Franklin, John Curtis. 2016. Kinyras: The Divine Lyre. Hellenic Studies Series 70. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_FranklinJ.Kinyras.2016.
3. The Knr
The Mesopotamian material, together with the Divine Kinnaru of Ugarit and further evidence from the Hurro-Hittite world, indicates that the divinization of instruments was one facet of an ‘international’ music culture operative in the BA Near East. Fortunately, the latter enormous subject need not be exhausted here. We may simply focus on the knr, for which there is relatively abundant textual evidence and associated iconography. To be sure, this multiform word/instrument does offer an instructive sample of a ‘global economy’ of music. But it is also the very soul of Kinnaru. So a detailed examination of the instrument’s geographical diffusion and cultural position, both practical and symbolic, will illuminate the larger environment from which, I shall argue, Kinyras sailed for Cyprus.
Jubal: Looking Back from Israel
The knr was long known best from Heb. kinnōr, the famous ‘harp’—actually lyre (see below)—of David, with more than forty occurrences in the canonical Old Testament, and many further mentions in the apocrypha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Rabbinic literature. [1] The prestigious position which this suggests is paralleled by a wide range of performance contexts, often exalted: sacred psalms, royal praise poetry, triumphal processions and other revelry, musical exorcism, ecstatic prophecy, and even lyric plaints. [2]
The Bible itself, however, is well aware that its kinnōr had had a much more ancient past outside of Israel and Judah. The instrument is mentioned in Canaanite/Phoenician contexts, and among the Aramaeans of the patriarchal age. [3] Its invention is appropriately placed in the antediluvian chapters of Genesis, where it is attributed to Jubal—a seventh-generation descendant of Cain—as part of a larger family of culture-heroes: [4]
Lamech took two wives; the name of one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. Adah bore Jabal; he was the ancestor of those who live in tents and have livestock. His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the ancestor of all those who play the lyre (kinnōr) and pipe (‘ūghābh). Zillah bore Tubal-Cain, who made all kinds of bronze and iron tools. The sister of Tubal-Cain was Naamah. [5]
According to this chronology, the ‘kinnōr’ had existed from time out of mind, long before the emergence of ‘Israel’—symbolized by Jacob—from the larger popular matrix descended from Noah. The passage incorporates a further chronological indicator: the kinnōr arises within a nomadic way of life such as was believed to have characterized the age of the patriarchs. [6] An equally important component of this ancient lifestyle, according to the inclusion of Tubal-Cain, was the working of metals.
This portrait of Lamech’s family has often been connected with an Egyptian tomb-painting from Beni-Hassan, dating to the Twelfth Dynasty in the early second millennium (Figure 3 = 4.1j). [7] It shows a seemingly nomadic troupe—men, women, and herd animals—prominent among whom is a man towards the back who carries and plays the lyre. One obvious explanation for his presence is that music is “the provision of the traveller.” [8] But there is more. The accompanying text identifies the troupe as thirty-seven “Asiatics of Šwt” (‘3mw n šwt), led by a ruler with the Canaanite name of Abî-shar, who were bringing a load of the cosmetic stibium (antimony) to the owner of the grave, a high-ranking noble named Chnumhotep, in the service of Amenemhet II. Here is early evidence for the circulation of Syro-Levantine lyres beyond their home range. That the instrument is found in a kind of royal context—‘accompanying’ a king or chieftain—will find parallels at Ebla, Mari, Ugarit, and elsewhere in the Bible. The group is equally prepared for metalworking: they pack anvil, bellows, and tongs. The parallel to Lamech’s family is certainly striking—although we shall see that the Biblical portrait is but one example of a more widespread association of music and craftsmanship, which remained a productive mytheme in the Syro-Levantine sphere down into the Byzantine period. [9]
Figure 3. ‘Asiatic’ troupe with lyrist, tomb-painting, Beni-Hassan, Twelfth Dynasty, ca. 1900. Drawn from Shedid 1994 fig. 20.
Returning to Jubal himself, it seems significant that he has been lodged in a genealogical context. This device is of course natural for representing the development of civilization; it was equally exploited by Philo of Byblos for his comparable Phoenician history. [10] Yet it probably also acknowledges the early existence of musical ‘tribes’ or ‘guilds’ of some sort, with membership at least quasi-hereditary, long before the organization of the First Temple. [11] The evidence for various forms of official musical management in the BA, from Ebla, Mari, and Ugarit—to mention only those that bear most directly on the ‘Bible lands’—lets us appreciate the ‘accuracy’ of Jubal as an ultimate musical ancestor.
We must remember finally the last member of Lamech’s family, Naamah. Although she lacks detail here, her siblings entitle us to expect that she too was regarded as some sort of culture-hero. In fact, extra-Biblical sources show that Naamah was the subject of a lively popular tradition, being associated with songs, laments, and an ancient women’s practice of frame-drumming—before developing a Rabbinic afterlife as a demonic seductrix. [12] As such, she complements the ‘lyre’ and ‘pipe’, which are credited here to Jubal. Together they constitute a full musical range of strings, winds, and percussion, and embrace both male and female musical activity. The overall instrumentation is very close both to the situation at Ugarit and the Cypro-Phoenician symposium bowls. [13]
Identifying the knr
The Bible’s memory of an ancient kinnōr is confirmed by relatively abundant lexical and iconographic evidence from the wider NE.
The desire to match ancient instrument names with iconographic representations and physical remains goes back to the earliest phases of historical musicology, when the N-A reliefs offered material for speculation well before enough reliable textual evidence had been amassed to support a broader approach. [14] Yet even now, with dozens of instrument finds and scores of representations, secure correlations are often elusive. When one considers the cultural complexity and chronological immensity of the ANE, it becomes clear that the visual evidence, rich as it is, is but a fragmentary sample.
The knr, however, is a partial exception to this rule. The word itself, like most ancient instrument names, is of obscure origin. [15] Nevertheless, the Jewish kinnōr was clearly not a harp—as rendered in the King James Version—but a kind of lyre. [16] This is seen first in its common translation as kithára in the Septuagint. [17] It is also so glossed in several Greek lexical collections. [18] There is no reason to doubt these equations: the basic similarity of the kithára to various Syro-Levantine lyres must have been obvious to all educated inhabitants of the eastern Mediterranean, Hellene or otherwise. [19]
This evidence is corroborated by lyres being the most commonly represented stringed instrument in Levantine and North Syrian art, from the third millennium through the first. [20] In the Levant alone, more than thirty representations are known. [21] Most of the evidence was assembled and discussed by A. Norborg in 1995. Soon afterwards, B. Lawergren compared these with examples from the Aegean, analyzing the whole for regional patterns. [22] My Figures 4 and 5 draw upon their work, incorporating Lawergren’s drawings (and a few others). [23] I have separated Bronze and Iron Age specimens between the two diagrams, as this best reflects historical patterns in which we are interested, especially the EIA Aegean migrations eastward. Such distribution maps should naturally be used with care. One must allow for some variability in how instruments were depicted, and the randomness of finds. Where an object was made is often not where it was found; and foreign instruments may have been depicted locally for various reasons. Nevertheless, some broad patterns can be detected.
Figure 4. Distribution map of Bronze Age lyres (after DCPIL). Individual images drawn by Bo Lawergren and numbered according to DCPIL figs. 1, 3–5, 8 (used with permission). Other drawings by Glynnis Fawkes are preceded by “Figure,” referring to their position in this book.
Figure 5. Distribution map of Iron Age lyres (after DCPIL). Individual images drawn by Bo Lawergren and numbered according to DCPIL figs. 1, 3–5, 8 (used with permission).
Lawergren proposed a basic dichotomy (down to about ca. 700) between ‘eastern’ lyres with flat-based resonators, and round-based ‘western’ lyres typical of the Aegean. [24] We shall see that this division between East and West, and just where the line should be drawn, concerns Cyprus closely (Chapter 11, with further specimens). For now we shall focus on the ‘eastern’ lyres, as being most obviously relevant to Kinnaru.
Lawergren divided his eastern lyres into ‘thin’ (with a substantial ‘rectangular’ subset) and ‘thick’, although ‘large’ and ‘small’ might be more satisfactory, having a basis in ancient usage. [25] Thick/large lyres are attested both in NK Egypt and the Hittite world, leading Lawergren to posit an unattested Levantine analog, which he would identify with Heb. nēbel, often grouped with the kinnōr in the Bible (and having an Ugaritic cognate). [26] But perhaps the Egyptian examples are modifications of imported Anatolian specimens, given the ‘collecting impulse’ otherwise documented for the NK. [27] In terms of scale, the thick/large lyres may be compared with the large bull-lyres of southern Mesopotamia; but despite the third-millennium date of the latter, it is hardly certain that the Anatolian/Egyptian examples derive directly thence. [28]
Thin/small lyres are by far the more numerous, either with outwardly curving arms (often asymmetrical) or a more box-like structure (‘rectangular’), and usually held more or less obliquely. [29] Since the earliest representations (third millennium) are concentrated in North Syria, some now see this as a plausible point of origin not only for the Levantine instruments, but even those going back to roughly the same time in Mesopotamia, where they are found alongside harps. [30] Naturally new discoveries could reconfigure the picture. But we should certainly be cautious about the older tendency to see the history of lyres as part of a more general east-to-west ‘culture drift’ out of Mesopotamia. [31]
Lawergren rightly noted that the earliest attestations of the word knr (see below) are roughly coterminous with the distribution of thin/small lyres. Linguistic and organological evidence thus unite for a secure identification of knr as ‘lyre.’
But we must not be too categorical in our definitions. Given the iconographical fluctuations, which span such a wide geographical and chronological range, knr cannot have been the only name ever applied to all of these instruments. A case in point is the nbl/nēbel. Conversely, the name knr may have been applied to other instruments that do not appear in Lawergren’s chart, perhaps even what modern musicologists would distinguish as harps. (Recall the debate over the identity of the early Megiddo etching, ca. 3200–3000. [32] ) Such modulations might happen at points of cultural interface, where juxtaposition of traditions could be musically fruitful. This point will be important when we come to consider the situation on Cyprus, especially from the twelfth century onwards, when Aegean and Syro-Levantine traditions interacted within an older insular sphere having its own distinct cultural, and hence musical, identity. The result was a rich range of hybrid phenomena that invite analysis into separate original components, but which are ultimately transcendent and distinctively Cypriot. At the heart of this insular tradition is the Greek-Cypriot word kinýra, the interpretation of which, we shall see, calls for some morphological flexibility (Chapter 11).
Within the limitations sketched above, however, it is clear that the word knr will have been known with at least generic force throughout most of North Syria, the Levant, and adjacent areas variously from the third or second millennium onwards. [33] This makes it methodologically sound to examine the textual sources as a coherent body of evidence. One must obviously allow for semantic and ideological variations, which will naturally increase with geographical and temporal distance. It is therefore best to privilege the oldest material, as being most relevant for illuminating divinized instruments generally and Kinnaru/Kinyras specifically. Even so, we shall see that important information is sometimes found in quite late sources.
The Early Lexical Evidence
The earliest certain lexical evidence comes from Syria, Mesopotamia, the Levant, Egypt, and Anatolia; it includes administrative documents, ancient lexica, mythological and quasi-ritual texts, and more literary narratives. I present here a preliminary survey in chronological order, thereby sketching the terrain to be covered in the following chapters. [34]
The oldest known form of the word is kinnārum, found at the important North Syrian site of Ebla (ca. 2400), written variously as gi-na-ru12-um, gi-na-rúm, gi-na-lum. [35] It was glossed there as Sum. BALAĜ, an important identification given the abundant evidence for the divinization of the balang in early Mesopotamia. [36] Around the same time kinnārum found its way, represented as gi-na-ru12, into at least one southern Mesopotamian lexical tradition, presumably as a loanword from the west; it appears there alongside the balang and another instrument written with a modified BALAĜ sign. [37] The Eblaite forms still show the mimation (final –m), which was largely lost in Northwest Semitic languages during the first half of the second millennium. [38] Eblaite orthography does not distinguish between voiced and unvoiced consonants, [39] but the agreement of later forms shows that the unvoiced k- was probably intended. Representation of doubled consonants was also not mandatory by cuneiform convention: [40] at Ugarit (ca. 1250) the word was rendered knr in the city’s alphabetic cuneiform, and as ki-na-rù in the Akkadian practiced by its scribes. But fuller spellings from Mari (ca. 1800), the LBA archives of Alalakh and Emar, and an Egyptian papyrus from the late NK establish geminate –nn– as the usual pronunciation. [41]
The early distribution of kinnāru(m) has induced many scholars to classify knr as a WS word. [42] The situation is complicated, however, by the example from Ebla, since that city’s position between East and West Semitic continues to be debated. [43] Some have therefore supposed that kinnārum was a P-S word, which in Akkadian was displaced by balang or other Sumerian instrument names. [44] And while the trisyllabic structure of knr would certainly accord with a Semitic origin, it remains equally possible that this was an adaptation of an older culture-word. [45]
Related to this linguistic puzzle is the inevitable kinship of kinnārum with both the zinar of Hattian/Hittite tradition, and the zanaru/zannāru of Sumerian and Akkadian. [46] This justifies expanding our scope somewhat beyond knr itself to include further contextual evidence, especially from the Hittite world, whose ritual texts provide valuable detail on the lyre’s use in the royal cult of a LBA society. [47]
That the second syllable of kinnārum normally had long ā is established by Heb. kinnōr—the vocalization of which is provided by the MT [48] —since the specific divergence of the two forms must be explained by the so-called Canaanite Shift, whereby P-S ā developed unconditionally to ō in both Hebrew and the Canaanite/Phoenician dialects. [49] (Despite the disruptions at the end of the LBA, there is no real cultural break between ‘Canaanite’ and ‘Phoenician’: the latter term, reflecting Greek usage, conventionally denotes Canaanite dialects and populations of the first millennium. [50] ) It was long known, on the basis of Canaanite words represented in the syllabic Akkadian of the Amarna letters, that the sound change was generally in place by the fourteenth century. Byblos may be taken as the approximate northern limit of this dialect zone, which thus includes the core Phoenician cities of Tyre and Sidon. [51] The OB tablets from Hazor, however, now show that the Shift was already underway, at least in places, some four centuries earlier. [52] Ugarit, while sharing some innovations with the Canaanite dialects, resisted this particular development—one of the features that give Ugaritic an archaic appearance [53] —whence we find Kinnaru there.
The comparative evidence thus requires us to assume an early Canaanite form ancestral to Heb. kinnōr. Given the present state of excavation in Phoenicia, the evidence for these dialects is largely limited to the representation of Canaanite words in Egyptian sources. [54] But as it happens, Levantine lyres enjoyed a vogue in the NK, following imperial expansion into the region (see Chapter 6). Thus we find a knr alongside two otherwise unattested instruments, perhaps exotic, in the Anastasi Papyrus (ca. 1200)—a satirical portrait of a libertine scribe given to wild women and music. [55] Although Egyptian writing typically did not indicate vowels, scribes of the MK and especially NK developed a quasi-syllabic system, perhaps under the influence of cuneiform, with supplementary letters serving as phonetic complements (matres lectionis) to help represent “foreign names and words, as well as rare or ambiguous Egyptian words and names.” [56] Since this system is employed in the papyrus, it is clear that we are dealing with a Canaanite version of knr. It is represented in transcription as kn-nù-rú—that is, /kinnōru/, /kinnūru/, or somewhere in between. [57]
No certain example of the word has so far emerged from Phoenician inscriptions, neither in the heartland itself, nor in areas of Phoenician/Punic expansion. [58] Yet given the numerous Levantine lyres shown on the Cypro-Phoenician symposium bowls (ca. 900–600), one cannot doubt the existence of Phoenician dialect forms like *kinnūr or *kennūr. [59]
I emphasize the Canaanite Shift because such a dialectal form must be the source of ‘Greek’ kinýra. [60] I will analyze the abundant lexical and linguistic evidence for this word in due course (Chapters 9 and 11). The question is vital because, despite Ugarit’s importance for producing a Divine Kinnaru and rich material for the practical and ideological status of the instrument itself (Chapter 7), the ‘shifted’ form ‘Kinyras’ indicates that Ugarit was not the immediate and/or only origin of the legendary Cypriot king. One must give serious consideration to traditions that locate ‘Kinyras’ at the Canaanite/Phoenician sites of Byblos and possibly Sidon. [61]
The foregoing survey outlines the main historical and cultural milieux to be examined. The relevant sources provide generous information about the musical and ritual contexts in which the knr was used, as well as its symbolic potency. It is a likely guess that the Divine Knr embodied this total environment, in various regional incarnations potentially coterminous with the instrument itself. This I believe is reflected in the multiformity of traditions connecting Kinyras with Syria, Phoenicia, Cilicia, and Cyprus. The BA especially will emerge as the time of the Divine Lyre’s greatest potency, thanks to the palace and temple systems that supported the divinization of instruments and other cultic tools.
The Problems of Stringing and Tuning
The stringing and tuning of the knr, like that of other ancient instruments, is a thorny issue. It probably differed regionally and even from musician to musician. One may compare the large variation in string numbers and tuning practices in the local traditions of East Africa, where personal preference plays an important role. [62] This is also suggested by iconographic variety, although one must equally beware the limited reliability of such images: they are not photographs. Nor need regional variations in stringing and tuning be incompatible with shared harmonic conceptions at a deeper level. Consider, for example, the variety of stringing and tuning in modern western instruments, where players nevertheless assume a common tonal apparatus. The same was true of art-music in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, where a single notation and key-system was used by a wide range of professional musicians. [63]
The detailed textual evidence of the Jewish tradition is ambiguous and conflicting. Josephus asserts that the “kinýra, fitted out with ten strings, is struck with a pick, while the nábla, with twelve tones, is plucked with the fingers.” [64] His distinctions are probably too rigid. [65] The Bible itself gives evidence that the kinnōr too could be plucked. [66] In one psalm, it is apparently the nēbel that is given ten strings, although in another, either or both the kinnōr and nēbel could be so understood. [67] In the War Scroll from Qumran, the nēbel apparently has ten strings, since it is to emblazon the standards of ten-men tactical groups. [68]
On these points there arose a tradition of Rabbinic speculation, charting an evolution from the seven strings of David’s kinnōr, to the eight strings the instrument would assume at the coming of the messiah, to the ten strings of a still more distant future (the aforementioned psalms being interpreted as visions). [69] This must depend in part upon imaginative exegesis and dubious textual readings of known Biblical passages, combined with constructions typical of Hellenistic music historiography. [70] The agreement of the Psalms and the War Scroll do give some confidence in the idea of a ten-stringed nēbel (if not the kinnōr). Yet these texts can hardly be taken as sure evidence for the time of David himself (ca. 1000), much less the earlier knr-culture. It is likely enough that further strings were added to Jewish instruments during the life of the Second Temple: such an expansion is well attested for Greek lyres from the later Classical period onwards, and increasing musical sophistication must have characterized much of the Hellenistic world. [71] Relevant here is the Greco-Roman morphological influence on the lyres of the Bar Kokhba coins and in other musical imagery of the period. [72]
It is quite possible, however, that the Rabbinic attribution of seven strings to David’s kinnōr reflects a genuine tradition. The number seven enjoys some a priori plausibility in the context of ANE chordophone music given the heptatonic-diatonic tunings that are found in the small collection of ‘theoretical’ texts from Mesopotamia. [73] It is true that the Mesopotamian musical texts per se are products of scribal tradition, being used primarily for educational purposes. [74] Yet there is no reason they should not reflect, at a literate remove, a living tradition of musical practice; after all, the Akkadian terminology found practical application in the Hurrian hymns from Ugarit. [75] When this is taken together with the considerable evidence for musical mobility throughout the ANE in many periods (to be encountered in the following chapters), one has a strong case for supposing that heptatonic-diatonic tunings were also known beyond Mesopotamia and Ugarit. I shall devote a separate study to this problem. [76] Here I raise the issue only occasionally, especially in connection with the appearance of seven-numerology in ritual contexts where music is also involved; and also when considering the appearance of divinized instruments outside of Mesopotamia, since this may well have gone hand-in-hand with the diffusion of musical practice in cult contexts.
Unfortunately, little certain support for a ‘heptatonic koine’ [77] can be drawn from iconographic evidence. The very low string-counts of the Bar Kokhba coins, for instance, are clearly due to the limited space of the medium. [78] True, where an image is otherwise detailed and apparently precise, one’s confidence grows. A good example is the nine-stringed instrument shown on the thirteenth- or early twelfth-century ivory plaque from Megiddo. [79] Here one is tempted to look to the nine-stringed expression of the heptatonic tuning-cycle in Mesopotamia and its adaptation to a kind of schematic harmonic notation in the Hurrian hymns of nearby Ugarit. [80] Yet ANE music-iconography is otherwise so variable that one cannot be certain that the Megiddo plaque’s nine-strings are not fortuitous. In any case, one should not expect strict patterns in the iconography. The Mesopotamian tuning system, whatever its diachronic changes, attests an ongoing conceptual resource that could be held in musicians’ minds without being strictly deployed on every instrument—just as in our own times the knowledge of intervals, scales, and chords finds many different applications.
All in all, though the question is anything but irrelevant, we may remain agnostic as to the stringing of Jewish and other early lyres, since the knr’s attested performance contexts and related ideology are the more urgent evidence for understanding the Divine Kinnaru and Kinyras.
Limits of the Investigation
I have had to abandon many intriguing byways. The decoration of Egyptian instruments with the heads of gods, pharaohs, and animals demands comparison with other ANE material for divinized instruments; but the evidence is so abundant across three millennia, and opens so many philological and conceptual vistas, that even a cursory sketch has proven impractical here. [81]
I closely examine only part of the available iconography, although many specimens would reward further detailed study—for example the fascinating jar from EIA Kuntillet ‘Ajrud, which shows a seated female lyrist who may be Asherah, Yahweh’s evanescent consort (Figure 5.1y). [82] There is also a remarkable grave-stele from the Neo-Hittite site of Marash, with a goddess holding a lyre on which perches a falcon, possibly symbolizing Ishtar; a small figure, perhaps representing the soul of the deceased, sits on the goddess’s lap (Figure 5.1gg). [83]
Knr has further lexical and contextual ramifications in Coptic, [84] Aramaic dialects (Syriac, [85] Palmyrene, [86] Mandaic [87] , and perhaps Nabataean [88] ), Middle Persian (Pahlavi), [89] Arabic, [90] Old Armenian, [91] Ethiopic, [92] and several Indic and Dravidian dialects. [93] There are, besides, apparent cognates in Caucasian languages, perhaps more directly connected with Hatt./Hitt. zinar. [94] The later Aramaic dialects in particular offer fruitful areas for further research. In Syriac, the theological riddles of St. Ephraim (ca. 306–373 CE) about the “lyres of God” seem to ‘convert’ earlier Aramaean ideas of the knr; this transition must also pass through Bardaisan (ca. 154–222), whose biography suggests that he brought together the Aramaean and Hellenistic traditions in the service of early Christian songs later regarded as heretical by Ephraim. [95] In Mandaic texts, one finds a “lyre of lust” paired with pipes and frame-drum, clearly recalling both the ancient ensembles of the Syro-Levantine world, and a recurring pattern of knr-playing women—from the scantily-clad musiciennes of NK Egypt (Figures 9 and 10) to the kinnōr-playing ‘harlot’ of Isaiah 23:16 and beyond. [96]
There are also the Arabic traditions about djinn who could be conjured by means of music or inspire the songs of musicians; and an instrument’s sound could be likened to the voice of the djinn. [97] Such pagan ideas, and related concepts of musical ‘enthusiasm,’ fueled the Muslim legists in their condemnation of the art. [98]
Of special interest are the legends and cognitive conceptions of the living lyre cultures of south-coastal Saudi Arabia, [99] Egypt, and East Africa, [100] with the professed connections to Davidic tradition in Ethiopia. [101]
I hope that the present study will provide a useful foundation for the pursuit of all this further material.
Footnotes
[ back ] 1. Sendrey 1969:266–278; Sendrey 1974:169–172; Polin 1974:67–68; MGG 1:1516–1517 (Braun); MAIP:16–17.
[ back ] 2. For lyric lamentation, see Chapter 12.
[ back ] 3. Phoenician/Canaanite contexts: Isaiah 14:10–11 (Rephaim, see further p146–147), 23:15–16 and Ezekiel 26.13 (Tyre). Aramaean (Laban story): Gen. 25:20, 31:20, 27; cf. Polin 1974, 16–17. The precise relationship between the Biblical Aramaeans and their historical counterpart is somewhat cloudy. See the recent synthesis of Younger 2007. Aram, their eponymous ancestor in the Table of Nations, is an eighth-generation great uncle of Abraham: Gen. 10:22–31, 11:11–26.
[ back ] 4. Still useful is the discussion of Baethgen 1888:149–151; North 1964:378–383.
[ back ] 5. Gen. 4:19–22. For ‘ūghābh here see Cassuto 1961 1:236, cf. 235, suggesting a folk etymology connecting ‘Cain’ (Qayin), suffixed to the name of Tubal and referring originally to ‘smith’ (< qyn, ‘forge’; cf. YGC:41; North 1964:378), and qīnā (‘poetic composition’ > ‘dirge’); cf. Sellers 1941:40–41. Perhaps a similar association implicated qyn and kin nōr, contributing to the development of a musician-craftsman mytheme; for this wider Syro-Levantine pattern, along with symptomatic variants in the reception of Lamech’s family, see Chapter 18.
[ back ] 6. Cf. North 1964:380, who derives Jubal, Jabal, and Tubal alike from Heb. yabal, ‘bring in procession’, and notes the idea’s relevance to both psalmody and caravaneering.
[ back ] 7. See Newberry 1893:41–72, especially 69, and pl. XXX–XXXI; Shedid 1994:53–65 and fig. 20. Comparison with Jubal and Tubal: Albright 1956:98, 200n7; Ribichini 1981:51 (also noting Kinyras’ metallurgical connections); Bayer 1982:32; Staubli 1991:30–35 and fig. 15a; MAIP:77–79; Collon 2006:13.
[ back ] 8. In the words of Ibn ‘Abd Rabbihi (ca. 860–940 CE): SOM 1:9.
[ back ] 9. See p453–455.
[ back ] 10. See p446.
[ back ] 11. Cf. AOM:289 (Kraeling and Mowry); Cassuto 1961:235–236; PIW 2:80. This is also how Theodore Bar Koni (fl. ca. 800) understood the passage (Liber scholiorum, Mimrā 2.97: Hespel and Draguet 1981–1982 1:116), although his reference to troops of ‘Cainite’ musical exorcists may be based merely on deduction from e.g. 1 Samuel 10:5–6.
[ back ] 12. See with sources LJ 5:147–148n45; Utley 1941:422, 445 et passim; Patai 1964:305–307; Scholem 1974:322, 326, 357–358.
[ back ] 13. See further Chapters 7 and 11.
[ back ] 14. See inter al. Engel 1870; Guillemin and Duchesne 1935; Galpin 1936; HMI; Sachs 1943; Wegner 1950; Stauder 1957; Stauder 1961; Aign 1963; Stauder 1973; Rimmer 1969; Duchesne-Guillemin 1969; Schmidt-Colinet 1981; RlA 6:571–576 (Kilmer, *Leier A); Rashid 1995; AMEL; Braun 1997, with further literature; DCPIL; Duchesne-Guillemin 1999; Dumbrill 2000; MAIP. The quality of these works varies: some are inevitably dated, but even some recent works must be used with caution. Several excellent recent studies bring hope for the future: HKm; Shehata 2006b; Mirelman 2010; Mirelman 2014; Gabbay 2014; Heimpel 2014; PHG:84–154.
[ back ] 15. As named from the kind of wood typically used in its construction: Behn 1954:54; Brown 1981:401–402. As onomatopoeic: Kapera 1971:134.
[ back ] 16. For the organological distinction, see p3n14.
[ back ] 17. Krauss 1910–1912 3:85; Sellers 1941:36–37. The LXX’s alternative renderings ὄργανον and ψαλτήριον pose no problem, although the latter attests a distinction of performance technique, since ψάλλειν implies plucking strings with one’s fingers, rather than the πλῆκτρον of Greek tradition. But this was not absolute: see p58, 170, 540.
[ back ] 18. Suda, Hesykhios, Photios Lexicon, Anecdota Graeca (Bachmann 1828–1829) 1:278, Anecdota Graeca (Cramer 1839–1841) 4:36.20: κινύρα· ὄργανον μουσικόν, κιθάρα, vel sim.
[ back ] 19. Cf. Josephus’ portrait of Jewish Alexandrians as well integrated into the larger Hellenistic culture: Against Apion 2.38–42. For the intimate and productive adjacency of Jews and Hellenes in Palestine, see the illuminating discussions of Lieberman 1942; Bowersock 2000:159–174 (especially 165–172).
[ back ] 20. Its relevance to knr long recognized (e.g. Nougayrol 1968:59; Brown 1981:387), the iconographic evidence is most fully collected and analyzed by Lawergren 1993:67–71; AMEL; DCPIL; see also Vorreiter 1972/1973; Eichmann 2001.
[ back ] 21. DCPIL:51–57; MAIP:xxxii–xxxvi, 18. Representations of Mesopotamian-style upright harps from LBA Cyprus, Alalakh, Egypt, and the Hittite world are only exceptions proving the rule, being explicable in terms of elite displays of cosmopolitanism through imported status symbols: see p90–92, 392. I leave aside the controversial identification of the Megiddo etching (ca. 3300–3000) as a harp rather than early lyre: see e.g. DCPIL fig. 8a; MAIP:58–65, fig. II.6a–7b; SAM:152 no. 116.
[ back ] 22. DCPIL.
[ back ] 23. Numbering of individual images follows DCPIL, q.v. for further bibliography and information about each item, if not otherwise given here (also in AMEL). Those labeled “Figure” refer to the same numbered figure in this book.
[ back ] 24. DCPIL:57–59.
[ back ] 25. See p90.
[ back ] 26. DCPIL:43, 55–56. For the nēbel problem and sources, see Bayer 1968; cf. NG 3:528–529 (Braun); SAM:170. For a lyric identification, note especially Hesykhios s.v. νάβλα· εἶδος ὀργάνου μουσικοῦ. ἢ ψαλτήριον. ἢ κιθάρα. The status of the nbl at Ugarit has been uncertain (Sanmartín 1980:339; Caubet 1994:132; Koitabashi 1998:374; DUL s.v. nbl), but now probably does appear in the phrase “by the sound of the nbl” in the new Astarte song RIH 98/02 (describing praise of the goddess): see Pardee 2007:31–32; cf. Caubet 2014:176–177.
[ back ] 27. See p104–111.
[ back ] 28. Cf. DCPIL:43, “It is hardly a simple Mesopotamian derivative, nor is it uniquely Anatolian.”
[ back ] 29. DCPIL:43–45.
[ back ] 30. For this proposed revision, RlA 6:581 (Collon, *Leier B); DCPIL:47. Note especially an OAkk. cylinder seal which shows a smaller lyre of rather Syro-Levantine shape, adorned by the slightest of bull-heads: MgB 2/2:64 and fig. 43; SAM:68 no. 22; my Figure 4.1g.
[ back ] 31. For this view, once standard, see e.g. Hickmann 1961:32–35; MAIP:72–76.
[ back ] 32. See Figure 4.8a; for further references, p47n21.
[ back ] 33. One may compare the many subspecies of ‘guitar’ in modern times, noting of course that this word is itself, along with ‘zither’, ‘cithern’, etc., but a development of Greek κιθάρα.
[ back ] 34. Various subsets of the evidence to be considered here were assembled by Spycket 1972:190–191; RlA 6:572–574 (Kilmer, *Leier A); von Soden 1988; Tonietti 1988:119; AMEL:86–87; RlA 8:483 (Tonietti, *Musik A II); Koitabashi 1998:373–374; DCPIL:58–59; Ivanov 1999; MAIP:16–17; HKm:97–98.
[ back ] 35. Ebla Vocabulary §572: Pettinato 1982:264; cf. Fronzaroli 1980:37n6; Krebernik 1983:21; Fronzaroli 1984:141; RlA 6:573 (Kilmer, *Leier A); von Soden 1988; Conti 1990:160; Sanmartín 1991:190; RlA 8:482–483 (Tonietti, *Musik A II).
[ back ] 37. Civil 2010:210 (Early Dynastic Practical Vocabulary B2 = MS 2340+ 22:20’), cf. Civil 2008:99 (suggesting Umma as the tablet’s source); Michalowski 2010b:119–120, 122; Heimpel, “Balang-Gods,” 4c.
[ back ] 38. See generally Harris 1939:32–33; ICGSL:96–98 §12.71–72; Sivan 1984:124; SL:280 §33.16; cf. DCPIL:59 and 61n35.
[ back ] 39. CEWAL:229 (Huehnergard and Woods).
[ back ] 40. ICGSL:18 §6.2; Sivan 2001:12.
[ back ] 41. Mari: ki-in-na-ra-tim = kinnārātim (genitive plural), ARM 13 no. 20, lines 5, 7, 11, 16 (cf. p76). Emar: ki-in-na-ru: Arnaud 1987 no. 545, line 392’ (cf. p78). Alalakh: ki-in-na-ru-ḫu-li = lúkinnāruḫuli, AT 172.7 (cf. p98). For the Anastasi Papyrus, p106. Cf. Huehnergard 2008:138; van Soldt 1991:304.
[ back ] 42. Caubet 1987:733; von Soden 1988; Koitabashi 1998:373; DCPIL:47; Pentiuc 2001:98.
[ back ] 43. Diakonoff 1990:29; SL §4.2, 5.2. For Archi 2006:100–101, Eblaite and Akkadian represent two points in a ‘Northeast Semitic’ dialect continuum.
[ back ] 44. This seems to be the view of Archi 1987:9; cf. RlA 8:483 (Tonietti, *Musik A II); TR:311n119. Note that one does find Akk. and Ebl. cognates for ‘pipes’, respectively embūbu and na-bu-bù-um, presumably < P-S *nbb: Conti 1988:45–46 (Ebla Vocabulary §218); Catagnoti 1989:179n135; Conti 1990:99; RlA 8:482 (Tonietti, *Musik A II).
[ back ] 45. As a substrate or culture-word, cf. already Ellenbogen 1962:116–117 (writing without knowledge of the Eblaite example); Tischler et al. 1977:578 (rejecting an etymology via Sum. gišNAR, with determinative realized phonetically, i.e. gišnar > kinnārum).
[ back ] 46. For this issue, see further p78–79, 89–92, 99. ‘Zannāru’ is the convenient normalization adopted by Michalowski 2010b:122.
[ back ] 47. See p89–104.
[ back ] 48. The Masoretic pointing also indicates gemination of n by a diacritical dot (dagesh) within the nun.
[ back ] 49. See generally Harris 1939:43 §17; ICGSL:48–49, 51 (§8.74, 77, 83); Friedrich and Röllig 1970:§71; Sivan 1984:25–34; Garr 1985:30–32; SL:161–162 (§21.9, 12). For a possible ‘Phoenician Shift’ of ō > ū, see p273.
[ back ] 50. See e.g. Edwards 1979:94–98.
[ back ] 51. Of the examples given by Sivan 1984:25–34, EA 101.25, 114.13, 116.11, 138.6 are from Byblos.
[ back ] 52. An early second-millennium date, argued tentatively by Gelb 1961:44, and treated cautiously by Sivan 1984:34n1, is endorsed by SL:162 §21.12, noting the vocalization of ‘Anat’ as Ḫa-nu-ta (/‘Anōt/) in a theophoric name (versus Ḫa-na-at at Mari and A-na-tu/ti/te at Ugarit).
[ back ] 53. Tropper 1994, with review by Pardee 1997:375; Gordon 1997; Pardee 2008:5, 10. Some PNs and DNs attested at Ugarit which do show the ā > ō shift “reflect dialects other than that represented by the syllabic transcriptions of actual Ugaritic words”: Huehnergard 2008:257n188.
[ back ] 54. Both in the syllabic cuneiform of the Amarna letters (in which Akkadian was used for international correspondence, including with many Canaanite client-states) and the ‘syllabic orthography’ described below.
[ back ] 55. Papyrus Anastasi IV: Gardiner 1937:47–48 no. 18, line 12; Caminos 1954:187; Helck 1971:496; the scene is well interpreted by Teeter 1993:88–89. The vignette is reminiscent of a debauched scoundrel in a Sumerian morality tale: Roth 1983; RlA 8:469 (Kilmer *Musik A I).
[ back ] 56. Albright 1934, especially 12–13 §22–33 (quotation 1); the overall reliability of Albright’s method has been upheld by Helck 1989 (with intervening literature in 121n1).
[ back ] 57. Already Burchardt 1909–1910 2:51 sensibly adduced ‘Greek’ κιννύρα (sic) as the best parallel for this “Old Canaanite foreign-word.” The sign-group represented here as nù was used to transcribe /nū/, /nō/, and intermediate sounds: Albright 1934:6 (§10), 27n99. Hoch 1994:324n44 reasonably gives kinnōru. Albright 1964:171n47 vocalized as kennūra with reference to a Phoenician Shift of ō > ū (but see p273). Although the first syllable lacks phonetic complement, the general agreement of other forms urges ki-, ke-, or ke-. Thus Helck 1971:523 (no. 253) rendered as kin-nù-rú. Note that, while Sivan and Cochavi-Rainey 1992:9, 28 (followed by DUL:451) have ka-n-nù-rú, in the updated system of Helck 1989 most signs of the form C+a “can also stand for vowel-less consonants.” Earlier transcriptions which did not recognize the ‘syllabic orthography’ will also be found, perpetuated especially in musicological discussions; cf. DCPIL:61n33, with contribution of O. Goelet.
[ back ] 58. Van den Branden 1956:91–92, proposed reading ‘lyre-players’ (knrm) in a fourth-century Phoenician inscription from Kition (Amadasi and Karageorghis 1977 C1, at B7); cf. van den Branden 1968:31 no. 109; followed by Brown 1981:387n13. But this reading was disproven by reexamination of the stone: Peckham 1968:322n4; Masson and Sznycer 1972 ad loc.; Amadasi and Karageorghis 1977:123n3. For the inscription, see also p113. The sequence KNR occurs in several PNs on neo-Punic inscriptions, but these have been interpreted as Libyan/Numidian: see p452n60.
[ back ] 59. For the symposium bowls, see p258–272. The Canaanite/Phoenician dialects lost their final case-endings around the end of the second-millennium: see p197n56.
[ back ] 60. See p194–204.
[ back ] 61. See Chapters 19 and 20.
[ back ] 62. Owuor 1983:26–27, 31.
[ back ] 63. See now Hagel 2009.
[ back ] 64. Josephus Antiquities of the Jews 7.306: ἡ μὲν κινύρα δέκα χορδαῖς ἐξημμένη τύπτεται πλήκτρῳ, ἡ δὲ νάβλα δώδεκα φθόγγους ἔχουσα τοῖς δακτύλοις κρούεται; varied slightly by Zonaras Epitome historiarum 1.116.3.
[ back ] 65. Note that in Ethiopic tradition it is the begena, a sacred lyre associated with David by tradition (see p62n101, 167), which has ten strings; by contrast the krar (< *kenar), used in profane contexts, typically (n.b.) has five or six. See Kebede 1977; MgB 1/10:64–65, 106–109.
[ back ] 66. 1 Samuel 16:23. This is also implied when the kinnōr is rendered as ψαλτήριον in the LXX; note especially Psalms 151:2 (LXX): αἱ χεῖρές μου ἐποίησαν ὄργανον, / οἱ δάκτυλοί μου ἥρμοσαν ψαλτήριον.
[ back ] 67. Psalms 144:9 and 33:2.
[ back ] 68. 1Q33 4:5; Vermes 2011:169.
[ back ] 69. ‘Arakin 13b = BT 16:73–74; also Midrash Rabbah Numbers, 15.11 (Freedman and Simon 1983 6:651); cf. LJ 6:262n81.
[ back ] 70. See e.g. AGM:63–64.
[ back ] 71. See recently the papers in Martinelli et al. 2009; for the astonishing complexity of Hellenistic art music, see now Hagel 2009, especially 256–285 for harmonic observations on the Hellenistic musical documents.
[ back ] 72. See p180–181.
[ back ] 73. See p40.
[ back ] 74. Michalowski 2010a.
[ back ] 75. See below and further p97.
[ back ] 76. Franklin forthcoming, revising Franklin 2002c.
[ back ] 77. For this idea and term, Franklin 2002b; Franklin 2002c:92, 111.
[ back ] 78. See p180–181 and Figure 14.
[ back ] 79. See p126 and Figure 11 = 4.1p.
[ back ] 80. See above.
[ back ] 81. I know of no single study devoted to this question, though much material and useful observations can be found in Schott 1934, 459–461 with references there; cf. Hickmann 1954a; AEMI:80, 107–109 s.v. Animals > heads, Decoration > heads, and Deities. I am grateful to A. von Lieven for initial discussion and references (Sept. 9, 2009).
[ back ] 82. Bayer 1982:31; Keel and Uehlinger 1998:210–248; DCPIL:55; CS 2 no. 47 with references; Dever 2005:160–167; MAIP:151–154; Burgh 2004:90–91.
[ back ] 83. See further HKm:73–74 and pl. 14 no. 45, with bibliography.
[ back ] 84. Coptic: Burchardt 1909–1910 2:51n1; Albright 1927; Albright 1934:47; AOM:273 (Farmer).
[ back ] 85. Syriac: SOM 2:389 (festive kennara in Isaac of Antioch, died ca. 460 CE); Brockelmann 1966:335; Hoch 1994:324; Köhler and Baumgartner 1994–2000:484; DUL s.v. knr.
[ back ] 86. Palmyrene: Levy 1864:105; Farmer 1928:516; Farmer 1929:5; AOM:425 (Farmer); SOM 1:155.
[ back ] 87. Mandaic: Nöldeke 1875:§104; Brown et al. 1962:490; Brown 1981:387n14.
[ back ] 88. Nabataean: the Persian Ibn Ḫurdāḏbih (died ca. 912), cited by al-Mas‘ûdî (died ca. 956), may have attributed the *kinnāra to the Nabataeans (which he says was played like a lute); but the text is corrupt: Farmer 1928:512, 515–516; MgB 3/2:24; cf. p543n32.
[ back ] 89. Pahlavi: AOM:425 (Farmer); SOM 1:155–6; Dahood 1966–1970:287; Ivanov 1999:587n15. Kennar was used of the Greek constellation Lyra in a lost Pahlavi translation of an astrological work known as the Liber de stellis beibeniis (its title in an eventual Latin version); this can be deduced from the ninth-century Arabic translation by Abū Ma‘shar, and another in Hebrew: see Bos et al. 2001:85 (Arabic), 118 and 125 (Hebrew). I thank A. Hicks for this reference.
[ back ] 90. Arabic: AOM:273 (Farmer); Brown et al. 1962:490; Hickmann 1970:63–64, noting oscillation between lute and drum (!); Hava 1964:667; Hoch 1994:324; Köhler and Baumgartner 1994–2000:484.
[ back ] 91. Armenian: Tischler et al. 1977:578 (as Hittite loanword); Ivanov 1999:587n15.
[ back ] 92. Ethiopic: krar, seemingly dissimilated from *kenar: Ivanov 1999:587 (cf. SL §17.6: in western Gurage dialects of Ethiopic “non-geminated n becomes r in non-initial position”).
[ back ] 93. Indic: Mayrhofer 1956–1976 1:209 (Sanskrit, Tamil; deriving Dravidian forms thence); AOM:224 (Bake); Tischler et al. 1977:577–578; Brown 1981:387n17. These are too early to be Arabic imports. The Kinnara gods of Hindu mythology (celestial musicians and choristers) should also be relevant: see e.g. Stutley and Stutley 1977, s.v. Kinnara(s); the interpretation as ‘what man?’ (kim + nar-) is a folk etymology (M. Schwartz, communication, April 17, 2014).
[ back ] 94. Ivanov 1999:587. Note the early (third/second-millennium) archaeological evidence for Caucasian lyre-culture: Kushnareva 2000:103–104, 107–109 pl. I.1, II.2, III.
[ back ] 95. For Ephraim, see for now Palmer 1993 (an excellent beginning). Bardaisan: Drijvers 1966; Ramelli 2009.
[ back ] 96. The “lyre of lust” (kinar šiha) is found in Ginzā yamīna 113:6, 187:18: Drower and Macuch 1963:214 s.v. kinar, kinara; Rudolf 1965:390 line 20. For the Egyptian evidence see further p105–111.
[ back ] 97. Farmer 1929:7 and n9; SOM 1:586.
[ back ] 98. See SOM 1:7–8 for further references, and 9–33 for the Unique Necklace of Ibn ‘Abd Rabbihi (ca. 860–940 CE), which responds to the controversy with a more moderate stance.
[ back ] 99. For the simsimiyyah and ṭambūrah, Shiloah 1972; Shiloah 1995:147, 162; Braune 1997:48–50, 138; L. A. Urkevich in GMO s.v. Saudi Arabia.
[ back ] 100. Kebede 1968; Jenkins 1969; MGG 5:1042–1046 (G. Kubik); Plumley 1976; Kebede 1977; MgB 1/10, 64–65, 106–109; Owuor 1983; U. Wegner in GMO s.v. Lyres. 3. Modern Africa, with further bibliography. See also p167, 456n81.
[ back ] 101. Mekouria 1994.