- 10 Tadema Road, Chelsea, London, SW10 0NU
- +447758453716
- Richard Dumbrill is a leading expert in the field of archaeomusicology of the Ancient Near and Middle East for which he is the most prolific writer.edit
ICONEA Conference 2008
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Musicology. Bryan Carr and Richard Dumbrill eds.
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ICONEA Conferences 2009-2010
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ICONEA Conference 2011
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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... 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.
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... 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.
Dr. Irving Finkel, Curator, Department of the Middle-East, The British Museum.
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
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... 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.
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... 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
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
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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... 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.
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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... 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.
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Recontsruction of the Proto-Elamite Harp (Part II)
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Commentary on the incised scapula from Tel Kinrot
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Graphic Analysis of Hurrian Song H6
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A rare duplicate in Organological Iconography: The Tepe Giyan Situla
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Organology and Philology of an Urukean Lute
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In this article, I will demonstrate how posterioristic musicology, or inductive theory arising from conclusions drawn from prior premises has led, I contend, to a misconception of Old-Babylonian musicology. Texts which are chronologically... more
In this article, I will demonstrate how posterioristic musicology, or inductive theory arising from conclusions drawn from prior premises has led, I contend, to a misconception of Old-Babylonian musicology. Texts which are chronologically distant from one another by over one thousand years have been commingled to shape a universalist theory. Posteriorism would be legitimate in the absence of an autonomous anterior theory but would be illegitimate should it serve the assimilation of a posterior theory into anterior evidence in order to legitimise misconceptions.
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In this essay, I will strengthen the position (almost) generally held that a reflexive¹ progenitive form of music enunciation would have existed long before any form of music theory was conceived (although some believe that humankind,... more
In this essay, I will strengthen the position (almost) generally held that a reflexive¹ progenitive form of music enunciation would have existed long before any form of music theory was conceived (although some believe that humankind, ubiquitously and intemporally came along with a diatonic system engraved within the unconscious). For sure, the concept of theory did not happen out of nowhere. Slowly and organically the elusive idea osmosed through generative layers of non-octaval, non-linguistic, non-numeric, oligotonic, hemiolic and other hyper-systems, eventually reaching a 'tangible meaning' through the filtering of cognitive processes until the invention of writing, around 3,500 BC in the Middle-East. This invention formalised these processes at a time and at a place where pitches were sung independently from one another, as horizontal monodic incantations, one syllable for one pitch, excluding verticality, as a voice cannot sing two pitches simultaneously². It would take time, probably with the development of collective chanting and later, with musical instruments, to envisage a form a embryonic heterophony, yet very far from any polyphony and even further from what I call the artificiality of harmony. Indeed if the ear is able to perceive a vast number of the simultaneous sounds of heterophony, polyphony and consonantal harmony, the vocal folds of the larynx can only produce one pitch at a time, or monody (monotony) asserting the artificiality of heterophony, polyphony and consonantal harmony which requires the association of several individuals to agree on spontaneous or synergistic schemes. Thus, musicians would have needed to formulate the idea of associative singing, or of the adding of instruments to their singing to provide with the fundamentals of heterophony before reaching the arcanes of heterophony, polyphony and harmony.
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Reconstructing the Silver Lyre of Ur
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Rediscovering the Silver Lyre of Ur
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The oldest song ever recorded
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The alu drum
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Analysis of the TepeGiyan Situla
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A Rare Proto Elamite Harp
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An Old-Babylonian poem
A short history about the Mesopotamian origins of music before the Greek existed as a civilisation.
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Analysis of H6 sung by Lara Jokhadar.
Abalysis by Amine Beyhom
Abalysis by Amine Beyhom
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This was recorded in Byblos
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Analysis of Hurrian song H6
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Richard Dumbrill: Music in Mesopotamia
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Seven songs from Ancient Mesopotamia. Music by Richard Dumbrill. Sung by Dr Se Van Habib, soprano.
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Berber music from Southern Morocco
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The History of Iran's Music with Theo Finkel and Richard Dumbrill
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Richard Dumbrill and Irving Finkel speak about the Silver Lyre of UR, Part 5
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Richard Dumbrill speaks about the Silver Lyre of Ur, Part 4
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Richard Dumbrill speaks about the Silver Lyre of Ur, Part 3 dumbrill lyre part 3 of 5 -YouTube
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Richard Dumbrill speaks about the Silver Lyre of Ur. Part2
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Richard Dumbrill and Irving Finkel at Harvard University
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Richard Dumbrill speaks about the Louha al-Wanshini
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The iconography of the past is perfidious because we see it with our modern perception of the objects and characters depicted. However, we cannot always know what was the intention for the depiction.
BBC radio 4 interview tut trumpets and silver lyre 19 04 2011
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How was sound perceived 4000 tears ago?
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Conference presentation: Richard Dumbrill, Irving Finkel
Sound Making: Handcraft of Musical Instruments in Antiquity.
Table Ronde organised by EFA, EFR and IFAO, Louvre Museum, IRCAM and UMR Proche Orient Caucase and College de France
Table Ronde organised by EFA, EFR and IFAO, Louvre Museum, IRCAM and UMR Proche Orient Caucase and College de France
Baghdad International conference 2023