Sometimes the oddest things catch my imagination, in this case it was a sort of conversation from the past.
The first to catch my attention was the BBC replaying a 1939 recording, made with the two trumpets found in Tutankhamen's tomb by Howard Carter. They had got a British soldier, James Tappern, to play them, and the sound is a haunting echo of a music that has not been heard for over 3,000 years!
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| James Tappern plays one of the Trumpets |
The first to catch my attention was the BBC replaying a 1939 recording, made with the two trumpets found in Tutankhamen's tomb by Howard Carter. They had got a British soldier, James Tappern, to play them, and the sound is a haunting echo of a music that has not been heard for over 3,000 years!
The trumpets will never be played again, the silver trumpet had shattered when played in front of King Farouk of Egypt during an earlier experiment, and had had to be repaired. The two trumpets were stolen during the recent 'revolution' in Egypt, but were recovered ..... should never have given them back.
While I was mulling over my thoughts of this recording, I came across another file, this was a recording by an actor Orlando Mezzabotta, who has recorded the proclamation of Pharoah Kamose on one of his two Stele .... its recorded with a best guess of what the Egyptian pronunciation of the hieroglyphs would have sounded like (presumably based on Coptic liturgy, which is how they cracked the hieroglyphs in the first place) .... so its probably what would have been heard, as he dictated the Stele's content to a scribe in the year 1553 BC ...
While I was mulling over my thoughts of this recording, I came across another file, this was a recording by an actor Orlando Mezzabotta, who has recorded the proclamation of Pharoah Kamose on one of his two Stele .... its recorded with a best guess of what the Egyptian pronunciation of the hieroglyphs would have sounded like (presumably based on Coptic liturgy, which is how they cracked the hieroglyphs in the first place) .... so its probably what would have been heard, as he dictated the Stele's content to a scribe in the year 1553 BC ...
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| Pharoah Kamose |
Sometimes, the past still speaks to us with surprising clarity .....
Amazing! That voice sounds like something from the Bible Stories. Moses and the Pharaoh (Chuck Heston as Moses, obviously).
ReplyDeleteJust for a moment you are back 3,000 years.
DeleteI have fixed the sound links again. They open in a new tab/window.
ReplyDelete