AN EXHIBITION ON MUSIC IN THE ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WORLD:

Blasts from the Past (Extract)
By GAVRIEL FISKE

Extract of article in Issue 24, March 18, 2008 of The Jerusalem Report. To subscribe to The Jerusalem Report click here.

The Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem sounds off on ancient musical practices

King David playing his harp - a common translation of the Hebrew word kinor - is one of the iconic images of the Bible. In modern Hebrew the kinor is a violin, but in antiquity a kinor was a lyre, a triangular or trapezoidal stringed instrument sometimes played with a pick. It's possible that David's instrument was constructed out of sheep gut and ram's horn, a far cry from our image of a Western harp.

This is just one of the many intriguing facts that emerge from "Sounds of Ancient Music." The recently opened exhibit at the Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem, scheduled to run through 2008, is an in-depth examination of the role of music in the ancient Near Eastern world. Based on a study of ancient visual and written sources, replicas of instruments and instruments that survived, the exhibit attempts to shed scholarly light on something seemingly lost in the mists of time - the musical culture of the peoples depicted in the Bible.

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(Heads up, reader Yoel Heltai.)