PublicVR Forum

Please add to these lists by replying to this note.

List of Musical Instruments for Potomac era templs
Clarinet-like
Obo-like
Trumpets, used in temples
Curved Harps
Angular Harps
Drums
Cistrums
Rattles

List of Local Critters Who Make Noise
Crickets
Swallows
?

Some general notes:

The temple was stuffed with altars, people, offerings, objects, etc., especially in the Hypostyle Hall.

Stone wall, but sand floor in the sanctuary and courtyard.

Priests perform the movements as silently as possible, except when speaking. Silence was a vertue in Egypt. They made their own music. Who is allowed where and when depends on the occasion and the individual activities.

Courtyard and exterior of the temple was open to the public. Only the literate upper classes in the Hypostyle Hall. Pharaoh and the highest priests in the Sanctuary.

The swallow plays an important role in ritual

Popular religion happens on the outside of temple. Public prayer happens at the back wall of the temple, the closest you can get to the god. Regular people could be in the courtyard. Prist would make offerings at little shrines around the Courtyard.

What kinds of voices should use? What might have Egyptians sounded like? There is a sound recording at the Oriental Institute of Chicago of 1930's guy who spoke Coptic which is the the closest thing, unless he was pulling everyone's leg.... Coptic is a liturgical language with no specific pronunciation. There are two Coptic Christian churches in the Boston--Jeff will set up a visit.

On Instruments/Music

Music would have been a product mainly of festivals and ritualized performance which took place within the temple. It is most likely that the music was limited to the hypostyle hall and forecourt in most occasions. However, there is a chance that music/singing would have be present within the sanctuary, but this would not have been as common and it is indicated that only blind musicians would be allowed since the cult statue of the god was sacred.

I have attached some images of musical instruments.

I have also attached an image of a temple wall to give an idea of texture. The temples would have been made out of sandstone in the case of Karnak and Luxor or limestone in the case of Edfu and this is typical of Ptolemaic temples which we are making an exemplar of. So the stone would have been limestone (the image is sandstone) but it shows nicely how the construction of the walls would have looked.

Berenke found this website with clips of Coptic music: http://www.tasbeha.org/

Other animals that make noise

crickets
birds: quail birds, owls, vultures, falcons, ducks

insects! flies, bugs, mosquitoes, lice etc. (lots of buzzing I would assume), bees

turtles (although they don't make any noise really)
lots of fish, but there is a chance because of their mythical role in eating parts of Osiris, they may have been seen as 'impure' and kept out of the temple precinct. there is evidence of priests not being allowed to eat fish before preforming sacred rituals.

also monkeys, baboons