Great Lyre from the King's Grave at Ur
By STAN PARCHIN
August 31, 2010
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| Mesopotamian, Early Dynastic IIIA (ca. 2550-2400 B.C.). Great Lyre with Bull's Head and Inlaid Front Panel. Gold, silver, lapis lazuli, shell, bitumen and wood. H. of head 35.6 cm (14 in.); H. of plaque 33 cm (13 in.). Mesopotamia, Ur, PG 789, King's Grave. University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. |
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| Mesopotamian, Early Dynastic IIIA (ca. 2550-2400 B.C.). Great Lyre with Bull's Head and Inlaid Front Panel (detail). Gold, silver, lapis lazuli, bitumen and wood. H. of head 35.6 cm (14 in.); H. of plaque 33 cm (13 in.). Mesopotamia, Ur, PG 789, King's Grave. University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. |
Musical instruments were a means of entertainment for the ancient Mesopotamians in life as well as in the hereafter. Two harps, nine lyres, a pair of silver wind instruments and a small array of other types were discovered by British archaeologist C. Leonard Woolley at the Royal Cemetery of Ur in modern-day Iraq. Scholars surmised that many were created by Sumerian artisans to join the deceased on their journey to the underworld and in the afterlife.
Among the finely crafted grave goods buried with Sumer's elite was the spectacular Great Lyre with Bull's Head and Inlaid Front Panel (ca. 2550-2400 B.C.). It was presumably played to accompany the chanting of hymns and songs of praise. The 11-string instrument's sounds were intended to evoke the divine bull, a recurrent figure in ancient Near Eastern art and religion. Through the extant imagery on the reconstructed lyre’s sound box, artists provided a fascinating glimpse into a fanciful banquet in the Mesopotamian netherworld.
Great Lyre and Bull's Head
The intricate and beautiful Great Lyre was the largest one excavated by Woolley at Ur. It was found resting on the heads of three elaborately attired and bejeweled women (possibly lyrists and singers) entombed in the death pit of the King's Grave.
Appended to the instrument's front was a realistic bovine head composed of precious materials. Unearthed in a badly crushed state, Woolley ably reconstructed the artifact. Most of the wooden ornament, including its horns, was covered in gold sheet. Its eyeballs were made of shell insets; the pupils, eyelids and hair on the forehead and top of the head were comprised of lapis lazuli. Individual pieces of the same imported stone were set against a silver backing with a raised edge to create the beard's 12 tightly curled locks.
Inlaid Front Panel
In the shape of an inverted trapezoid, the lyre's Inlaid Front Panel is affixed to the sound box, slightly obstructed by the bull's beard. Displaying perhaps the most intriguing of all Sumerian scenes, its four plaques are divided into horizontal registers of diminishing size. Their bright shell figures and accoutrements are arranged against contrasting dark bitumen backgrounds. The rare stark compositions recall a convivial banquet in the hereafter.
The uppermost scene is heraldic in nature. It depicts a nearly nude and bearded male figure (probably semi-divine) grasping two rearing human-headed bulls, all shown intertwined in partial profile. The three remaining vignettes illustrate a funerary gathering attended by lively animals. The cast of characters includes a butchering hyena, an animated ass playing an eight-stringed bovine lyre and a composite scorpion-man, his unusual likeness borrowed from Elam in present-day southwestern Iran. They perform ritualistic tasks with anthropoid limbs and gestures.
While comical to the modern eye, the three lower registers' celebrants were regarded as magically potent by the ancient Sumerians. The combination of human and animal features in some of the plaques' figures represented a Mesopotamian belief in power able to be exerted over the physical world by the combination of various species' attributes.
How the Great Lyre Sounded
Based upon archaeological evidence, the bull-headed lyre was likely the ancient Near East's most popular stringed instrument in the mid-3rd Millennium B.C. A small number of cuneiform tablets with wedge-shaped inscriptions described how to tune and play it. Others provided valuable information about the seven standard musical scales and fingering techniques. While the contemporary Egyptian lyre was limited to four strings, Sumerian versions were constructed with 11 to 13, allowing for more elaborate compositions. The Great Lyre sounded something like a bass viol.
"Great Lyre with Bull's Head and Inlaid Front Panel" is on view in the long-term installation "Iraq's Ancient Past: Rediscovering Ur's Royal Cemetery" at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
Sources
Aruz, Joan and Ronald Wallenfels (eds.), et al. Art of the First Cities: The Third Millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus (exh. cat.). New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003, 105-107.
Burrows, E.R., et al. The Royal Cemetery: A Report on the Predynastic and Sargonid Graves Excavated between 1926 and 1931. London: The British Museum, 1934, 280.
De Schauensee, Maude. "The 'Boat-Shaped' Lyre." Expedition (1998), 20-28.
Kilmer, Anne Draffkorn. "The Musical Instruments from Ur and Ancient Mesopotamian Music." Expedition (1998), 12-19.
Zettler, Richard L. and Lee Horne (eds.), et al. Treasures from the Royal Tombs of Ur (exh. cat.). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 1998, 53-57.