The Secular Music of Ancient Egypt (Concluded)

The second period of Egyptian art falls in the reigns of the kings of the Eleventh and Twelfth Dynasties ('The Middle Empire')--an art which was developed directly out of that of the 'Ancient Empire' (Budge).King Mentuhotep III.(the ninth of the Eleventh Dynasty) was a great patron of the arts, and a very fine song-the celebrated 'Song of the Harper'-on the walls of the palace of Antef, belongs to this period.The Twelfth and Thirteenth Dynasties literalFy abound in evidence of musical activity.These Theban Dynasties, rightly called the 'Golden Age' of Egypt, provide us with works that are perfectly astounding in their excellence; yet, according to Arthur Evans's discoveries, the most fprimitive culture of Greece, as exhibited in the ' Island Graves,' was more or less contemporaneous with the period of the Twelfth Egyptian Dynasty.Instruments of music are common, not only in pictorial representation, but in actual tangible remains.Under king Amenemhat III., in particular, the country enjoyed an art and a prosperity difficult to realise to-day.But Amenemhat III. was probably one of the greatest kings who ever sat upon the throne of Egypt (B.C. c. 2300).It is interesting to note in passing that under the Middle Empire, as well as in the Ancient, it is generally men who performed, the women usually dancing or keeping time.There can be no doubt that much Asiatic influence was brought to bear upon the Egyptian art of these reigns, and it is very probable that several foreign instruments and methods were imported. UnderUsertsen II. a number of Semitic immigrants arrived, bearing their own musical traditions with them These Beni-Hassan strangers came in B.C. 2366, and settled, some authorities seeing in them the family of Jacob.If this be so, then we can see more easily how one nation of antiquity influenced another (see also my article ' Israel's Music-Lesson in Egypt,' Musical Times, July, I915).Still more foreign invasions, both peaceful and otherwise, took place from the Thirteenth to the Seventeenth Dynasties, and much confusion prevails in the chrono'ogy.But the outstanding feature was the almost unopposed entry of the Hyksos, and the entire change they wrought in the trend of Egyptian thought, though these shepherd kings ended by themselves adopting Egyptian civilisation.For a more detailed account of this period I must again refer the reader to the Musical Times article mentioned above.The growing power of Southern Egypt eventually expelled the Hyksos, and the Seventeenth Dynasty was, as Budge thinks, most probably ' the direct descendant of the Thirteenth.'Such being the case, we are not surprised again to find in the catacombs of El-Amarna pictorial representations of true Egyptian music.Thus we ste the departed master of the house with his wife listening to two singers accompanied by harps and flutes, while a girl beats time with the native clappers.The art which was restored in the Seventeenth Dynasty came to its highest development in the Eighteenth; and during the reign of this house, Egyptian music rose to a height of excellence that is hardly credible.Aahmes, the first of the Dynasty, was a man of powerful mentality, and under his firm rule the country was soon assured a period of prosperity This content downloaded from 204

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Secular variation · Sociology · Ancient Egypt and Archaeology · Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and History · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Demography · History