faculty. Eberhard Karls University, Tübingen 1983, p. 131 ( online as V.IRAT. Publications of the Ideagora for the History of Religions, Classical Studies & Theology, 2012)
- ↑ David P. Wright: Music and Dance in 2 Samuel 6. In: Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 121, no. 2, summer 2002, pp. 201–225, here p. 203
- ↑ Joachim Braun: Biblical musical instruments. In: MGG, Sp. 1526
- ^ Carol L. Meyers: Of Drums and Damsels: Women's Performance in Ancient Israel. In: The Biblical Archaeologist, Vol. 54, No. 1, March 1991, pp. 16-27, ill. P. 17
- ↑ Sarit Paz: Drums, Women and Goddesses, 2007, pp. 83-85
- ^ Karin Anna Pendle: Women and Music: A History. Indiana University Press, Bloomington 2001, p. 40
- ↑ Joachim Braun: Biblical musical instruments. In: MGG, Sp. 1526f
- ↑ András Borgó: Miriam's musical instruments in late medieval Hebrew representations, 2006, pp. 176–178
- ↑ James Blades: Percussion Instruments and their History, 2005, p. 197
- ↑ András Borgo: The musical instruments Miriam in late medieval Hebrew representations, 2006, pp 179-184
- ↑ Joachim Braun: The music culture of Old Israel / Palestine , pp. 50, 111
- ↑ Regina Randhofer: Psalms in Jewish and Christian traditions. Diversity, change and constancy. In: Acta Musicologica, Vol. 70, Fasc. 1, January-June, 1998, pp. 45-78, here pp. 47, 63