Music in Religious Cults of the Ancient Near East; First Edition by John Arthur Smith

Author:John Arthur Smith [John Arthur Smith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2020-09-05T00:00:00+00:00

4.4.1.1 Trumpets

There has been little recent scholarly interest in the organology of trumpets and natural horns except with regard to those instruments as they are attested in the cultic traditions of Levantine coastal regions (Braun 2002: 180–183; §2.2.1) and ancient Israel and Judah as referred to in the HB (Kolyada 2009: 65–86). The biblical trumpets (ḥatsotserôt; singular: ḥatsotserah) are described as a pair of instruments made of hammered silver (HB Numbers 10.2) but no measurements are given. It is nevertheless natural to assume that trumpets made from beaten sheet metal, rolled to form a tube, would have been straight. This is the form of the barely recognisable trumpet in a painting on a potsherd from fourteenth-century bce Beth Shean. The sherd was found during excavation of Beth Shean in an area, and at a level that had been occupied by an Egyptian garrison (Braun 2002: 92 with Illustration III.13). Braun (2002: 93) has estimated that the painting represents an instrument about 60 cm long, with a ‘cylindrical or slightly conical tube (length ca. 50 cm., diameter 2–3 cm) that gradually splays out into a bell with a [maximum] diameter of some 7 cm’.

Braun (2002: 93) goes on to note that his estimated measurements for the trumpet painted on the Beth Shean potsherd are very close to those of two trumpets from around the middle of the fourteenth century bce found by Howard Carter in Thebes, in Tomb KV62, the tomb of Tutankhamun (Hickmann 1949: 143–145, items 69850, 69851; Plate LXXXVII–XC; Manniche 1975: 31–32; Manniche 1991: 75–80, Plate 14). The instruments are often referred to as a ‘pair’ of trumpets but in fact they differ in the metals of which they are made (silver with gold embellishments for one; copper/bronze with partial overlay of gold for the other), size (the silver trumpet is approximately 58 cm long; the copper/bronze trumpet is a little over 49 cm long), and find spots (the burial chamber itself for the silver trumpet; an antechamber adjacent to the burial chamber for the copper/bronze trumpet) (Table 4.2).7 Carter’s notes cataloguing the finds (herein n. 7) seem to imply that the silver trumpet is made in two sections: one comprising the bell, the other the tube, and that the copper/bronze trumpet is made in four sections: one comprising the bell and the remaining three the tube. However, Jeremy Montagu examined the copper/bronze trumpet in 1973 and formed the opinion that it is also made in two sections like the silver trumpet (Montagu 1976: 115–117; Montagu 1978: 133–134). Neither Carter’s cataloguing nor Montagu’s examination was undertaken scientifically; both men relied on the evidence of the naked eye alone, but neither produced sufficient information to resolve the matter.8 The question of the construction of the tube of the copper/bronze trumpet therefore remains open. A wooden ‘core’ or ‘keeper’ was found with each instrument. The cores are made of solid light wood and are copiously decorated. They are shaped to fit inside each instrument as protection against denting or crushing during storage and transport.

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