The Ancient History of the Biblical Lyres (2 of 2)

In this brief talk I'm going to discuss one type of biblical lyre played in the Temple of Jerusalem by the Levites to accompany the singing of a liberal choir This is called e nevel in Hebrew Let's first quickly explain the difference between the lyre and the harp The amusing thing is that the word nevel is commonly mistranslated in English from Hebrew as arp but the harp was not played in Israel at all during biblical times In fact the only The harp played in Israel traces its origins back to around the first dynasty of ancient Egypt circa 3000 BC and that was depicted in a remarkable illustration at Megiddo a rock carving that shows a complete formed harp So what is a harp A harp is a large unwieldy instrument not very portable and the strings enter the resonating chamber directly The lyre on the other hand is much more portable because the strings instead of passing into a large resonating chamber are attached to a smaller more compact frame simply glide your finger across the string like you would on a guitar or a banjo And what was the reason I think at the lyre supplanted the harp in ancient Israel Well because we know from the biblical texts at the ancestors of the ancient Hebrews were nomads If you're going to wander around a b The desert on your camels—what are you going to do You can't lug a large harp it's simply not feasible You can carry a lyre which is one of the reasons I believe the lyre replaced the harp in ancient Israel So that's a bit of background on harps and lyres Next point what do we know abou e actual word Confusing because in Hebrew vowels aren't written so we only have the root n-v-l which can be pronounced either avel and in ancient Hebrew they're entirely different things nevel means skin bottle or wine skin implying a lyre shaped quite narrow like a wine skin or a skin bottle but if it's pronounced "navel " that means carcass—could refer to skin like the skin of a carcass yeah by itself which could mean for example a lyre with a soundboard made of skin very similar o the ancient Greek lyra which featured a piece of taut leather stretched over a tortoiseshell resonator I'm in favor of this version here with a skin soundboard The reason for this s one of the very few illustrations we have depicting the appearance of biblical lyres and these can be found in the remarkable book Music in Ancient Israel Palestine by Jacqueline Brown Available on Amazon—check it out Let's just go take a look at the page I wonder if I can find it page 291 which features illustrations of biblical lyres depicted on the coins of Simon Bar-Kokhba Simon Bar-Kopfer said he aimed to overthrow the Roman occupation of Judea and to inspire resistance he overstruck every Roman coin he could find with images of temple instruments s brothers to rebuild a Jewish temple Here we go this illustration I believe represents the biblical kinor and you can see it appears to show the reverse of the instrument This small line down the center undoubtedly represents a strap that once held the instrument Let's pick this up and show you what I mean From the reverse it looks the same just like the image on the coin Let's set this down whoops The device beneath it is the one I'm referring to erested in and these instruments appear to depict another kind of lyre which I believe could be the biblical nile Some academic experts interpret these coins as depicting these lyres as viewed from the front This is highly confusing because they claim the strings appear to mysteriously enter the sound chamber like those on a harp but that only applies f you interpret this as facing the front of the instrument this is the reverse side of the device It all makes sense now Let's just flip this around and voilà—it looks exactly like the coins There you have it they're not entering the body of the instrument at all They're simply reversed Let's set this down so we don't damage it So this small circular structure presumably represents the skin stretched over a resonating chamber very similar to the ancient Greek lyre an amazing book And not only that these two types Lyres can be found at least 200 years before the time of Simon Barkoff Here are some coins from Just after 100 BC from a coastal town known as Akko in ancient history this is page 288 in this book Here we go—the same two basic types of lyre this one looking very much like one of the Simon models Barkoff the coin the nevel and the other one appear to represent the other type of lyre Like the kinor fascinating All of this along with every historical detail can be found on my website www ancientlyre com take a look So what else do we know—here's a bit more about the Hebrew We also know from the Mishnah an early rabbinical text that in Arak 2.5 it tells us tha o fewer than two and no more than six were employed in the Levitical ensemble whereas There were proportionally many more kinors played no fewer than nine with more potentially added Now this might suggest that the nevel was a bass instrument as in a modern string orchestra there are proportionately fewer basses and cellos compared to violins and violas and it could also suggest that the nevel might have been a slightly louder instrument because there are fewer of them Also from the Mishnah the clue to this being a bass instrume from Quinem 3.6 it tells us that the lower part of the sheep's intestines the thicker estines were used to make the strings while the kinor used the upper thinner par a portion of the sheep's intestines making the strings thicker and I believe it was a bass instrument To be honest what else do we know from extra-biblical sources Well we know from the writings of Josephus Flavius the first-century Jewish historian who actually witnessed the events that took place in the Temple of Jerusalem He tells us that it had 12 strings and was played played with the fingers whereas the kinor had ten strings and was played with a plectrum A rather fascinating number of strings—why are there 12 on the nevel I think it's meant to represe e twelve tribes of Israel since the Levitical priests also wore a breastplate adorned with twelve gems representing the 12 tribes Why did the kinor have 10 strings De presto I think it's to represent the Ten Commandments and not only that when you add the 12 strings of the kinor and the 12 strings of the nevel and the 10 strings of the kinor you get 22 the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet I believe this is one of the earliest examples of Kabbalah and the spiritual significance of the Hebrew alphabet because e Hebrew letters also represent numbers and in Kabbalah since the word of the Lord the word of God was believed to have brought the universe into existence and the word of God was spoken in Hebrew which is why the ancient Israelites attached such deep spiritual significance to the Hebrew alphabet—no one knows for sure Anyway Check it all out—it's on my website www ancientwire com in the link section where there's a dedicated section featuring wire makers stating this instrument is made by Middle Eastern ethnic instruments Check them out see you later