The World's Earliest Music. Hermann Smith
subject is so interesting to the musician that the further analysis and investigation to which these valuable relics of a past age have been submitted, cannot fail of helping to a true understanding of the significance of the Lady Maket’s flutes, the oldest evidence of the world’s earliest music.
And indeed how tenderly human is their appeal across the centuries, for they bear even now evidences of the touch of the fingers of the dear lady who played her chosen flute music upon them so long and lovingly, and cherished them as companions in her life, and destined them also to befriend her in her dark tomb. Yes, you can plainly see, her fingers have worn away the rich orange stain from the beautifully shaped oval holes. For these flutes were finely finished and designed for true musical service and durability. Originally they had been orange-stained and wax polished, and when first found held that appearance, but exposure to the air darkened the wax to a deep brown colour, yet the holes reveal in lighter tint how they have been worn by the fingers. Perhaps the lady musician had several other pairs of flutes, apt for the expression of joy and mirthfulness, and left them to her friends, taking with her only the one pair with which her Ka would mourn the loss of friends and the light of the sun.
A remembrance comes fittingly in this place, of another lady of this long vanished race. In a royal tomb they found her, at El Amrah, wrapped round with the mystic robes of a ceremonial, that were to be her passport to the underworld during an unknown eternity; she was the daughter of Mena the founder of Memphis, and on her breast was written in the old hieroglyph letters, this simple message to the unseen power, who would judge her—
“She was Sweet of Heart.”
—it was the last testimony of those who loved her. Sweet of heart, how near it brings her to our own loves. A touching epitaph to endure over six thousand years—no woman could desire a more beautiful farewell.
The flutes that my thoughts so long lingered over are gone. They are deposited, after their strange travel, in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford—a long way indeed from that land where the Lady Maket played them under a cloudless sky.
CHAPTER IV.
In the Land of Egypt. MORE EGYPTIAN FLUTES: THE EVIDENCES OF THE SCALE.
The finder of Lady Maket’s flutes, Mr. Flinders Petrie, did not coincide with me in the opinion I had formed on the method of blowing, mainly on the ground that no reeds were found with them. The objection loses its force if we consider that at all periods it has been customary for reed pipe players to have a reserve of reed tongues, and that to preserve the tongues after use it was desirable to keep them covered, that the air should not too rapidly dry up the moisture acquired during the holding in the mouth. At the present day, the players of oboes and bassoons remove their reeds from the instruments directly they cease to use them; and the clarionet player covers his reed with the cap even during a prolonged pause in the score for his instrument, for the same reason. Oboes and bassoons, when put aside, are deprived of the reeds, which are placed carefully in little cases which the players provide for them, and carry about. So that we should not expect to find the reeds with the Egyptian pipes. Another reason, too, might operate; the reeds themselves might not be ceremonially required, as these flutes might have only a certain representative character. The learned Mr. A. S. Murray, late keeper of the Greek treasures in the British Museum, tells us that “it is noticeable that, among the vases of bronze found in tombs, the metal of some of them is so thin that they can do little more than stand with their own weight; they must have been produced expressly for show at funeral ceremonies.” So long as custom was conformed to, the relatives of the deceased were not called upon to do more; and the exact significance of what was done we of a different race cannot estimate.
Taking a practical view, we are justified in the conclusion that the Egyptians had boxes for the safe keeping of these reeds, for the Greeks, who seem to have carried forward the customs of the Egyptians, had such. Mr. W. Chappell states that these reed boxes, called Glossocomeia, had a sliding lid top like a modern common domino box; and, according to Hesychius, the small reed tongues agitated by the breath of the performers were called glottis. Dr. Stainer, in his “Music of the Bible” says:—
The very existence of the word “tongue box” shows that the player was accustomed to carry his tongues or reeds separately from the instrument. The word, it will be remembered, is used in St. John xii. 6 and xiii. 29, where it is translated bag; but it is quite possible Judas Iscariot carried the money in a reed box, as implied by the Greek text.
And we may add, also, that from this explanation the inference may be drawn that very probably Judas Iscariot was a musician.
The Lady Maket’s flutes are the true representatives of the double pipes, called by the Greeks diaulos, and by the Romans tibiæ pares and tibiæ geminæ—the latter a very appropriate name. These twin flutes are profusely depicted upon Etruscan vases, being introduced almost invariably in banquet scenes: wine and music inseparable. The master and guests recline on couches; but the flute player is always shown standing, as in attendance for their pleasure.
Fig. 8.
Egyptian Player on the Double Pipes. The chaining at the ankles indicates that the players are performing some act of homage.
With the Egyptians it was different; with them chiefly the domestic alliance was dancing and music, and no doubt this difference in custom affords us an index of the characters of the two peoples.
How great the contrast; the wine-loving, laughter-loving, Greeks, living in the open day, buoyant of life, and always eager for contest whether of muscle or of brain; and the Egyptians, shadowed through day and night by the colossal calm of their temples, secluded in family life, adding store to store, possession to possession, and placidly working for the day that is, yet ever caring for the morrow after death.
Fig. 9.
Player upon Unequal Pipes.
This player has pipes of unequal length, is evidently taking part in some ceremonial, and is wearing a trailing scarf of vine leaves, which had its significance in the sacred rites. The long pipe seen in this ancient example of use is possibly the prototype of the later form seen in the Arab arghool, with its long drone pipe, and it has therefore a very interesting significance.
Fig. 10.
From the Wall Painting to be seen at the British Museum.
In the Egyptian wall paintings which we have in the British Museum are two domestic scenes; and in both the damsels are seen seated on the ground in oriental fashion, and they are playing on double flutes, whilst other damsels are dancing to their music. The picture belongs to the time of the eighteenth or nineteenth dynasty, about B.C. 1,600, and was taken from a tomb at Thebes. The date is five centuries before Lady Maket was born. This painting is about thirty inches long, and illustrates a musical entertainment. Girls are dancing, other girls are seated and are clapping hands to time; and another is seated, in full face view, playing the double pipes, which are slightly conical, and reach lower than the elbows of the seated figures. The player has rings on two fingers of the left hand, and the little finger closes on the pipe with the second joints of the finger. The pipe appears to be about twenty-four inches in length, possibly more. The proportion may be