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New Facts About Musical Instruments from Ur

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

R. D. Barnett
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Extract

One of the most interesting discoveries of the French excavation conducted by Monsieur Parrot at Mari was the beautiful seated figure of Ur-nanshe, “the great singer”, She sits on a basketry seat or cushion smiling, her feet neatly crossed and her hands folded; by her office she recalls the scene on the famous so-called “Mosaic Standard” found by Sir Leonard Woolley at Ur, which Professor Mallowan has suggested is itself part of a musical instrument. In this scene a woman with long black hair, also with folded hands, stands singing behind the figure of a musician playing a large, bull-headed lyre with eleven strings. The musician wears a long garment and across his chest an ornamental band or baldric, which is continued on the lyre behind the bull's head. It seems likely that this band is a support for holding the lyre. The musician holds the lyre high and close to his shoulder and sweeps it with his fingers (Plate XII, a). This type of musical instrument was, of course, also well known at Mari, as a fragment of inlay found by Monsieur Parrot shows.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , Autumn 1969 , pp. 96 - 103
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1969

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References

1 Ur-nanshe; A Parrot, Sumer, figs. 155–6; Mari (1953), pls. 41–4.

2 A. Parrot, Mari, pl. 64.

3 Woolley, C. L., Ur Excavations II, The Royal Cemetery (1954). 258–9.Google Scholar

4 ibid., 260.

5 ibid., 69 & pls. 104, 120 (U.10577).

6 ibid., 69–70 & pls. 106–7 (U.10556).

7 ibid., 122–3, and 252–3, and pls. 105, 114–5 U.12353).

8 ibid., 581–2, pls. 111, 112 (U.12354 & U.12355).

9 Rimmer, Joan, Ancient Musical Instruments of Western Asia (British Museum, London, 1969).Google Scholar

10 Organ, R. M., “The Reclamation of the whollymineralised silver in the Ur Lyre”, Application of Science to the Examination of Works of Art, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, 1967.Google Scholar

11 Information by courtesy of Dr. Phillips of Forest Products Research, Princes Risborough.

12 A similar scene is to be seen on a relief illustrating The Animal Orchestra at Tell Opitz, Halaf. D. & Moortgat, A., Der Tell Halaf 3Google Scholar, pl. 100.

13 ibid., 249, pls. 100, 104, 108–10. For circumstances of its discovery see ibid., 74. The body of a woman, evidently the “harpist” who died playing it, was found with her fingers still on the strings.

14 Galpin, F. W., “The Sumerian Harp of Ur”, Music & Letters X (1929).Google Scholar

16 Stauder, W., Die Harfen und Leiern der Sumerer, (1957), 20ff.Google Scholar

16 Woolley, C. L., The Royal Cemetery, 249–251.Google Scholar

17 The pencil annotation on Woolley's dig cards (see Plate XII, c) reads as follows:

(N.B. Woolley at first took this head to be that of a ram).

FIRST CARD

“PG./800 (Deletion) Bull Harp.

(U.10412)

Gold.

See photo.

Restore A & B on opposite edges of a board apparently 007 wide: these come to back of ram's head (sic!).

C & D are opposite edges of a second board 024 below, (two lines erased).

F, G, narrow bands composed of one strip of gold and on each side of it one of lapis, G was upside down all along illegible).

Inlay facing this way xxxxxx

Inlay facing the other way: ”.

SECOND CARD

“The gold bull's head was apparently on the end of a staff.

The staff was 0065 wide and about 0025 thick—the thickness of (the) inlay as both (the) narrow edges were incrusted and (the) wider flat sides plain: on one side (the) inlay was intact in (the) ground for 035, on (the) other side for 070.

This ‘staff’ was the top of the sound box.”

THIRD CARD

“The Bull-Harp PG./800.

Between B & D was solid wood planking painted black w(ith) a red line against (the) inlay. This may ∴ have been a sort of box superstructure.

From G, at (the) ram's head (sic!) end there was a quantity o(f) thin silver plate w(hi)ch seemed to h(ave) been spread upwards from the gold and lapis edging”.

FOURTH CARD

“The fact that (the) two lapis and gold edgings o(n) (the) body o(f) (the) harp lay in (the) ground both to one side o(f) (the) edgings o(f) (the) sound box showed (that) (there) must h(ave) been a vertical space bet(ween) them, as otherwise (the) soundbox (could) not h(ave) shifted thus to one side: (the) lapis and gold edging, starting at (the) bitumen str … (?) seemed to (erasure) go in two curves and meet behind (the) bull's head, so (that) (the) body w(ould) appear to h(ave) been boat-shaped. These borders were sometimes vertical, sometimes twisted so t(hat) the form was either up or down: they must ∴ h(ave) been vertical to start with.

The front of the sounding box curves up at a slope to (the) bull's head: this part is decorated w(ith) large Syrian (sic!) shell plaques, carved w(ith) mythological scenes. These plaques were bordered and divided by narrow edgings of two strips of ivory enclosing a strip of red paste (the) whole 001 wide.

At bottom was a plaque of a man fighting leopards: this was slipped out of place and behind it was a silhouetted plaque of a demon wrestling with a bull”.

18 Hartman, Henrike, Die Musik der Sumerischen Kultur, (1960), 22–3.Google Scholar

19 Stauder, op. cit., 29.

20 Woolley, op. cit., 167 & fig. 43.

21 ibid., 256, 281; pls. 118–9.

22 U.123555 Woolley, 112ff, 255–6; pls. 75, 76 from PG 1237 (here Plate XV).

23 There is some reason to think that the copper bull's head found at Bahrein in the Barbar Shrine also may be from a lyre. KUML, 1955, fig. 1 and pp. 191–2; Glob, A., ILN (1958)Google Scholar, figs. 8, 9. It was found among debris in the courtyard of Temple III with a number of copper strips, 15–20 cms. broad, pierced by many copper nails, a copper ring and a thick copper band, 4.5 cm. W. These were dispersed in two layers within an area of ½ a sq. metre, suggesting that they might have once covered the sound box's two sides.

24 W. Stauder, op. cit., 48–9.

25 H. Hartman, op. cit., 22–3.

26 J. Rimmer, op. cit., 15.

27 Woolley, ibid., pl. 113a.

28 Woolley, op. cit., 257

29 loc. cit. Anati, E., Palestine before the Hebrews (1963) pp. 210 & 211Google Scholar (drawing & photo.). Mrs. Bathya Bayer, in a private letter, however, thinks this scene might be Hellenistic (see n.31). A new Safaitic drawing showing lyre players, one female and the other mounted on a horse, presumably from the hinterland of Syria or Jordan, has recently been published by Harding, G. Lancaster, Levant, 1, (1969), pp. 68–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar, figs. 1–3. He connects the musical instrument with the bagana of Ethiopia (p. 69). This, however, is quite incorrect as the instruments played on this slab are not asymmetric lyres but symmetrical.

30 Anati, E., Rock-Art in Central Arabia, Vol. 1Google Scholar, The “Oval-Headed People of Arabia” (Bibliothèque du Muséon, 50), Louvain, 1968, figs. 64, pl. XXXIII & fig. 66.

31 Bayer, Bathya, “The Biblical Nebel’, YUV AL, (Studies of the Jewish Music Research Centre), (1968), p. 124Google Scholar, n. 157.

32 korn-Kilmer, A Draff, “The Strings of Musical Instruments: their Names, Numbers and Significance”, in Güterbock, H. G. and Jacobsen, T. (eds.) Studies in Honor of Benno Landsberger on his Seventy-Fifth Birthday (= AS 16, 1965), 261–268.Google Scholar

33 Duchesne-Guillemin, M., “Découverte d'une gamme Babylonienne”, Revue de Musicologie 49 (1963), 3–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar; “Note complémentaire sur la découverte de la gamme babylonienne”, in AS 16 (1965), 268–272Google Scholar; “A l'aube de la théorie musicale: concordance de trois tablettes babyloniennes”, Revue de musicologie 52 (1966), 147–162.CrossRefGoogle Scholar In Iraq 30(1968), 215–233CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Professor O. R. Gurney and Mr. D. Wulstan contribute valuable articles on a text only recently recognised from Ur which would appear to prove that the Sumerians used a heptatonic scale.