Musical Instruments in Ancient Mesopotamia (MIAM): Terminology, Iconography, and Contexts

• Applicant: Privatdozentin Dr. Dahlia Shehata
• Subject Area: Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 532661018

The proposed project "Musical Instruments in Ancient Mesopotamia (MIAM)" seeks to address research gaps in the identification, definition, and cultural-historical evaluation and interpretation of musical instruments in ancient Mesopotamia and Syria. Its basic research objective is a comprehensive and historical outline of Mesopotamian musical instruments. In view of the generally limited evidence for musical instruments, a collection of primary sources - as comprehensive as possible - will be created on which the contextual and historical evaluation can take place. This will be achieved through the edition of previously unknown primary sources (texts, images, sound artefacts) in seven selected European and American museum collections on the one hand, and the merging, evaluation, and interpretation of already known but mostly neglected data on the other. The collection of sources will cover the archaic and early Uruk periods (ca. 3900 - 3500 BCE) to the Seleucid period (320 - 63 BCE). In geographical terms, the investigation will be limited to Akkadian and Sumerian sources from Mesopotamia and Syria. The project's research questions and methods are interdisciplinary. It assembles specialists within the fields of Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology and Assyriology, as well as Ethnomusicology and Music History. The research outputs will be presented on the already created online and open access MIAM_Wiki which is based on Semantic Media Wiki (SMW)-technology and contains entries to individual primary sources (MIAM_Records) and instrument names (MIAM_Lexicon). We expect the insights to be gained from the edition, evaluation, and cultural-historical interpretation to contribute to a better understanding of Mesopotamia’s history and cultural development. The MIAM_Wiki and its special searching and researching tools will facilitate the development of follow-up research questions and, in making this peripheral field better known to the public, it will enhance collaborative research between academics and non-academics in associated fields, such as music history, anthropology, music ethnology, as well as musicians and instrument builders.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Israel
• Cooperation Partner: Professor Dr. Uri Gabbay