Music in the Ancient Near East

Shane M. Thompson (Ph.D., Brown University) is Associate Professor of Bible and the Ancient Near East in the Religious Studies Program at North Carolina Wesleyan University. His current research focuses on leisure activities, performance, and power relationships in the ancient Near East. He is the author of Displays of Cultural Hegemony and Counter-Hegemony in the Late Bronze and Iron Age Levant: The Public Presence of Foreign Powers and Local Resistance (Routledge, 2023).

• Introduction – Heidi Köpp-Junk and Shane M. ThompsonWas the oboe an erotic instrument in ancient Egypt? – Nadja Böckler‘Playing by Ear:’ An Exploration of Music and Sex/Gender in Ancient Israelite Culture – Theodore W. BurghFollow the Songbird: Music and Blindness in Ancient Babylonia – Eric J. HarveyThe Sounds of the Past: An Iron Age Bone Whistle from Tell es-Safi/Gath and Contemporaneous Aerophones – Liora Kolska Horwitz, Ron Kehati, Maria Eniukhina, Shira Albaz, Aren M. MaeirHow To Play Ancient Egyptian Musical Instruments, Based On Texts, Two-Dimensional Depictions And Experimental Archaeology – Heidi Köpp-JunkMusic for the Gods in Ancient Egypt – Reflections on the Origins of Music in Egyptian Temples and Sanctuaries from the Earliest Evidence to the End of Dynasty 6 – Heidi Köpp-JunkFrame Drums in the Ancient Levant: A Woman’s Instrument – Carol Meyers‘Have You Not Taken the Drum to Shout in Rejoicing?’ Uses and Forms of Drums in Pharaonic Egypt – John RogersHow Did Vertical Angular Harps Reach Egypt in Antiquity? – Daniel Sánchez Muñoz The Motif of the String Player among Animals: From Kurgarru to Orpheus – Thomas StaubliMusic, Mourning, and Coping: Anat’s Grief Resolution for Aqhat – Shane M. Thompson