Echoes of Ancient Mesopotamia & Canaan

by Michael Levy

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jack_the_riffer 7,8,10: Lyre of Megiddo ep

Andre Sier Masterfully Played Music.
True Ancient Archeomusichology on 2020. Reminds me of centuries of nightly music playing without computers, without amplifiers

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1.	Babylonian Banquet 03:18	info	buy track
2.	Lament of the Captives of Sennacherib 03:26	info	buy track
3.	Hammered Harps of Nineveh 02:40	info	buy track
4.	The Magic of Marduk 03:44	info	buy track
5.	Mysteries of the Anunnaki 07:28	info	buy track
6.	Shadow of the Ziggurat 04:03	info	buy track
7.	The Lyre of Megiddo 05:38	info	buy track
8.	Hymn to Asherah 04:00	info	buy track
9.	The Rites of Baal 01:44	info	buy track
10.	Hurrian Hymn to Nikkal 02:22	info	buy track

about

This album is my mostly historically inspired evocation, of the lost music of ancient Mesopotamia & Canaan; but as the final track, this release also features my most recent arrangement of the reconstructed melody of an actual bronze age hymn to Nikkal; the oldest notated fragment of music which can still be interpreted and performed today; performed this time, on a replica of an actual surviving bronze age lyre...

For most of the tracks, I play this fascinating replica of an actual, typical bronze age Canaanite form of asymmetric lyre; custom-made for me by Luthieros. The design of this lyre was based on the same proportions of a Canaanite form of lyre found in Egypt, dating to circa 1,500 BCE and which is preserved in Leiden:

These types of lyres were almost certainly introduced into Egypt during the reign of the Canaanite Hyksos kings, that ruled northern Egypt as the 15th dynasty, c.1630–1523 BCE.

The exotic, sitar-like tone of the bass strings of this lyre, are due to the flat-topped, groove-less bridge. As almost all the lyres still played throughout the African continent today still retain this distinctive buzzing timbre (particularly the Ethiopian begena), since the lyre originally probably came to Africa via ancient trade routes between the ancient Near East and Egypt, it is indeed far more likely, that this buzzing timbre of the lyre was much closer to the original ancient near eastern/middle eastern lyres of antiquity.

For some of the tracks, I also use the more sinister, darker timbre of my tenor register 10-string lyre - ideal for evoking the mystery of the long-forgotten pantheon of ancient Mesopotamian & Canaanite gods!

credits

released December 16, 2019

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about

Michael Levy UK

Michael Levy is a composer for the recreated lyres of antiquity,

Michael has collaborated with the Rufus Wainwright - Rufus Orchestrated Michael's "Hymn to Zeus" in 2 scenes of his second opera, "Hadrian".

In 2022 - 2023, Michael collaborated with the iconic American artist, Jeff Koons – his music for ancient Greek kithara was the soundscape of Koon’s sculpture, “Apollo Kithara”. ... more

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