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By deciphering the hieroglyphs on the Rosetta Stone in 1822, the young Jean-François Champollion opened the gates to a new science: Egyptology. This breakthrough allowed scientists to read and understand a great culture that had remained an enigma. Translations revealed various aspects of life, worship, and daily activities of the people of Ancient Egypt. From the walls of temples and tombs to constructions and papyri, they unveiled 5,000 years of civilization, beginning with the unification of the two lands of Egypt by King Narmer (Menes) in 3100 BC and the invention of writing. These texts illuminated the daily life, work, pains, and love of ancient Egyptians, particularly during the Middle Kingdom (2050-1786 BC), when arts, literature, and poetry flourished, reaching their zenith.However, a considerable part of Egyptian history remains undecipherable. Egyptologists know little about the history before 3100 BC. The architecture of constructions like the pyramids, embalming techniques, religious rites, and music all continue to puzzle Egyptologists, leading to various theories.
Ancient Egyptian music is a field that some Egyptologists have begun exploring recently because it deeply reflects human feelings and reactions. Genuine music is composed as a reaction to stimuli and expresses these reactions using the musical language acquired from the environment. In any country, music is born of the land, its sounds are derived from nature, from the whistling of the wind through the fields, water, and desert, to the voices of birds, waterfalls, and still silence. People do not compose music; they simply open their hearts to allow music to flow, revealing the most beautiful tunes. Upon stimulation, the feelings and reactions of native people are expressed in musical pieces. Music is a pure art that expresses feelings exactly as they are, without needing intermediaries like pictures or statues. It conveys emotions in their abstract form to the listener.
How much joy do we feel when listening to Bach, Haydn, Handel, and other Baroque composers, or even older Renaissance music? It is a wonder that these composers could transfer their abstract feelings through the ages, spanning over 400 years of human history. This music has survived world wars, the decline of major civilizations, the birth of new ones, and discoveries of remote planets and advancements in genetic engineering. Everything has changed, from lifestyle to the nature of the environment itself.
In Ancient Egypt, priests kept all secrets of astronomy, music, and architecture within the temples, away from common people. Similarly, the descendants of the pharaohs who adopted Christianity preserved one of the oldest musical heritages in the world, sung for over 2,000 years in Coptic churches. Today, only a few hundred deacons and Egyptian people worldwide can sing these beautiful tunes in the Coptic language, the last form of the ancient Egyptian language.
Many claim that these Coptic tunes are indeed ancient Egyptian music that has survived in liturgical hymns, while others believe the music has already died and disappeared. Nobody can tell for sure when and where it was composed.
Below, we have compiled a wide variety of bibliographies on Ancient Egyptian and Coptic music. The authors of these articles present the music from different perspectives. Curt Sachs, a famous German Egyptologist of the early 20th century, studied the music and poetry of Ancient Egypt. The German Hans Hickmann focused more deeply on Ancient Egyptian music, analyzing all available engravings, inscriptions, and instruments.
Ernest Newlandsmith, although initially unfamiliar with this field, met Ragheb Moftah, who invited him to Egypt for nine consecutive winters. There, he transcribed the inherited Coptic musical heritage into 16 volumes, making it the fourth and most successful attempt to transcribe this ancient heritage. The first attempt was by the French Expedition in 1820, the second by Jesuit monks Jules Blin and Louis Badet in 1888, and the third by Kamel Ibrahim Gobrial in 1916.
The work of Jules Blin and Louis Badet was followed by Emmanuel Lanne and Jesuit monk René Ménard. Lanne studied the paschal liturgical rich Coptic lectionary, while Ménard focused on the accurate continuity of oral transmission over centuries.
Having studied and worked with renowned musicians Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály, Hungarian Ilona Borsai came to Egypt in 1960 to compile, compare, and analyze all forms of Egyptian folklore and Coptic music. This led her to study Coptic music, and she was later joined by her friend Margit Tóth, the director of the Museum of Budapest.
Other scholars include the Egyptian Hossam Adeeb, who studied classical music, composition, and harmony as well as Arabic music. His theories are intriguing and worth studying. Fouad Asaad Attiya reconstructed the architecture, colors, and music in the Temple of Edfu and studied their psychological effect on worshippers. Shenouda Mamdouh, the founder of this website, shares his personal journey towards Coptic music with an article and an interview with Ragheb Moftah, a man who influenced anyone studying Coptic music in modern times.
Although this website contains the richest collection of articles on the internet, it is far from a complete bibliography. Worse, even if one reads the entire bibliography of Coptic music, they would only grasp a vague idea of how it was. Many studies still need to be conducted in this field. Therefore, we offer this humble contribution as a brief introduction to what scholars have already said about Coptic music, hoping that readers may find inspiration to conduct further studies and make new discoveries about these ancient mysteries. We are confident that, over time, discoveries will come together like a jigsaw puzzle, forming a marvelous picture of this music that strongly impressed Herodotus in 440 BC.
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Coptic Music Audio Links
The Alhan (Hymns) Website The TasbeHa On-line Web Site The Coptic Liturgy Text (according to St Basil) Salib.com Collection of offices and hymns St Mina Holmdel Multimedia Center Real-Audio of Seasonal Coptic Hymns The History of Recording Coptic Hymns in the 19th and 20 Centuries The Audio Coptic Liturgies on the web Project Coptic Chant Samples on copt.net Coptic Classical Music Coptic Church Hymns
