Zambelis Spyros
Παλαιό Μέλος
THE MYCENAEAN BARD:
THE EVIDENCE FOR SOUND AND SONG*
In this paper, I concentrate on the Mycenaean bard’s concert lyre (here called phorminx),
his singing, and aspects of his professionalism.
Prolegomena
Most of the Aegean Bronze Age (ca. 2200-1200 BCE) has produced images of musicians
and singers, as well as depictions and the extant fragments of the instruments themselves.
Nonetheless, what we know about Aegean music is dependent on what the Aegean artists felt
comfortable about portraying—for instance, there are no images of women playing a musical
instrument, and fewer instruments are depicted than have been found.
In the Early and Middle Bronze Ages harps were popular. Lyres and sistra make their
first appearance early in the Middle Minoan period, and both continue into the Late Bronze
Age (when both are associated with singing but not together). The earliest extant examples
of sistra are in terracotta: a singleton from Archanes, Phournoi (MM IA context; Pl. I), and
five from the Ayios Charalambos cave in East Crete (MM II). All six terracotta examples are
similar: a short thick handle, and an oval frame which supports two thin, horizontal wooden
sticks (restored) on which were strung terracotta disks. The sole extant bronze sistrum comes
from a bronze hoard at Mochlos (LM I context); it consists of a bent loop of bronze inserted
between two flanges at the top of the handle. Two horizontal bronze pins pierce the loop (with
bent ends on the outside, like cotter pins); on these pins were strung metal disks. Not only
would the disks make a rattling sound, but the pins would jangle in their sockets and their
angled ends would strike the loop. The sole depiction of a sistrum occurs on the Harvester
Vase; it is simpler, however, than the Mochlos sistrum, with two disks on only one horizontal
pin; the pin seems to pierce the thin loop where its ends are capped.
Aegean Lyres
Lyres appear early in the Middle Minoan period, and by the beginning of the Late
Bronze Age they had apparently supplanted the harp. This new string instrument comes in
two varieties: the tortoise-shell lyre (chelys lyra) and the concert lyre (phorminx or kithara). In the
* Parts of this paper were included in an unpublished paper, “Aegean Music: Evidence for Sound and Song,”
delivered at the conference “Ancient Song in Cross-Cultural Perspective: Ritual, Performance, and History”
at Emory University (3 March 2006).
Much of this paper relies on J.G. YOUNGER, Music in the Aegean Bronze Age (1998 ).
YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 51 -60, esp. 60: “the representations of [Aegean] music were carefully designed to
represent to us only certain people as the producers of music, only certain instruments, and only certain
occasions.”
YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 10-14 .
Unlike harps, lyres have a set of strings of equal length descending to the soundbox from a yoke supported
by two arms of equal length. To produce different tones, the strings are either tuned (by stretching them,
usually tightening them at the yoke) or stopped by the fingers of the left hand (i.e., the fingers touch the
strings at various heights, thus shortening their vibrations when they are struck). YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 14 -
18 .
YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 38 -40.
YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 65 no. 24, pl. 22.
I thank Philip Betancourt for informing me about these examples during the EPOS conference, and I had
the good fortune to see them in the Ayios Nikolaos Museum later that summer.
I am grateful to Jeffrey Soles who allowed me to see this sistrum in storage in the East Cretan Center in
2005.
YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 74 -75 , no. 53 , pl. 22.
John G. YOUNGER
Classical period, “the chelys lyre was the quintessential instrument of the amateur musician.”10
By contrast, the Classical kithara was large and ornate and for professionals only.11
Both instruments are attested in the Late Bronze Age. The chelys lyre is known from
extant examples only: two tortoise shells and fragments of others from the East Sanctuary at
Phylakopi (LH III A:2-C context; Pl. II).12 From drilled holes in some of these shells (to attach
lyre arms) it is likely they served as soundboxes. Since no depiction of the chelys lyre has
survived (did Bronze Age artists think them too humble for formal art?), it is possible that these
were the instruments that women played.
The concert lyre, however, is known from extant examples and from many depictions.13
The earliest depiction is on a stamp seal from Knossos14 (Malia Workshop, MM II; Pl. III), but
all other examples are Mycenaean. This instrument (Pl. IV) is similar to the Classical kithara:
it was large (as tall as the musician’s upper body), with a rounded, crescent-shaped soundbox
to which seven strings descend from a lathed yoke supported by complex arms. All extant
fragments are of ivory. The earliest extant piece should date to the Shaft Grave period on style
(it is decorated with “line & pulley” designs; Pl. V); the other extant examples come from LH
III and IIIB contexts.15 Depictions of these concert lyres are similarly late.
The Mycenaean name for these lyres is known, at least generically (ru-ra, lyra). A Thebes
tablet (TH Av 106, LH III B:2 context), lists men including two who contribute other personnel.16
On line 5, “Tameieus” contributes 6 fullers (ka-na-pe-we, knapheís) and on line 7 a man (whose
name has not survived) contributes 2 lyre-players (ru-ra-ta-e, lurateís). It is possible that the word
“lyra” here is generic (“lyre”) or is a popular term for any lyre, or refers to tortoise-shell lyres,
like those votives found at Phylakopi.
Homer occasionally calls a concert lyre a kítharis, but usually he uses phórminx (a non-
Greek word)—to play the lyre is always phormízô.17 He also occasionally comments on the beauty
of the decoration (Il. 1.601ff, 9.185 ff; Od. 1.153 ). Depictions contemporary with Homer, in
bronze and terracotta figurines and in Late Geometric vase-painting (Pl. VI), call for a similar,
simpler instrument than the Bronze Age concert lyre, with arms in one degree supporting the
yoke; this simpler instrument also survives into the Classical period, when it is often played by
women and Muses.18 It has thus become standard to distinguish the three lyres of the Classical
period: “chelys lyre” (or just simply “lyre”) for the everyday tortoise shell lyre, “kithara” for the
grand concert lyre, and “phorminx” for the shorter, simpler lyre.
Since all Mycenaean depictions refer to a single form of concert lyre (no chelys lyre is
depicted), I shall refer to it by its classy (and common) Homeric term, the phorminx.
The Aegean Phorminx
The phorminx is played while standing (Pl. VII). According to rare Classical depictions of
the phorminx in side-view or in the round, the lunate soundbox was humped at the back so it
sat in the crook of one’s left arm.19 From the soundbox project the two arms, divided into two
sections (see Pl. IV). The lower half ends in a broken loop, whose upper part represents a duckhead
whose bill is of one piece with the lower arm; these heads turn out toward the audience.20
Into the top of the other half-loop, the upper arms are inserted and these end in carved finials.
10 S. BUNDRICK, Music and Image in Classical Athens (2005) 14 -18 , especially 14 .
11 BUNDRICK (supra n. 10) 18 -21.
12 YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 17 -18 , 63 , no. 10.
13 YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 18 -27.
14 CMS II 2, no. 33 ; YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 76 -77 , no. 59 , pl. 24.
15 YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 61 -63 , nos. 1-9.
16 V.L. ARAVANTINOS, L. GODART, and A. SACCONI, Thèbes. Fouilles de la Cadmée, 1: Les tablettes en linéaire
B de la Odos Pelopidou. Édition et commentaire (2001) 31 -32, 176 -78 . V.L. ARAVANTINOS, L. GODART, and A.
SACCONI, Thèbes. Fouilles de la Cadmée, 3: Corpus des documents d’archives en linéaire B de Thèbes (2002) 82-83 .
17 Homer, Il. 1.601ff, 9.185 ff. (phórmingi ligeíê); Od. 8.67 (phórminga lígeian), 8.257 , 8.266 , 17 .261 , 22.347 ,
23.144 . Twice, Homer calls the lyre a kítharis: Il. 3.54 , Od. 1.153 (kítharin ... phormízôn).
18 BUNDRICK (supra n. 10) 25-26.
19 YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 19 n. 49 ; add BUNDRICK (supra n. 10) 205, n. 23.
20 Compare the side-view of a chelys lyre on a hydria by the Niobid Painter: BUNDRICK (supra n. 10) 93 , fig. 57 .
THE MYCENAEAN BARD: THE EVIDENCE FOR SOUND AND SONG
The duck neck (top part of the lower arm) does not quite touch the lowest part of the upper
arm (the duck head). Across the upper arms sits the yoke in a notch. Seven strings descend
to the soundbox and when tightened they would compress the upper arms would toward the
necks of the duck heads giving back appropriate tension and extra resonance.
From the Menidi tholos (LH III B context) come two extant ivory lyres (Pl. VII);21 one
has been restored wrongly but it gives the best idea; since only the upper arms were used in
the reconstruction, this phorminx looks like the simpler Classical phorminx. An ivory box or
footstool has been co-opted for the soundbox. The upper arm finials, however, preserve some
of their carving (Pl. IX): two rampant lions flanking something; my reconstruction incorporates
designs from two sealstones to give a sense of the original.22
Ivory fragments from Mycenae ChT 81 (pottery not diagnostic) can be recognized as the
plektron (pick), bridge, and lower arm of a lyre (Pl. V).23 The designs on the arm are the typical
“chain & pulley” designs found on the bone and ivory objects from the Shaft Graves; this lyre
should be our earliest to have survived, therefore.
The depictions of the Mycenaean phorminx convey clearly how it was played: held in the
left arm, high up on the waist, plucked or strummed by the right hand, the left held up against
the strings perhaps to finger tune them or pluck individual strings.
The artist of the Ayia Triada sarcophagus (Pl. VII),24 perhaps desiring to show the
phorminx’s soundbox, has made the lyre player push his arm, as it were, through the strings,
and the player’s tunic overlaps the lyre’s arm. Nonetheless, the general shape of the lyre, the
stance of the lyre player, and even his plektron are all conveyed clearly.
In the Pylos fresco (Pl. X),25 the musician simply holds the instrument at his right side
(contrary to Piet de Jong’s reconstruction); it is unlikely that the musician was playing his
instrument, for he could not have stretched his left arm long enough to brush against the
strings, even if he was a unique left-handed lyre-player.
What was the sound of the phorminx like? First, from ethnographic parallels, both from
Bronze Age Mesopotamia and Egypt, the seven strings were probably tuned as two conjunct
tetrachords (e.g., b-e and e-a) with closely set, internal (“enharmonic”) intervals (e.g., b, c, c#,
e; e, f, f#, a).26 The emphases, therefore, would be primarily on the tonic (in this case, b), the
subdominant (e), and its subdominant (a). Of course, individual strings could be finger-tuned
at will, like on a guitar or violin. Second, the representations of actual playing (e.g., the Ayia
Triada sarcophagus, and Classical depictions) show the musicians striking the strings near the
soundbox where the greater tension would produce a brilliant and bright sound (striking the
strings nearer the yoke would produce thicker and blurry sounds); the bright sound would
correspond to Homer’s frequent use of ligeía to describe the music (noted above, n. 17 ).
Third, the player on the Ayia Triada sarcophagus holds a plektron in his right hand and actual
plektra have been found;27 this implies that playing the phorminx mostly entailed strumming
it, regardless of the tuning. (Of course, individual strings could be plucked by either right or
left hand, or both at once to produce chords).
Two representations of the phorminx associate the instrument with winged creatures:
the Pylos fresco with a griffin, and a pyxis from Chania with a flock of wheeling birds (Pl. XI).28
This association corresponds closely with the frequent Homeric phrase “winged words,” the
comparison of a plucked bowstring to the voice of a swallow (Od. 21.411 ), and the use of iôê
(e.g., Od. 17 .261 : “about them rushed the ‘sound’ [iôê] of the phorminx”)29—the string of vowels
well suits the open sounds of a strummed instrument.
21 YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 61 -62, nos. 3-5, pls. 5, 8.1, 9.2-3.
22 CMS I, no. 243 (the rampant lions) and IV, no. 40D (the central palm).
23 YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 61 , no. 1, pls. 3, 4, 7. I am grateful to K. Shelton, who reminded me at the EPOS
conference how extraordinary Chamber Tomb 81 was: great size, painted doorway, and fair amount of
precious furnishings. A. XENAKI-SAKELLARIOU, Oi thalamôtoí táphoi tôn Mukênôn (1985 ) 224-31 .
24 YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 66 -67 , no. 29, pls. 10-11 , 18 -19 , and back cover (color).
25 YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 69 , no. 31 , pl. 31 , and front cover (color)
26 YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 23-27.
27 YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 61 -62, nos. 1?, 2?, 5 (pl. 5).
28 YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 70, no. 33 , pl. 14 .1.
29 The word is also used to describe a voice (Il. 10.139 ) and the wind (Il. 4.276 , 11 .308).
John G. YOUNGER
Singing
Singing is depicted separately from playing the phorminx30 on a couple of sealstones and
the Harvester Vase.31 The tiny amethyst disk from Shaft Grave Gamma (CMS I, no. 5; Pl. XII)
depicts a bearded man with his head up and mouth open. Another disk (CMS II 3, no. 13 a)
carries another bearded man32 with his throat extended and mouth open; the reverse of this
disk carries a calf head. Other seals in the same stylistic group (“The Group of the Chanting
Priest,” ca. 166 0-155 0) carry similar male and animal heads,33 while another (CMS II, 2 no. 213 )
carries a boar’s head and knife on one side and, on the other, a Linear A inscription (KN Zg
55 : “ja-sa-ja,” an abbreviated palindrome for ja-sa-sa-ra?). The animal heads and inscription may
refer the occasion of the singing, a religious sacrifice.
The Harvester Vase depicts a long file of men processing in two groups (Pl. XIII). The
shorter is led by a robed man (“the Leader”) followed by eight harvesters (nine men), the
longer by a plump sistrum shaker (who is singing) followed by a group of three singers (Pl. XIV)
and fourteen harvesters (eight men). The three singers are dressed peculiarly, in what look like
formless robes, their hair is short, and they are beardless (are they eunuchs?). Their mouths are
open and their heads are fanned out. If the artist had merely wanted to show three separate
heads, he could have resorted to doubling (or, in this case, tripling) the head-profiles, using a
technique (dittography) which is common throughout the vase.34 The heads are also held at
different angles: the outer two tilt their heads up, while middle figure tilts his down. These
head positions may be meaningful, as if the singers were singing harmony (bass, baritone, and
tenor). But since classical and Roman music allowed only for parallel octaves,35 harmony may
not have been sung in the Aegean Bronze Age—although Near Eastern music, as written, for
example, on the Hurrian score from Ugarit (more below), allowed singing at least two-note
chords.
What might Aegean singing have sounded like? First, the kind of song and its participants
on the Harvester Vase.36 In the Classical period, the typical harvest song was the “Linus,”
a song of lament for the death of a young man. It was an antiphonal song, a type common
in folksong, that employed statements (“calls”) from a lead singer and “responses” (often a
repeated refrain) from the rest of the group.37 It is obvious on the Harvester Vase that both
the sistrum shaker and the three singers are singing, but the harvesters and the Leader are not.
It is possible, therefore, that only the sistrum shaker “calls” and the three singers “respond” in
place of the entire group—if so, then a kind of orchestrated professionalism has replaced the
spontaneity of total group participation.
In my book, I also noted the structure of the procession on the Harvester Vase: most
figures in pairs, and the shorter procession in a ratio of 1:2 to the longer procession, like
that of the octave to its tonic. The exaggerated leg poses suggest a march (in double time,
corresponding to the pairs of figures), and the Fallen figure (5) suggests an occasional dotted
rhythm (like a trochee or cretic). With the entire procession dividing into thirds (two-thirds for
the long procession, one-third for the short procession), with the break occurring at the sistrum
shaker, I then reconstruct a “response & call” march-song (Pl. XV).38
30 In Il. 13 .731 , Homer, however, seems to connect the two, describing what would be called in Classical times
a kitharôidos: to one the god gave martial prowess, to another skill in dancing, to a third the art of the kithara
and song ...
31 YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 5-9, 74 -75 no. 53 (Harvester Vase, pls. 1.1, 2), 77 no. 60 (CMS I, no. 5, pl. 24.2).
32 J.H. BETTS, “The Seal from Shaft Grave Gamma: a ‘Mycenaean Chieftain’?” Temple University Aegean
Symposium 6 (1981 ) 2-8.
33 J.G. YOUNGER, Bronze Age Aegean Seals in Their Middle Phase (ca. 1700-1550 B.C.) (1993 ) 17 2-74 .
34 See Pl. XIII, figures 8+9, 10+11 , 12+13 , 19 +20, 21+22, 23+24.
35 M.L. WEST, Ancient Greek Music (199 2) 40-41 .
36 YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 5-9.
37 Such group songs are common in agricultural societies and in modern gospel singing.
38 Originally I had the harvesters harvesting olives, I have since realized that they hold winnowing fans for
threshing wheat.
THE MYCENAEAN BARD: THE EVIDENCE FOR SOUND AND SONG
Second, the tonal quality of Aegean singing.39 In Homer, singers are praised for their
clarity and loudness; so too in Classical times. The usual word both in Homer and Classical
literature is ligús or ligurê aoidê (e.g., of the sirens: Od. 12.44 & 183 ). This probably means nasal,
high pitched, and thin or pinched, much like traditional Greek, Eastern Mediterranean, and
Near Eastern music today.40 And the best way to achieve this is to lift the head, stretch the
throat, and sing through the nose. The Minoan singers on the sealstones and Harvester Vase
would fit this physical description, their neck stretched out and head lifted.
So too in Classical times. In the tondo of a red-figure kylix perhaps by the Brygos Painter
(Pl. XVI),41 an adult man reclines on a klinê and sings about his erómenos, petting, in lieu of him,
the love-gift hare below the couch; he tilts his head back, attenuating his neck, and sings a bit
of Theognis (1365 Diehl I, 2) “Ô paidôn kálliste ...” (O most beautiful of boys ...). Similar scenes
occur on other red-figure vases.42
Theory and Scores
Introduction
There are extant some 50 fragments of Classical Greek musical scores dating from the
late fifth century BCE to the third century AC.43 The notation has been deciphered because
every note spanning several octaves was given a separate sign.44 Several recordings, on CD and
on-line, are available.45
From the Bronze Age Near East also come treatises of music theory and at least one
score. Mesopotamian mathematical and lexical documents allow for the reconstruction of
heptatonic (or diatonic) scales of seven notes, with descriptions of the intervals (including
an “unclear” tritone) and directions for tuning the strings by using a cycle of fifths.46 A clay
document from Ugarit dates to the mid second millennium, contemporary with our Minoan-
39 Much of this section was inspired by T. MOORE, “What Did Greek and Roman Singing Sound Like?,”
an unpublished paper delivered at the conference “Ancient Song in Cross-Cultural Perspective: Ritual,
Performance, and History,” at Emory University (3 March 2006).
40 I especially think of traditional Greek folksongs and of Muslim calls to prayer. A good recording of
modern Greek oral poets presents some convincing examples of what Homer’s poetry might have sounded
like: Folkways Records 04468 : “Modern Greek Heroic Oral Poetry” (available from amazon.com and
smithsonianglobalsound.org). For me, on this recording, “The Crow & the Battle of Valtetzi,” sung in a high
nasal voice to a strummed lyra, is the rendition closest to what I think Homer might have sounded like. Other
recordings (e.g., at http://www.oeaw.ac.at/kal/sh/#sample) seem too “nice.”
41 Athens National Museum 1357 ; discussed and listed by K. DOVER, Greek Homosexuality (1989 ) 10, 224; listed
as by the Shuvalov Painter in M.F. KILMER, Greek Erotica (1993 ) 263 no. R1053 , with citations; illustrated by
G. KOCH-HARNACK, Knabenliebe und Tiergeschenke (1983 ) 87 , fig. 22, and attributed to the Brygos Painter
(more likely to me).
42 P. ANDERSON, “A Verse-Scrap on a Kylix by Epiktetos,” TAPA 135 (2005) 267 -77 , esp. 268 n. 4, lists several
examples, many of which also quote Theognis.
43 WEST (supra n. 35 ) 277 -326, chapter 10, “The Musical Documents.”
44 WEST (supra n. 35 ) 254 -76 , chapter 9, “Notation and Pitch.”
45 CDs: “Ancient Greek Music” by the Kerylos Ensemble and conducted by Annie Belis (label K617 ); “Melpomen:
Ancient Greek Music,” conducted by Conrad Steinmann (Harmonia Mundi B0004TVG7); and “Musique de
la Grèce Antique” by the Madrid Atrium Musicae (Harmonia Mundi B000BTE4LG). Online, for instance, at:
http://www.oeaw.ac.at/kal/agm/.
46 I rely here on R.J. DUMBRILL, The Musicology and Organology of the Ancient Near East (1998 ) 103-95 . Four
texts, when combined, allow for a partial reconstruction of Assyrian and Babylonian tuning techniques, and
therefore for transcribing the sole surviving Hurrian score. CBS 10996 (University Museum, Philadelphia) is
a Babylonian (Akkadian) mathematical text from Nippur (mid to late 1st millennium B.C.). U.3011 (British
Museum) is a contemporary Sumerian-Akkadian lexical text from Ur, and it helps explain the terminology in
CBS 10996 . With the explained terminology, one can then understand VAT 10101, an Assyrian (Akkadian)
song catalog (Pergamon Museum, Berlin, late 2nd millennium B.C.) and U.7/80 (British Museum), an Old
Babylonian (Akkadian) text from Ur (early to middle 2nd millennium ) that gives instructions for tuning a
lyre. Also see A.D. KILMER, “The Strings of Musical Instruments: Their Names, Numbers, and Significance,”
AS 16 (1965 ) 261 -72; “The Discovery of an Ancient Mesopotamian Theory of Music,” PAPS 115 (1971 ) 131 -
49 ; and A.D. KILMER and M. CIVIL, “Old Babylonian Musical Instructions Relating to Hymnody,” JCS 38
(1986 ) 94 -98 .
John G. YOUNGER
Mycenaean music;47 it uses the musical terms found in the mathematical and lexical documents
to record a hymn to the moon goddess Nikkal. Although its transcription has been the subject
of some debate, the hymn is written, according to Anne Kilmer, in two-note chords (i.e., in
close harmony), and it marches up and down a diatonic scale.48
With the possibility before us of contemporary knowledge in the Near East of music
theory and even a score, it would not be out of place to imagine what Minoan-Mycenaean
theory and songs might have been like.
Theory
The relationship between mathematics and music is commonplace. Take a stringed
instrument of a certain tension and therefore of a certain pitch, stop it down at one third the
length and you get the fifth above; stop it down half way along its length and you get the octave
above—such ratios underlie the playing of, for example, a violin.
A Linear A graffito in plaster at Ayia Triada presents a series of fractions (Pl. XVII).
Several scholars have noted what seems to be a consistent progression leading up to “ta-ja
k”, which, if it follows the progression (x, 1.5x 1.5[1.5x] ...), should be 5 1/16 (J.-P. Olivier
therefore proposes that ta-ja is the Minoan word for “five”).49 R. Stieglitz pointed out that
the resulting ratios can be expressed musically as well50—I base the ratios on alto C (Pl. XVIII
bottom row). The notes give us an enharmonic tetrachord C, C#, E, ↑F, G, quite close to the
musical equivalent of tuning by fifths (Pl. XVIII top row)— it is “off” at the top end, but only
slightly where the mathematical ratios are extremely fine.
Song
While there is no Bronze Age Aegean score, several Linear B documents hint at literary
composition techniques. T.B.L. Webster once drew attention to some headings in the Linear
B documents that seem to betray a conscious use of meter.51 The heading to PY Un 0352 may
refer to the initiation of the wanax at Pakijane when the “overseer of provisions” catalogues
some items. The heading can be made to read (with some extensive elision) like a fairly decent
dactylic hexameter (with caesura).
Pakijasi: mujomenôi epi wanaktei / amphiekei opite<u>kheus
Another heading, this one to well-known PY Ta 711 ,53 records “This is what Pukequiri
saw when the wanax appointed Aukeus as the damokoro …”, and it can be made to read like a
dactylic hexameter cataleptic (last syllable omitted as a kind of full stop):
ho wide Pukeqiri hot’ wanax theke Aukewa damokoron /
47 National Museum of Damascus RS 15 .30 + 15 .49 + 17 .387 . A.D. KILMER, “The Cult Song with Music
from Ancient Ugarit: Another Interpretation,” RA 68 (1974 ) 69 -82; A.D. KILMER, R.L. CROCKER, and
R.R. BROWN, Sounds of Silence: Recent Discoveries in Ancient Near Eastern Music (1976 ); M. DUCHESNEGUILLEMIN,
“A Hurrian Musical Score from Ugarit: The Discovery of Mesopotamian Music,” Sources from
the Ancient Near East 2 (1984 ) 63 -94 . M.L. WEST, “The Babylonian Musical Notation and the Hurrian Melodic
Texts,” Music and Letters 75 (1993 -1994 ) 161 -79 .
48 A recording is on-line: http://www.webster.sk.ca/greenwich/EVIDENCE.htm.
49 J.-P. OLIVIER. “’Cinq’ en linéaire A?” in Historical Philology: Greek, Latin, and Romance (199 2) 135 -36 .
50 R. STIEGLITZ, “Minoan Mathematics or Music?” BASP 15 (1978 ) 127-32.
51 T.B.L. WEBSTER, “Homer and the Mycenaean Tablets,” Antiquity 113 (1955 ) 10-14 , esp. 11 . Also see N.N.
KAZANSKY, “Greek Poetry in the Mycenaean Times,” XII Colloquio internazionale di micenologia. Abstracts
Roma, 20-25 febbraio 2006 (2006) 103. Webster originally noted the following meters (reproduced in M.
VENTRIS and J. CHADWICK, Documents in Mycenaean Greek [1959 ] 108): paroemiac (PY An 0001.1): eretaí
Pleurônade iontes; and pendant hemiepes (PY An 0035 .1): toikhodomoi demeontes.
52 VENTRIS and CHADWICK (supra n. 51 ) 221, no. 97 .
53 VENTRIS and CHADWICK (supra n. 51 ) 335 , no. 235 .
THE MYCENAEAN BARD: THE EVIDENCE FOR SOUND AND SONG
The Phaistos Disc54
In 198 0, Duhoux analyzed the Phaistos Disc and pointed out (in addition to the wellknown
marks at the ends of phrases) the repetitious use of prefixes, of whole words, and of
endings.55
Side A (Pl. XIX) has a remarkable set of repeated prefixes (man-head + cookie [signs
02+12]); it closes without an “end-of-phrase” mark. Side B (Pl. XX) has few such repeated
prefixes, but it does begin with repeating the same two signs and it closes with an “end-ofphrase”
mark, as if to close the entire text.
Both side A and B begin with a long string of unrepeated words, a heading, or, to use
song terminology, an introduction; then comes a series of repeated words on both sides, a
verse, perhaps in “response” to “calls.” On Side A (Pl. XXI), the first section of the verse (A4)
starts with a set of three words that repeats, establishing itself as a repeating refrain; the last
phrase begins and ends with the same word, a coda.
Side B (Pl. XXII) has another “introduction” that ends with a word that introduces the
subsequent three verses (as if subsequent verses were antiphonal); and each verse ends with a
word that contains the same last two syllables – a rhymed “response,” therefore.
It seems to me that each side presents an unrepeated introduction followed by a verse
of short repeated sections that (mostly) alternate, as if “calls” and “responses,” something like
what I was imagining for the Harvester Vase. On side A, the “calls” (in yellow) and “responses”
(in blue) end with a coda (a special ending for this first section, employing an internal repetition
[red, blue, red]). On side B, the introduction (lines B1-3) begins with the often repeated pair
of syllables on side A; the verse begins with the last “word” in the introduction (line B3) as a
“call” (in red). This “call” alternates rigorously with “responses” (in two shades of blue) that
repeat endings only. In effect, this verse section (lines B4-8) is an extended coda (as a finale to
the entire text) with internal repetitions in the “responses” (B6 & B8), more elaborate than the
simple internal repetition in the preliminary coda on side A.
For the sake of illustration I provide a “dummy” transcription (Pl. XXIII), supplying
syllables to the signs so that readers can pronounce the inscription on the disc and hear the
patterns described above.56
This self-conscious use of phrasing in the Phaistos Disc (end-of-phrase marks, alliteration,
and rhyme), and the repetitions that establish song-like introductions, verses, refrains, rhymes,
and even codas all suggest to me that the Aegeans were more sophisticated in the area of
musical literacy than we have given them credit for.
John G. YOUNGER
54 See the essential editions by Y. DUHOUX, Le disque de Phaestos (archéologie — épigraphie — édition critique —
index) (1977 ); and by L. GODART, Il Disco di Festos: Certezze ed enigmi di una grande scoperta (1993 ; translated:
the Phaistos Disc. The Enigma of an Aegean Script, 1995 ).
55 Y. DUHOUX, “L’écriture et le texte du disque de Phaestos,” in Pepragména tou D’ diethnoús krêtolokoú sunedríou
Êráklio (augoústou-septembríou) (198 0) vol. 1: 11 2-36 .
56 Some of the Phaistos signs resemble signs in Linear AB, so I have assigned the same values: 12 qe, 19 sa, 29
ma, 35 te; in my article (“Cretan Hieroglyphic Transaction Terms: ‘Total Paid’ and ‘Total Owed’” in Cretan
Studies [Briciaka]. A Tribute to W.C. Brice [2003] 301-16 ), I demonstrated that Hieroglyphic boat sign (CHIC
40) corresponds to AB ro2; thus, Phaistos sign 25, ro. Phaistos signs 01-03 and 06 received mnemonic values:
vir (man), hawk (for Mohawk hairstyle), head, and mul (woman). Phaistos signs 03-05, 11 , 15 , 17 , 21, 28,
30, 42-44 each appears once on the disc, so I gave them rare values in Linear AB (the j-series and syllables
beginning with two consonants).
John G. YOUNGER
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Pl. I Terracotta sistrum from Archanes Phournoi (MM 1A context), photo by the author.
Pl. II Excavation of a lyre from Phylakopi, Mycenaean Sanctuary, East Shrine, photo by the
author.
Pl. III CMS II 2, no. 33 , from Knossos, CMS drawing of the impression.
Pl. IV Reconstruction drawing of a Mycenaean phorminx, drawing by the author.
Pl. V Drawing of the lyre arm and bridge from Mycenae ChT 81 , by the author
Pl. VI Late Geometric sherd from Paros (Paros Museum), photo by the author.
Pl. VII The lyre-player on the Ayia Triada sarcophagus, drawing by the author.
Pl. VIII Reconstructed lyre from the Menidi tholos, photo by the author.
Pl. IX Reconstruction drawing of the Menidi lyre finials, by the author.
Pl. X Reconstruction drawing of the Pylos lyre player, by the author.
Pl. XI Pyxis from Chania (Chania 2308), early LM IIIB, drawing by the author.
Pl. XII CMS I no. 5 from Mycenae, Shaft Grave Gamma, photo by the author.
Pl. XIII Reconstruction drawing of the Harvester vase, by the author.
Pl. XIV Detail of the Harvester vase, sistrum shaker and singers, photo by the author.
Pl. XV The Harvester vase “march-song.”
Pl. XVI Athens National Museum 13 27, red-figure cup, tondo, photo by the author.
Pl. XVII HT Zd 156 , Linear A graffito, with translation into fractions, ratios, and corresponding
musical intervals based on alto C.
Pl. XVIII Top row: tuning up by 5ths and down by 4ths. Bottom row: the musical intervals implied
by the Linear A graffito, HT Zd 156 .
Pl. XIX Phaistos Disc, Side A, with repeated syllable-clusters encircled.
Pl. XX Phaistos Disc, Side B, with repeated syllable-clusters encircled.
Pl. XXI Phaistos Disc, Side A, with repeated signgroups underlined.
Pl. XXII Phaistos Disc, Side B, with repeated signgroups underlined.
Pl. XXIII Phaistos Disc, complete text rendered as a “dummy” text.
http://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/dspace/bitstream/1808/5716/1/Younger_Myc_Bard.pdf
THE EVIDENCE FOR SOUND AND SONG*
In this paper, I concentrate on the Mycenaean bard’s concert lyre (here called phorminx),
his singing, and aspects of his professionalism.
Prolegomena
Most of the Aegean Bronze Age (ca. 2200-1200 BCE) has produced images of musicians
and singers, as well as depictions and the extant fragments of the instruments themselves.
Nonetheless, what we know about Aegean music is dependent on what the Aegean artists felt
comfortable about portraying—for instance, there are no images of women playing a musical
instrument, and fewer instruments are depicted than have been found.
In the Early and Middle Bronze Ages harps were popular. Lyres and sistra make their
first appearance early in the Middle Minoan period, and both continue into the Late Bronze
Age (when both are associated with singing but not together). The earliest extant examples
of sistra are in terracotta: a singleton from Archanes, Phournoi (MM IA context; Pl. I), and
five from the Ayios Charalambos cave in East Crete (MM II). All six terracotta examples are
similar: a short thick handle, and an oval frame which supports two thin, horizontal wooden
sticks (restored) on which were strung terracotta disks. The sole extant bronze sistrum comes
from a bronze hoard at Mochlos (LM I context); it consists of a bent loop of bronze inserted
between two flanges at the top of the handle. Two horizontal bronze pins pierce the loop (with
bent ends on the outside, like cotter pins); on these pins were strung metal disks. Not only
would the disks make a rattling sound, but the pins would jangle in their sockets and their
angled ends would strike the loop. The sole depiction of a sistrum occurs on the Harvester
Vase; it is simpler, however, than the Mochlos sistrum, with two disks on only one horizontal
pin; the pin seems to pierce the thin loop where its ends are capped.
Aegean Lyres
Lyres appear early in the Middle Minoan period, and by the beginning of the Late
Bronze Age they had apparently supplanted the harp. This new string instrument comes in
two varieties: the tortoise-shell lyre (chelys lyra) and the concert lyre (phorminx or kithara). In the
* Parts of this paper were included in an unpublished paper, “Aegean Music: Evidence for Sound and Song,”
delivered at the conference “Ancient Song in Cross-Cultural Perspective: Ritual, Performance, and History”
at Emory University (3 March 2006).
Much of this paper relies on J.G. YOUNGER, Music in the Aegean Bronze Age (1998 ).
YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 51 -60, esp. 60: “the representations of [Aegean] music were carefully designed to
represent to us only certain people as the producers of music, only certain instruments, and only certain
occasions.”
YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 10-14 .
Unlike harps, lyres have a set of strings of equal length descending to the soundbox from a yoke supported
by two arms of equal length. To produce different tones, the strings are either tuned (by stretching them,
usually tightening them at the yoke) or stopped by the fingers of the left hand (i.e., the fingers touch the
strings at various heights, thus shortening their vibrations when they are struck). YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 14 -
18 .
YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 38 -40.
YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 65 no. 24, pl. 22.
I thank Philip Betancourt for informing me about these examples during the EPOS conference, and I had
the good fortune to see them in the Ayios Nikolaos Museum later that summer.
I am grateful to Jeffrey Soles who allowed me to see this sistrum in storage in the East Cretan Center in
2005.
YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 74 -75 , no. 53 , pl. 22.
John G. YOUNGER
Classical period, “the chelys lyre was the quintessential instrument of the amateur musician.”10
By contrast, the Classical kithara was large and ornate and for professionals only.11
Both instruments are attested in the Late Bronze Age. The chelys lyre is known from
extant examples only: two tortoise shells and fragments of others from the East Sanctuary at
Phylakopi (LH III A:2-C context; Pl. II).12 From drilled holes in some of these shells (to attach
lyre arms) it is likely they served as soundboxes. Since no depiction of the chelys lyre has
survived (did Bronze Age artists think them too humble for formal art?), it is possible that these
were the instruments that women played.
The concert lyre, however, is known from extant examples and from many depictions.13
The earliest depiction is on a stamp seal from Knossos14 (Malia Workshop, MM II; Pl. III), but
all other examples are Mycenaean. This instrument (Pl. IV) is similar to the Classical kithara:
it was large (as tall as the musician’s upper body), with a rounded, crescent-shaped soundbox
to which seven strings descend from a lathed yoke supported by complex arms. All extant
fragments are of ivory. The earliest extant piece should date to the Shaft Grave period on style
(it is decorated with “line & pulley” designs; Pl. V); the other extant examples come from LH
III and IIIB contexts.15 Depictions of these concert lyres are similarly late.
The Mycenaean name for these lyres is known, at least generically (ru-ra, lyra). A Thebes
tablet (TH Av 106, LH III B:2 context), lists men including two who contribute other personnel.16
On line 5, “Tameieus” contributes 6 fullers (ka-na-pe-we, knapheís) and on line 7 a man (whose
name has not survived) contributes 2 lyre-players (ru-ra-ta-e, lurateís). It is possible that the word
“lyra” here is generic (“lyre”) or is a popular term for any lyre, or refers to tortoise-shell lyres,
like those votives found at Phylakopi.
Homer occasionally calls a concert lyre a kítharis, but usually he uses phórminx (a non-
Greek word)—to play the lyre is always phormízô.17 He also occasionally comments on the beauty
of the decoration (Il. 1.601ff, 9.185 ff; Od. 1.153 ). Depictions contemporary with Homer, in
bronze and terracotta figurines and in Late Geometric vase-painting (Pl. VI), call for a similar,
simpler instrument than the Bronze Age concert lyre, with arms in one degree supporting the
yoke; this simpler instrument also survives into the Classical period, when it is often played by
women and Muses.18 It has thus become standard to distinguish the three lyres of the Classical
period: “chelys lyre” (or just simply “lyre”) for the everyday tortoise shell lyre, “kithara” for the
grand concert lyre, and “phorminx” for the shorter, simpler lyre.
Since all Mycenaean depictions refer to a single form of concert lyre (no chelys lyre is
depicted), I shall refer to it by its classy (and common) Homeric term, the phorminx.
The Aegean Phorminx
The phorminx is played while standing (Pl. VII). According to rare Classical depictions of
the phorminx in side-view or in the round, the lunate soundbox was humped at the back so it
sat in the crook of one’s left arm.19 From the soundbox project the two arms, divided into two
sections (see Pl. IV). The lower half ends in a broken loop, whose upper part represents a duckhead
whose bill is of one piece with the lower arm; these heads turn out toward the audience.20
Into the top of the other half-loop, the upper arms are inserted and these end in carved finials.
10 S. BUNDRICK, Music and Image in Classical Athens (2005) 14 -18 , especially 14 .
11 BUNDRICK (supra n. 10) 18 -21.
12 YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 17 -18 , 63 , no. 10.
13 YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 18 -27.
14 CMS II 2, no. 33 ; YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 76 -77 , no. 59 , pl. 24.
15 YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 61 -63 , nos. 1-9.
16 V.L. ARAVANTINOS, L. GODART, and A. SACCONI, Thèbes. Fouilles de la Cadmée, 1: Les tablettes en linéaire
B de la Odos Pelopidou. Édition et commentaire (2001) 31 -32, 176 -78 . V.L. ARAVANTINOS, L. GODART, and A.
SACCONI, Thèbes. Fouilles de la Cadmée, 3: Corpus des documents d’archives en linéaire B de Thèbes (2002) 82-83 .
17 Homer, Il. 1.601ff, 9.185 ff. (phórmingi ligeíê); Od. 8.67 (phórminga lígeian), 8.257 , 8.266 , 17 .261 , 22.347 ,
23.144 . Twice, Homer calls the lyre a kítharis: Il. 3.54 , Od. 1.153 (kítharin ... phormízôn).
18 BUNDRICK (supra n. 10) 25-26.
19 YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 19 n. 49 ; add BUNDRICK (supra n. 10) 205, n. 23.
20 Compare the side-view of a chelys lyre on a hydria by the Niobid Painter: BUNDRICK (supra n. 10) 93 , fig. 57 .
THE MYCENAEAN BARD: THE EVIDENCE FOR SOUND AND SONG
The duck neck (top part of the lower arm) does not quite touch the lowest part of the upper
arm (the duck head). Across the upper arms sits the yoke in a notch. Seven strings descend
to the soundbox and when tightened they would compress the upper arms would toward the
necks of the duck heads giving back appropriate tension and extra resonance.
From the Menidi tholos (LH III B context) come two extant ivory lyres (Pl. VII);21 one
has been restored wrongly but it gives the best idea; since only the upper arms were used in
the reconstruction, this phorminx looks like the simpler Classical phorminx. An ivory box or
footstool has been co-opted for the soundbox. The upper arm finials, however, preserve some
of their carving (Pl. IX): two rampant lions flanking something; my reconstruction incorporates
designs from two sealstones to give a sense of the original.22
Ivory fragments from Mycenae ChT 81 (pottery not diagnostic) can be recognized as the
plektron (pick), bridge, and lower arm of a lyre (Pl. V).23 The designs on the arm are the typical
“chain & pulley” designs found on the bone and ivory objects from the Shaft Graves; this lyre
should be our earliest to have survived, therefore.
The depictions of the Mycenaean phorminx convey clearly how it was played: held in the
left arm, high up on the waist, plucked or strummed by the right hand, the left held up against
the strings perhaps to finger tune them or pluck individual strings.
The artist of the Ayia Triada sarcophagus (Pl. VII),24 perhaps desiring to show the
phorminx’s soundbox, has made the lyre player push his arm, as it were, through the strings,
and the player’s tunic overlaps the lyre’s arm. Nonetheless, the general shape of the lyre, the
stance of the lyre player, and even his plektron are all conveyed clearly.
In the Pylos fresco (Pl. X),25 the musician simply holds the instrument at his right side
(contrary to Piet de Jong’s reconstruction); it is unlikely that the musician was playing his
instrument, for he could not have stretched his left arm long enough to brush against the
strings, even if he was a unique left-handed lyre-player.
What was the sound of the phorminx like? First, from ethnographic parallels, both from
Bronze Age Mesopotamia and Egypt, the seven strings were probably tuned as two conjunct
tetrachords (e.g., b-e and e-a) with closely set, internal (“enharmonic”) intervals (e.g., b, c, c#,
e; e, f, f#, a).26 The emphases, therefore, would be primarily on the tonic (in this case, b), the
subdominant (e), and its subdominant (a). Of course, individual strings could be finger-tuned
at will, like on a guitar or violin. Second, the representations of actual playing (e.g., the Ayia
Triada sarcophagus, and Classical depictions) show the musicians striking the strings near the
soundbox where the greater tension would produce a brilliant and bright sound (striking the
strings nearer the yoke would produce thicker and blurry sounds); the bright sound would
correspond to Homer’s frequent use of ligeía to describe the music (noted above, n. 17 ).
Third, the player on the Ayia Triada sarcophagus holds a plektron in his right hand and actual
plektra have been found;27 this implies that playing the phorminx mostly entailed strumming
it, regardless of the tuning. (Of course, individual strings could be plucked by either right or
left hand, or both at once to produce chords).
Two representations of the phorminx associate the instrument with winged creatures:
the Pylos fresco with a griffin, and a pyxis from Chania with a flock of wheeling birds (Pl. XI).28
This association corresponds closely with the frequent Homeric phrase “winged words,” the
comparison of a plucked bowstring to the voice of a swallow (Od. 21.411 ), and the use of iôê
(e.g., Od. 17 .261 : “about them rushed the ‘sound’ [iôê] of the phorminx”)29—the string of vowels
well suits the open sounds of a strummed instrument.
21 YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 61 -62, nos. 3-5, pls. 5, 8.1, 9.2-3.
22 CMS I, no. 243 (the rampant lions) and IV, no. 40D (the central palm).
23 YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 61 , no. 1, pls. 3, 4, 7. I am grateful to K. Shelton, who reminded me at the EPOS
conference how extraordinary Chamber Tomb 81 was: great size, painted doorway, and fair amount of
precious furnishings. A. XENAKI-SAKELLARIOU, Oi thalamôtoí táphoi tôn Mukênôn (1985 ) 224-31 .
24 YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 66 -67 , no. 29, pls. 10-11 , 18 -19 , and back cover (color).
25 YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 69 , no. 31 , pl. 31 , and front cover (color)
26 YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 23-27.
27 YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 61 -62, nos. 1?, 2?, 5 (pl. 5).
28 YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 70, no. 33 , pl. 14 .1.
29 The word is also used to describe a voice (Il. 10.139 ) and the wind (Il. 4.276 , 11 .308).
John G. YOUNGER
Singing
Singing is depicted separately from playing the phorminx30 on a couple of sealstones and
the Harvester Vase.31 The tiny amethyst disk from Shaft Grave Gamma (CMS I, no. 5; Pl. XII)
depicts a bearded man with his head up and mouth open. Another disk (CMS II 3, no. 13 a)
carries another bearded man32 with his throat extended and mouth open; the reverse of this
disk carries a calf head. Other seals in the same stylistic group (“The Group of the Chanting
Priest,” ca. 166 0-155 0) carry similar male and animal heads,33 while another (CMS II, 2 no. 213 )
carries a boar’s head and knife on one side and, on the other, a Linear A inscription (KN Zg
55 : “ja-sa-ja,” an abbreviated palindrome for ja-sa-sa-ra?). The animal heads and inscription may
refer the occasion of the singing, a religious sacrifice.
The Harvester Vase depicts a long file of men processing in two groups (Pl. XIII). The
shorter is led by a robed man (“the Leader”) followed by eight harvesters (nine men), the
longer by a plump sistrum shaker (who is singing) followed by a group of three singers (Pl. XIV)
and fourteen harvesters (eight men). The three singers are dressed peculiarly, in what look like
formless robes, their hair is short, and they are beardless (are they eunuchs?). Their mouths are
open and their heads are fanned out. If the artist had merely wanted to show three separate
heads, he could have resorted to doubling (or, in this case, tripling) the head-profiles, using a
technique (dittography) which is common throughout the vase.34 The heads are also held at
different angles: the outer two tilt their heads up, while middle figure tilts his down. These
head positions may be meaningful, as if the singers were singing harmony (bass, baritone, and
tenor). But since classical and Roman music allowed only for parallel octaves,35 harmony may
not have been sung in the Aegean Bronze Age—although Near Eastern music, as written, for
example, on the Hurrian score from Ugarit (more below), allowed singing at least two-note
chords.
What might Aegean singing have sounded like? First, the kind of song and its participants
on the Harvester Vase.36 In the Classical period, the typical harvest song was the “Linus,”
a song of lament for the death of a young man. It was an antiphonal song, a type common
in folksong, that employed statements (“calls”) from a lead singer and “responses” (often a
repeated refrain) from the rest of the group.37 It is obvious on the Harvester Vase that both
the sistrum shaker and the three singers are singing, but the harvesters and the Leader are not.
It is possible, therefore, that only the sistrum shaker “calls” and the three singers “respond” in
place of the entire group—if so, then a kind of orchestrated professionalism has replaced the
spontaneity of total group participation.
In my book, I also noted the structure of the procession on the Harvester Vase: most
figures in pairs, and the shorter procession in a ratio of 1:2 to the longer procession, like
that of the octave to its tonic. The exaggerated leg poses suggest a march (in double time,
corresponding to the pairs of figures), and the Fallen figure (5) suggests an occasional dotted
rhythm (like a trochee or cretic). With the entire procession dividing into thirds (two-thirds for
the long procession, one-third for the short procession), with the break occurring at the sistrum
shaker, I then reconstruct a “response & call” march-song (Pl. XV).38
30 In Il. 13 .731 , Homer, however, seems to connect the two, describing what would be called in Classical times
a kitharôidos: to one the god gave martial prowess, to another skill in dancing, to a third the art of the kithara
and song ...
31 YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 5-9, 74 -75 no. 53 (Harvester Vase, pls. 1.1, 2), 77 no. 60 (CMS I, no. 5, pl. 24.2).
32 J.H. BETTS, “The Seal from Shaft Grave Gamma: a ‘Mycenaean Chieftain’?” Temple University Aegean
Symposium 6 (1981 ) 2-8.
33 J.G. YOUNGER, Bronze Age Aegean Seals in Their Middle Phase (ca. 1700-1550 B.C.) (1993 ) 17 2-74 .
34 See Pl. XIII, figures 8+9, 10+11 , 12+13 , 19 +20, 21+22, 23+24.
35 M.L. WEST, Ancient Greek Music (199 2) 40-41 .
36 YOUNGER (supra n. 1) 5-9.
37 Such group songs are common in agricultural societies and in modern gospel singing.
38 Originally I had the harvesters harvesting olives, I have since realized that they hold winnowing fans for
threshing wheat.
THE MYCENAEAN BARD: THE EVIDENCE FOR SOUND AND SONG
Second, the tonal quality of Aegean singing.39 In Homer, singers are praised for their
clarity and loudness; so too in Classical times. The usual word both in Homer and Classical
literature is ligús or ligurê aoidê (e.g., of the sirens: Od. 12.44 & 183 ). This probably means nasal,
high pitched, and thin or pinched, much like traditional Greek, Eastern Mediterranean, and
Near Eastern music today.40 And the best way to achieve this is to lift the head, stretch the
throat, and sing through the nose. The Minoan singers on the sealstones and Harvester Vase
would fit this physical description, their neck stretched out and head lifted.
So too in Classical times. In the tondo of a red-figure kylix perhaps by the Brygos Painter
(Pl. XVI),41 an adult man reclines on a klinê and sings about his erómenos, petting, in lieu of him,
the love-gift hare below the couch; he tilts his head back, attenuating his neck, and sings a bit
of Theognis (1365 Diehl I, 2) “Ô paidôn kálliste ...” (O most beautiful of boys ...). Similar scenes
occur on other red-figure vases.42
Theory and Scores
Introduction
There are extant some 50 fragments of Classical Greek musical scores dating from the
late fifth century BCE to the third century AC.43 The notation has been deciphered because
every note spanning several octaves was given a separate sign.44 Several recordings, on CD and
on-line, are available.45
From the Bronze Age Near East also come treatises of music theory and at least one
score. Mesopotamian mathematical and lexical documents allow for the reconstruction of
heptatonic (or diatonic) scales of seven notes, with descriptions of the intervals (including
an “unclear” tritone) and directions for tuning the strings by using a cycle of fifths.46 A clay
document from Ugarit dates to the mid second millennium, contemporary with our Minoan-
39 Much of this section was inspired by T. MOORE, “What Did Greek and Roman Singing Sound Like?,”
an unpublished paper delivered at the conference “Ancient Song in Cross-Cultural Perspective: Ritual,
Performance, and History,” at Emory University (3 March 2006).
40 I especially think of traditional Greek folksongs and of Muslim calls to prayer. A good recording of
modern Greek oral poets presents some convincing examples of what Homer’s poetry might have sounded
like: Folkways Records 04468 : “Modern Greek Heroic Oral Poetry” (available from amazon.com and
smithsonianglobalsound.org). For me, on this recording, “The Crow & the Battle of Valtetzi,” sung in a high
nasal voice to a strummed lyra, is the rendition closest to what I think Homer might have sounded like. Other
recordings (e.g., at http://www.oeaw.ac.at/kal/sh/#sample) seem too “nice.”
41 Athens National Museum 1357 ; discussed and listed by K. DOVER, Greek Homosexuality (1989 ) 10, 224; listed
as by the Shuvalov Painter in M.F. KILMER, Greek Erotica (1993 ) 263 no. R1053 , with citations; illustrated by
G. KOCH-HARNACK, Knabenliebe und Tiergeschenke (1983 ) 87 , fig. 22, and attributed to the Brygos Painter
(more likely to me).
42 P. ANDERSON, “A Verse-Scrap on a Kylix by Epiktetos,” TAPA 135 (2005) 267 -77 , esp. 268 n. 4, lists several
examples, many of which also quote Theognis.
43 WEST (supra n. 35 ) 277 -326, chapter 10, “The Musical Documents.”
44 WEST (supra n. 35 ) 254 -76 , chapter 9, “Notation and Pitch.”
45 CDs: “Ancient Greek Music” by the Kerylos Ensemble and conducted by Annie Belis (label K617 ); “Melpomen:
Ancient Greek Music,” conducted by Conrad Steinmann (Harmonia Mundi B0004TVG7); and “Musique de
la Grèce Antique” by the Madrid Atrium Musicae (Harmonia Mundi B000BTE4LG). Online, for instance, at:
http://www.oeaw.ac.at/kal/agm/.
46 I rely here on R.J. DUMBRILL, The Musicology and Organology of the Ancient Near East (1998 ) 103-95 . Four
texts, when combined, allow for a partial reconstruction of Assyrian and Babylonian tuning techniques, and
therefore for transcribing the sole surviving Hurrian score. CBS 10996 (University Museum, Philadelphia) is
a Babylonian (Akkadian) mathematical text from Nippur (mid to late 1st millennium B.C.). U.3011 (British
Museum) is a contemporary Sumerian-Akkadian lexical text from Ur, and it helps explain the terminology in
CBS 10996 . With the explained terminology, one can then understand VAT 10101, an Assyrian (Akkadian)
song catalog (Pergamon Museum, Berlin, late 2nd millennium B.C.) and U.7/80 (British Museum), an Old
Babylonian (Akkadian) text from Ur (early to middle 2nd millennium ) that gives instructions for tuning a
lyre. Also see A.D. KILMER, “The Strings of Musical Instruments: Their Names, Numbers, and Significance,”
AS 16 (1965 ) 261 -72; “The Discovery of an Ancient Mesopotamian Theory of Music,” PAPS 115 (1971 ) 131 -
49 ; and A.D. KILMER and M. CIVIL, “Old Babylonian Musical Instructions Relating to Hymnody,” JCS 38
(1986 ) 94 -98 .
John G. YOUNGER
Mycenaean music;47 it uses the musical terms found in the mathematical and lexical documents
to record a hymn to the moon goddess Nikkal. Although its transcription has been the subject
of some debate, the hymn is written, according to Anne Kilmer, in two-note chords (i.e., in
close harmony), and it marches up and down a diatonic scale.48
With the possibility before us of contemporary knowledge in the Near East of music
theory and even a score, it would not be out of place to imagine what Minoan-Mycenaean
theory and songs might have been like.
Theory
The relationship between mathematics and music is commonplace. Take a stringed
instrument of a certain tension and therefore of a certain pitch, stop it down at one third the
length and you get the fifth above; stop it down half way along its length and you get the octave
above—such ratios underlie the playing of, for example, a violin.
A Linear A graffito in plaster at Ayia Triada presents a series of fractions (Pl. XVII).
Several scholars have noted what seems to be a consistent progression leading up to “ta-ja
k”, which, if it follows the progression (x, 1.5x 1.5[1.5x] ...), should be 5 1/16 (J.-P. Olivier
therefore proposes that ta-ja is the Minoan word for “five”).49 R. Stieglitz pointed out that
the resulting ratios can be expressed musically as well50—I base the ratios on alto C (Pl. XVIII
bottom row). The notes give us an enharmonic tetrachord C, C#, E, ↑F, G, quite close to the
musical equivalent of tuning by fifths (Pl. XVIII top row)— it is “off” at the top end, but only
slightly where the mathematical ratios are extremely fine.
Song
While there is no Bronze Age Aegean score, several Linear B documents hint at literary
composition techniques. T.B.L. Webster once drew attention to some headings in the Linear
B documents that seem to betray a conscious use of meter.51 The heading to PY Un 0352 may
refer to the initiation of the wanax at Pakijane when the “overseer of provisions” catalogues
some items. The heading can be made to read (with some extensive elision) like a fairly decent
dactylic hexameter (with caesura).
Pakijasi: mujomenôi epi wanaktei / amphiekei opite<u>kheus
Another heading, this one to well-known PY Ta 711 ,53 records “This is what Pukequiri
saw when the wanax appointed Aukeus as the damokoro …”, and it can be made to read like a
dactylic hexameter cataleptic (last syllable omitted as a kind of full stop):
ho wide Pukeqiri hot’ wanax theke Aukewa damokoron /
47 National Museum of Damascus RS 15 .30 + 15 .49 + 17 .387 . A.D. KILMER, “The Cult Song with Music
from Ancient Ugarit: Another Interpretation,” RA 68 (1974 ) 69 -82; A.D. KILMER, R.L. CROCKER, and
R.R. BROWN, Sounds of Silence: Recent Discoveries in Ancient Near Eastern Music (1976 ); M. DUCHESNEGUILLEMIN,
“A Hurrian Musical Score from Ugarit: The Discovery of Mesopotamian Music,” Sources from
the Ancient Near East 2 (1984 ) 63 -94 . M.L. WEST, “The Babylonian Musical Notation and the Hurrian Melodic
Texts,” Music and Letters 75 (1993 -1994 ) 161 -79 .
48 A recording is on-line: http://www.webster.sk.ca/greenwich/EVIDENCE.htm.
49 J.-P. OLIVIER. “’Cinq’ en linéaire A?” in Historical Philology: Greek, Latin, and Romance (199 2) 135 -36 .
50 R. STIEGLITZ, “Minoan Mathematics or Music?” BASP 15 (1978 ) 127-32.
51 T.B.L. WEBSTER, “Homer and the Mycenaean Tablets,” Antiquity 113 (1955 ) 10-14 , esp. 11 . Also see N.N.
KAZANSKY, “Greek Poetry in the Mycenaean Times,” XII Colloquio internazionale di micenologia. Abstracts
Roma, 20-25 febbraio 2006 (2006) 103. Webster originally noted the following meters (reproduced in M.
VENTRIS and J. CHADWICK, Documents in Mycenaean Greek [1959 ] 108): paroemiac (PY An 0001.1): eretaí
Pleurônade iontes; and pendant hemiepes (PY An 0035 .1): toikhodomoi demeontes.
52 VENTRIS and CHADWICK (supra n. 51 ) 221, no. 97 .
53 VENTRIS and CHADWICK (supra n. 51 ) 335 , no. 235 .
THE MYCENAEAN BARD: THE EVIDENCE FOR SOUND AND SONG
The Phaistos Disc54
In 198 0, Duhoux analyzed the Phaistos Disc and pointed out (in addition to the wellknown
marks at the ends of phrases) the repetitious use of prefixes, of whole words, and of
endings.55
Side A (Pl. XIX) has a remarkable set of repeated prefixes (man-head + cookie [signs
02+12]); it closes without an “end-of-phrase” mark. Side B (Pl. XX) has few such repeated
prefixes, but it does begin with repeating the same two signs and it closes with an “end-ofphrase”
mark, as if to close the entire text.
Both side A and B begin with a long string of unrepeated words, a heading, or, to use
song terminology, an introduction; then comes a series of repeated words on both sides, a
verse, perhaps in “response” to “calls.” On Side A (Pl. XXI), the first section of the verse (A4)
starts with a set of three words that repeats, establishing itself as a repeating refrain; the last
phrase begins and ends with the same word, a coda.
Side B (Pl. XXII) has another “introduction” that ends with a word that introduces the
subsequent three verses (as if subsequent verses were antiphonal); and each verse ends with a
word that contains the same last two syllables – a rhymed “response,” therefore.
It seems to me that each side presents an unrepeated introduction followed by a verse
of short repeated sections that (mostly) alternate, as if “calls” and “responses,” something like
what I was imagining for the Harvester Vase. On side A, the “calls” (in yellow) and “responses”
(in blue) end with a coda (a special ending for this first section, employing an internal repetition
[red, blue, red]). On side B, the introduction (lines B1-3) begins with the often repeated pair
of syllables on side A; the verse begins with the last “word” in the introduction (line B3) as a
“call” (in red). This “call” alternates rigorously with “responses” (in two shades of blue) that
repeat endings only. In effect, this verse section (lines B4-8) is an extended coda (as a finale to
the entire text) with internal repetitions in the “responses” (B6 & B8), more elaborate than the
simple internal repetition in the preliminary coda on side A.
For the sake of illustration I provide a “dummy” transcription (Pl. XXIII), supplying
syllables to the signs so that readers can pronounce the inscription on the disc and hear the
patterns described above.56
This self-conscious use of phrasing in the Phaistos Disc (end-of-phrase marks, alliteration,
and rhyme), and the repetitions that establish song-like introductions, verses, refrains, rhymes,
and even codas all suggest to me that the Aegeans were more sophisticated in the area of
musical literacy than we have given them credit for.
John G. YOUNGER
54 See the essential editions by Y. DUHOUX, Le disque de Phaestos (archéologie — épigraphie — édition critique —
index) (1977 ); and by L. GODART, Il Disco di Festos: Certezze ed enigmi di una grande scoperta (1993 ; translated:
the Phaistos Disc. The Enigma of an Aegean Script, 1995 ).
55 Y. DUHOUX, “L’écriture et le texte du disque de Phaestos,” in Pepragména tou D’ diethnoús krêtolokoú sunedríou
Êráklio (augoústou-septembríou) (198 0) vol. 1: 11 2-36 .
56 Some of the Phaistos signs resemble signs in Linear AB, so I have assigned the same values: 12 qe, 19 sa, 29
ma, 35 te; in my article (“Cretan Hieroglyphic Transaction Terms: ‘Total Paid’ and ‘Total Owed’” in Cretan
Studies [Briciaka]. A Tribute to W.C. Brice [2003] 301-16 ), I demonstrated that Hieroglyphic boat sign (CHIC
40) corresponds to AB ro2; thus, Phaistos sign 25, ro. Phaistos signs 01-03 and 06 received mnemonic values:
vir (man), hawk (for Mohawk hairstyle), head, and mul (woman). Phaistos signs 03-05, 11 , 15 , 17 , 21, 28,
30, 42-44 each appears once on the disc, so I gave them rare values in Linear AB (the j-series and syllables
beginning with two consonants).
John G. YOUNGER
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Pl. I Terracotta sistrum from Archanes Phournoi (MM 1A context), photo by the author.
Pl. II Excavation of a lyre from Phylakopi, Mycenaean Sanctuary, East Shrine, photo by the
author.
Pl. III CMS II 2, no. 33 , from Knossos, CMS drawing of the impression.
Pl. IV Reconstruction drawing of a Mycenaean phorminx, drawing by the author.
Pl. V Drawing of the lyre arm and bridge from Mycenae ChT 81 , by the author
Pl. VI Late Geometric sherd from Paros (Paros Museum), photo by the author.
Pl. VII The lyre-player on the Ayia Triada sarcophagus, drawing by the author.
Pl. VIII Reconstructed lyre from the Menidi tholos, photo by the author.
Pl. IX Reconstruction drawing of the Menidi lyre finials, by the author.
Pl. X Reconstruction drawing of the Pylos lyre player, by the author.
Pl. XI Pyxis from Chania (Chania 2308), early LM IIIB, drawing by the author.
Pl. XII CMS I no. 5 from Mycenae, Shaft Grave Gamma, photo by the author.
Pl. XIII Reconstruction drawing of the Harvester vase, by the author.
Pl. XIV Detail of the Harvester vase, sistrum shaker and singers, photo by the author.
Pl. XV The Harvester vase “march-song.”
Pl. XVI Athens National Museum 13 27, red-figure cup, tondo, photo by the author.
Pl. XVII HT Zd 156 , Linear A graffito, with translation into fractions, ratios, and corresponding
musical intervals based on alto C.
Pl. XVIII Top row: tuning up by 5ths and down by 4ths. Bottom row: the musical intervals implied
by the Linear A graffito, HT Zd 156 .
Pl. XIX Phaistos Disc, Side A, with repeated syllable-clusters encircled.
Pl. XX Phaistos Disc, Side B, with repeated syllable-clusters encircled.
Pl. XXI Phaistos Disc, Side A, with repeated signgroups underlined.
Pl. XXII Phaistos Disc, Side B, with repeated signgroups underlined.
Pl. XXIII Phaistos Disc, complete text rendered as a “dummy” text.
http://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/dspace/bitstream/1808/5716/1/Younger_Myc_Bard.pdf
