Books by Richard Dumbrill
ICONEA Publications, 2008
ICONEA Conference 2008
ICONEA, 2018
Musicology. Bryan Carr and Richard Dumbrill eds.
ICONEA Conferences 2009-2010
ICONEA, 2011
ICONEA Conference 2011
ICONEA PUBLICATIONS ISBN 978-0-244-70591-6, 2018
This distinction is crucially important as it would be deceitful to promote a 'universal' theory ... more This distinction is crucially important as it would be deceitful to promote a 'universal' theory on the basis of an isolated manuscript. Notice Previous publications of these texts are excluded from this treatise for the reason that while they may have their own merit, they are irrelevant to the present work. All along this treatise we will use the traditional British notation, a-b-c-d, etc. These are only illustrative conventions and must not be taken as equating to the Babylonian pitch system. Additionally, the terms 'pentads' and 'triads', etc., will replace 'fifths' and 'thirds', etc., in Babylonian contexts, and when appropriate, to avoid confusions with later systems for which we shall retain the terms 'fifths' and 'thirds', etc. The term 'enneachord' indicates a series of nine melodic diatonic intervals.
ICONEA PUBLICATIONS ISBN 978-1-458-39442-2, 2010
This book explores in depth the restoration of the oldest string instrumeny ever found, and its r... more This book explores in depth the restoration of the oldest string instrumeny ever found, and its replication. The author is one of the few specialists in the world able to undertake such a remarkable work almost 5,000 years after this lyre was built.
ICONEA PUBLICATIONS ISBN 978-0-244-75476-1-1, 2019
Conclusions p.73 9 [sa-1]┌a ]┌a ]┌ ┐ a┐ a-ga-gul-la string 1 rear úĥ-ru-um rear (string) 10 [9]┌s... more Conclusions p.73 9 [sa-1]┌a ]┌a ]┌ ┐ a┐ a-ga-gul-la string 1 rear úĥ-ru-um rear (string) 10 [9]┌sa ]┌sa ]┌ ┐ sa┐ sa-a 9 strings 9 pi-it-nu 9 strings 4 I assume that it is the strings of a lyre which are described and that this instrument was paradigmatic since most of the theoretical texts up to the late first millennium BC infer an enneachordal instrument, or mention an enneatonic system. 5 Akkadian terms are written in italics while Sumerian is in bold characters. Dumbrill-Semitic Music Theory 6 On a well-designed polychordal instrument, each string has been calculated (or empirically deduced) to produce an ideal pitch, hence the association of a string and its pitch. 7 This 'Air on the G String' is August Wilhelm's arrangement of the second movement in Johann Sebastian Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068. The arrangement differs from the original in that the part of the first violins is transposed down so that it can be played entirely on a violin's lowest string, i.e., the G string. 8 Note that the first string-pitch of a guitar is treble 'e', while with most other Western instruments, the bass pitch is the first degree. This would suggest the survival of a long gone descending system the genealogy of which originating from the Babylonian kinnāru, turning into Hebrew kinnor ּנּוֹר( )כִ then the Greek kithara (κιθάρα) to end up as the Spanish guitar, (guitarra). 9 Although French terminology names the sixth degree 'sus-dominante'. Dumbrill-Semitic Music Theory This text names and locates the nine strings of a lyre. However, it is my contention that these strings f a lyre. However, it is my contention that these strings f were tuned to the pitches of a generative system. Therefore they would be string-pitches f a generative system. Therefore they would be string-pitches f 6
ICONEA PUBLICATIONS ISBN 978-1-716-47825-3, 2020
Relative and absolute pitches Dating the texts Systemic duplicity Span and system The nature of i... more Relative and absolute pitches Dating the texts Systemic duplicity Span and system The nature of intervals Simultaneous intervals and polarity How can dichords fit in with text U.7/80 More philology Allocation of relative pitches Enneatonic pitch-set construction from U.3011 Tridecachord or heptachord The nature of the intervals of the tridecachord Provisional analysis of the intervals terms in CBS 10996 What was the purpose of text CBS 10996 Memory tuning Conclusions Text CBS 1766 First conclusions Heptatonic construction Interlude
TRAFFORD PUBLISHING ISBN 1-4120-5538-5, 2005
This volume is a massive leap forward over any previous synthesis of the subject and includes at ... more This volume is a massive leap forward over any previous synthesis of the subject and includes at the very minimum so much information that its academic and scientific value is self-evident. The freshness and profundity of Dumbrill's approach to the subject exceeds aything attempted before. There is no other scholar capable of producing such a work.
Dr. Irving Finkel, Curator, Department of the Middle-East, The British Museum.
ICONEA PUBLICATIONS ISBN 978-1-326-28932-4, 2015
This book is an illustrated and commented catalogue of cylinder seals and impressions from the An... more This book is an illustrated and commented catalogue of cylinder seals and impressions from the Ancient Near East in the Collections of the British Museum
GORGIAS PRESS, 2008
This book is a catalogue of the idiophones acquired by the Department of the Near East of the Bri... more This book is a catalogue of the idiophones acquired by the Department of the Near East of the British Museum since the mid-nineteenth century. It includes clay rattles principally from Ur, dating from the third millennium BC; shell clappers; copper and bronze clappers and cymbals from Nimrud and from other prestigious locations and a remarkable collection of bronze bells mainly from Nimrud, unearthed by Layard around 1850. The book gives an accurate description of the objects along with former references and a comprehensive bibliography.
ICONEA ISBN 978-1-312-40653-7, 2023
This Sumerian cuneiform text dating from around 2600 BC is the oldest ever attestation of music. ... more This Sumerian cuneiform text dating from around 2600 BC is the oldest ever attestation of music. It lists 9 types of musical strings and 23 types of musical instruments, according to the description in the collection. Thus, Sumerian music was well organised over 5,000 years ago, or about two thousand and a half years before any Ancient Greek music appeared. The earliest surviving text on music theory is the Harmonic Elements by Aristoxenos, written in the fourth century BC. However, this text was only known much later when it appeared in a Latin translation in 1564 AD, but no original manuscripts by the author have survived. On the other hand, there are music treatises written in Old-Babylonian some 4000 years ago onward which are contemporary with their inception. The oldest notated song comes from the Near-East and dates from about 1400 BC while the Greek epitaph of Seikilos dates from the first or the second century AD.
ICONEA PUBLICATIONS, 2009
ARANE 2008 - VOLUME I
Table of contents
THE TONAL SYSTEMS OF
MESOPOTAMIA AND ANCIENT
GREECE... more ARANE 2008 - VOLUME I
Table of contents
THE TONAL SYSTEMS OF
MESOPOTAMIA AND ANCIENT
GREECE : SOME SIMILARITIES
AND DIFFERENCES
Leon Crickmore
page 1
ANCIENT
ISRAEL/PALESTINE
AND THE NEW
HISTORIOGRAPHY OF
MUSIC:
SOME UNANSWERED
QUESTIONS
Joachim Braun
page 17
FOUR TABLES FROM
THE TEMPLE LIBRARY OF NIPPUR:
A SOURCE FOR PLATO’S
NUMBER IN RELATION TO THE
QUANTIFICATION OF BABYLONIAN
TONE NUMBERS
Richard J Dumbrill
page 27
EMBODYING MUSICAL
PERFORMANCES
IN THE
ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN
Agnès Garcia-Ventura and
Mireia López-Bertran
page 39
IS THE HEPTAGRAM IN
CBS1766 A DIAL?
Richard J Dumbrill
page 47
HARMONIC MYTHOLOGY
Nine interdisciplinary research notes
Leon Crickmore
page 51
THE HORN QUARTET:
A STUDY OF BULL, COW, CALF AND
STAG FIGURES ON SUMERIAN LYRES
Myriam Marcetteau
page 67
NEMO , May 29, 2022
gr.academia.edu/KatyRomanou/Articles,-Chapters v vi NOTES OF THE EDITORS The present volume of Ne... more gr.academia.edu/KatyRomanou/Articles,-Chapters v vi NOTES OF THE EDITORS The present volume of Nemo-online is special in many ways. As Liber Amicorum to the well-regretted Katy Romanou, this volume does not follow the usual Nemoonline editorial rules. We felt that a special cover should be designed. Lorenda Ramou, one of the contributing authors gave a photograph of Katy Romanou from her own collection. We placed it on the back cover of the volume. * We did not receive all articles at the same time. Both authors and editors were going through a very difficult year between Covid-19 lockdowns and daily online tasks.
ICONEA PUBLICATIONS
This article is a long-due reaction against the established theory of the Musicology in the Ancie... more This article is a long-due reaction against the established theory of the Musicology in the Ancient Near East which for the past six decades has been wrongly interpreted either by design of by ignorance. The author has addressed every misinterpretation and has restored the evidence to an objective and meticulous interpretation which is difficult to ignore. It is certain that this new publication will meet with strong criticism from the establishment. However, any opposition will be met, in turn, with inescapable epistemology with which the author has conducted his argumentation.
Papers by Richard Dumbrill
Cahiers d’ethnomusicologie. Anciennement Cahiers de musiques traditionnelles, Dec 31, 2016
Cahiers d'ethnomusicologie Anciennement Cahiers de musiques traditionnelles 29 | 2016 Ethnomusico... more Cahiers d'ethnomusicologie Anciennement Cahiers de musiques traditionnelles 29 | 2016 Ethnomusicologie appliquée Amine BEYHOM : Théories byzantines de l'échelle et pratiques du chant byzantin arabe : une approche comparative et analytique proposant une solution inédite pour le système théorique de Chrysanthos le Madyte Broummana (Liban) : par l'auteur, 2015
ICONEA , 2012
Fig. 1 Moulding of original orthostat as it stands today, to the left of the 'Sphinx Gate' at Ala... more Fig. 1 Moulding of original orthostat as it stands today, to the left of the 'Sphinx Gate' at Alaca Höyük. * My invitation to Alaca Höyük came fortuitously when Nesrin Akan, budding achaeomusicologist, got in touch with Doctor Duygu Çevik. The rest is history.
ICONEA, 2024
According to mainstream scholars, Western civilisation owes most if not all of its culture to Anc... more According to mainstream scholars, Western civilisation owes most if not all of its culture to Ancient Greece, generally, and more specifically its music. This ideology runs concurrently with the refutation of any socio-cultural contribution from the Orient to the Western world, historically. Sir John Hopkins 1 (1532-1595), naval commander, naval administrator, privateer and slave trader/administrator, wrote that 'their best music is said to be hideous and astonishing sounds. Of what importance then can it be to enquire into a practice that has not its foundation in science or system, or to know what are the sounds that most delight a 'Hottentot', a wild American, or even a more refined Chinese?'. Later, Charles Burney's (1726-1814) General History of Music 2 (1776), simply ignored 'Chaldeans and other Oriental peoples 3 '. Thus, while enlightening Western civilisation's Hellenic socio-cultural fundamentals, anything Oriental became nefariously obfuscated if not eliminated but for Hopkins' culturally orientated salvation of the 'Hebrews' away from the lesser 'Orientals', making their music perfect alongside Greek excellence, although, uncanningly, nothing remains of the music in the Bible, implying that, regardless, it could only be perfect. However, there is a critical evidential obstacle since no autographic manuscripts about music theory have survived in support of Hellenic cultural antecedence and thus, it is advanced that Ancient Greek music theory eventually osmosed into later Latin manuscripts thus emerging as copies of copies and copies of translations, some dating from the second and third centuries C.E. but mostly from the Renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment and later. Some scholars have attempted at proving, through the complex meanderings of transmission mechanisms, that after all, copies of copies and copies of translations, in the course of centuries where the accurate accounts of elusive earliest autographic musical manuscripts from Ancient Greece and thus its has become common practice among Hellenists to date a manuscript not from the date at which the copy was written but from the date at which the original would have been written.
ICONEA, 2024
Recontsruction of the Proto-Elamite Harp (Part II)
NearEastern Archaeology, 2007
Commentary on the incised scapula from Tel Kinrot
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Books by Richard Dumbrill
Dr. Irving Finkel, Curator, Department of the Middle-East, The British Museum.
Table of contents
THE TONAL SYSTEMS OF
MESOPOTAMIA AND ANCIENT
GREECE : SOME SIMILARITIES
AND DIFFERENCES
Leon Crickmore
page 1
ANCIENT
ISRAEL/PALESTINE
AND THE NEW
HISTORIOGRAPHY OF
MUSIC:
SOME UNANSWERED
QUESTIONS
Joachim Braun
page 17
FOUR TABLES FROM
THE TEMPLE LIBRARY OF NIPPUR:
A SOURCE FOR PLATO’S
NUMBER IN RELATION TO THE
QUANTIFICATION OF BABYLONIAN
TONE NUMBERS
Richard J Dumbrill
page 27
EMBODYING MUSICAL
PERFORMANCES
IN THE
ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN
Agnès Garcia-Ventura and
Mireia López-Bertran
page 39
IS THE HEPTAGRAM IN
CBS1766 A DIAL?
Richard J Dumbrill
page 47
HARMONIC MYTHOLOGY
Nine interdisciplinary research notes
Leon Crickmore
page 51
THE HORN QUARTET:
A STUDY OF BULL, COW, CALF AND
STAG FIGURES ON SUMERIAN LYRES
Myriam Marcetteau
page 67
Papers by Richard Dumbrill
Dr. Irving Finkel, Curator, Department of the Middle-East, The British Museum.
Table of contents
THE TONAL SYSTEMS OF
MESOPOTAMIA AND ANCIENT
GREECE : SOME SIMILARITIES
AND DIFFERENCES
Leon Crickmore
page 1
ANCIENT
ISRAEL/PALESTINE
AND THE NEW
HISTORIOGRAPHY OF
MUSIC:
SOME UNANSWERED
QUESTIONS
Joachim Braun
page 17
FOUR TABLES FROM
THE TEMPLE LIBRARY OF NIPPUR:
A SOURCE FOR PLATO’S
NUMBER IN RELATION TO THE
QUANTIFICATION OF BABYLONIAN
TONE NUMBERS
Richard J Dumbrill
page 27
EMBODYING MUSICAL
PERFORMANCES
IN THE
ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN
Agnès Garcia-Ventura and
Mireia López-Bertran
page 39
IS THE HEPTAGRAM IN
CBS1766 A DIAL?
Richard J Dumbrill
page 47
HARMONIC MYTHOLOGY
Nine interdisciplinary research notes
Leon Crickmore
page 51
THE HORN QUARTET:
A STUDY OF BULL, COW, CALF AND
STAG FIGURES ON SUMERIAN LYRES
Myriam Marcetteau
page 67
Table Ronde organised by EFA, EFR and IFAO, Louvre Museum, IRCAM and UMR Proche Orient Caucase and College de France