Music in Religious Cults of the Ancient Near East presents the first extended discussion of the relationship between music and cultic worship in ancient western Asia. The book covers ancient Israel and Judah, the Levant, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Elam, and ancient Egypt, focusing on the period from approximately 3000 BCE to around 586 BCE. This wide-ranging book brings together insights from ancient archaeological, iconographic, written, and musical sources, as well as from modern scholarship. Through careful analysis, comparison, and evaluation of those sources, the author builds a picture of a world where religious culture was predominant and where music was intrinsic to common cultic activity.
1. Introduction; 2.Types of cultic activity and the music associated with them, 1; 3. Types of cultic activity and the music associated with them, 2; 4. Musical media, 1; 5. Musical media, 2: membranophones (drums) and idiophones; 6. Musical media, 3: groups and ensembles; sanctity and divinisation; organisation and administration; 7. Approaching the musical sound-world
Biography
John Arthur Smith was an independent scholar and organist based in Norway. He was the author of Music in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity (Ashgate, 2011), and had published numerous journal articles, book chapters, and articles in reference works.
