The Opet Festival in Ancient Egypt

Of all the early river valley civilizations— Mesopotamia along the Tigris-Euphrates Rivers, Yangshao along the Yellow River in China, Harappan along the Indus River in India/Pakistan, and Egypt along the Nile—it was only the people on the Nile who coalesced into the world’s first nation around 3150 BCE. Egypt remained one of the strongest ancient civilizations for over 3000 years, by far surpassing anything before or since. During that time, art and writing evolved with unprecedented consistency. Thanks to this consistency, extensive archaeological records have made it easy to interpret and reconstruct Egyptian celebration.

Their celebrations centered almost completely on a complex, polytheistic religion. The most prominent and enduring event was an annual spectacle called the Opet Festival in Thebes (present day Luxor), located in Upper Egypt. As with their other contemporary civilizations such as Sumer, the reasons for the festival were distinctly religious ones of rejuvenation and rebirth. Also like the other civilizations, the primary component of the event was a procession.

View Larger Map

Location of Luxor in Upper Egypt

The festival began with offerings made by the Pharaoh to the god Amun-Re in the god's temple in Thebes, today's Karnak Temple. These offerings supposedly rejuvenated the Pharoah's divine power, although the exact nature of the rituals is unknown and this rejuvenation may also have taken place in the Luxor Temple. From the Karnak Temple complex, the Pharaoh and his queen led a procession of the god in his statue form plus the other gods of Thebes, Mut the Mother Goddess, and Khonsu, their offspring. All the statues were borne aloft on small barques carried on the shoulders of temple priests who made their way to the temple dock and small harbour just off the Nile. The statues were loaded onto larger, highly decorated river barges which were hauled by labourers or specially chosen people out the waterway to the Nile where they were towed upriver to the Luxor Temple. Here they were offloaded and a short procession took them into the temple where the second part of the cermony took place, the symbolic divine marriage of Amun-Re to Mut, which was in essence a fertility rite related to the rising waters of the Nile that re-fertilized the valley every year in the spring.

About three weeks later the entire process was reversed and the god's statues returned to the Karnak Temple, this time via a processional land route lined with sphinxes. Throughout the long history of the festival - at least well into the reign of Ramesses III, probably longer -  the routes changed occasionally, depending no doubt on the weather and/or the whims of the powerful temple priests and Pharaoh.

What made these processions fascinating was their magnitude. They also incorporated musicians, acrobats, dancers, the army, charioteers, sacrificial animals - probably thousands of participants in all. The festival itself accommodated at least 80,000 or so onlookers (the approximate population of Thebes in the New Kingdom period) and incorporated a great deal of sacrificial feasting. The statues of the gods, although relatively small, are thought to have been constructed of gold. The Nile barges used for the water processions must have also been spectacular, especially the barge for the god Amun-Re, which has been partly described in a written account of the time. “The gold shrine on deck is inlaid with every costly stone, like a palace; and notice the rams’ heads of gold from front to rear, fitted with uraeus-serpents wearing atef-crowns."

Entrance to Karnak Temple Today

Opet Procession Leaving Karnak Temple in Time of Ramsses II

(Image courtesy of Serena Zhang, http://xiuyuan.deviantart.com/gallery/)

One can get a good idea of the immensity of the festival by visiting the temples of Karnak and Luxor that are still standing today in the city of Luxor. The Karnak temple and surrounding grounds was and still is, the largest religious complex in the world. It was built with the Opet Festival in mind in various stages beginning in the 18th Dynasty period, around 1500 BCE. The Luxor temple was constructed starting about the same time. It is from scenes carved into the walls of part of this temple known as the colonnade by none other than King Tutankhamun, that we know so much about the Opet Festival.

Part of immense Hypostyle Hall in Karnak Temple through which the Opet Procession would have travelled

Entrance to colonnade in Luxor Temple

Carved scene of dancer/acrobats participating in Opet Festival, taken from walls of colonnade in Luxor Temple

Portable barque shrine similar to one that would have housed Amun-Re's statue and that would have been carried on the shoulders of priests in the Opet Procession

References:

• Bell, L. (1997). The New Kingdom “Divine” Temple: The Example of Luxor. In B.E. Shafer (Ed.), Temples of Ancient Egypt. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
• Doyle, N. (1998). Iconography and the Interpretation of Ancient Egyptian Watercraft. Unpublished Master of Arts thesis. Texas A&M University.
• Ellis, N. (1999). Feasts of Light: Celebrations for the Seasons of Life Based on the Egyptian Goddess Mysteries. Quest Books.
• Epigraphic Survey. (1994). Reliefs and Inscriptions at Luxor Temple, Vol. 1: The Festival Procession of Opet in the Colonnade Hall, OIP 112. Chicago: The Oriental Institute.
• Kitchen, K.A. (1982). Pharaoh Triumphant: The Life and Times of Ramesses II. Cairo: Cairo University Press.
• Lauffray, J. (1979). Karnak d’Egypte: Domain du divin. Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.
• Wilkinson, R.H. (2000). The Complete Temples of Ancient Egypt. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press.

Processions in Ancient Times

What we enjoy today as parades had their roots in the processions of ancient peoples thousands of years ago.

The processional form of celebration has been around for a long time. The oldest images of what seem to be processions have been found from as early as 5500 BCE in the rock shelters of Bhimbetka in central India, and others even older may very well surface in the future. Moving ahead to 3200 – 3000 BCE, a priceless artifact, the Warka or Uruk Vase from Sumer depicts a procession of animals and food dedicated to the goddess Inanna.

Uruk Vase (Courtesy http://www.ancientworlds.net/aworlds_media/ibase_1/00/09/61/00096158_000.jpg)

Likewise, around the same time in Egypt, 3150 BCE, the famous Narmer palette has what appears to be a small victory procession on one side.

Narmer Palette showing procession in upper register

Another priceless artifact, the Standard of Ur, dating from around 2600-2400 BCE, depicts the Sumerian army in what appears to be a triumphal procession on one side and on the other, a procession of food and other goods to a banquet.

Standard of Ur - Banquet procession side (Courtesy http://www.britishmuseum.org/)

Later still, during the zenith of the Minoan civilization beginning around 1700 BCE, palaces were constructed with specific processional pathways, supposedly for rituals associated with their Mother Goddess.

Processional Way in Knossos Palace of the Minoan Civilization in Crete

It is reasonable to surmise that Sumer, the Minoans, and the Egyptians influenced each other during these periods because of similarities in artistic styles, and thus the processional form of celebration probably evolved from these contacts as well.

But why a procession? What is it about this form of celebration that has made it so popular through the ages? Well, first of all, without modern technology it would have been by far the most efficient way to convey a message to the largest number of people. A processional route, particularly if it was the streets of a city, could accommodate literally thousands of spectators, just as it does today. If a king wanted to celebrate a victory, what better way than a procession.

Second, a procession transformed its route into a sacred space. The physical boundaries and entrances and exits were the sides of the city streets themselves. During the procession, these areas were treated differently - and usually more reverently - than they were under normal circumstances. Again, there is no difference today.

Third, processions were, and continue to be, versatile forms of celebration. Their constantly changing nature could allow them to grow or diminish in size according to the need. They could also be used to begin or end an event, to highlight some component of an event, or in many cases in the ancient world, to be the main event itself.

I'll be looking more closely at some of these in future posts.

References:

• Du Toit, H. (2009). Pageants and Processions: Images and Idiom as Spectacle. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
• Logiadou-Platonos, S. (Date unknown). Knossos: The Palace of Minos a Survey of the Minoan Civilization. Athens: I. Mathioulakis.

Symbolic Thinking and Celebration

I have broken down celebrations - or as those of us who have been involved with the practical end of them, special events - into occasions that "honour, discuss, sell, teach about, encourage, observe, or influence human endeavors." However, to be able to take any meaning from such events, it is a logical conclusion that the human beings involved must understand what the celebration is about. In simple terms, that means that they must understand symbolism and at the very least, simple ritual. In prehistoric times, as now, this trait would be a prerequisite to even having a celebration.

The big question is, "When did this trait and the associated one of innovation, first appear in human behaviour?" To most scientists today, their appearance is interpreted to be the point at which our species utilized a combination of language and the ability to think abstractly or symbolically. This point in time has been termed the “Great Leap Forward” by Diamond and others. A major find such as the symbolic python in the Rhino Cave has now added fuel to the ongoing debate about where and when this point in time occurred, because it has placed such a combination in Africa at the time of the Middle Paleolithic period, 70,000 years ago. This drastically alters previous collective wisdom that placed culturally modern practices in Europe about 30,000 to 40,000 years ago. I have also today tweeted about another find in the Sibudu Cave in South Africa that places such a date in and around 64,000 years ago.

The debate actually began seriously heating up around the beginning of the 21^st century with the discovery of snail-shell beads, polished stone tools, and patterned red ochre in the Blombos Cave area of South Africa, dating from about the same period, 75,000 years ago. As well, finds of similar objects have been teased from the soil of various digs to tantalize researchers: a 300,000-to-500,000-year-old figurine from Morocco; three 400,000-year-old wooden throwing spears from Schoningen in Germany; a 300,000-year-old stone hand axe in a pit of Homo heidelbergensis bones in Atapuerca, Spain; a 233,000-year-old putative figurine from Berekhat Ram in Israel; two 100,000-year-old fragments of notched bone from South Africa’s Klasies River Mouth Cave; a 60,000-year-old piece of flint incised with concentric arcs from Quneitra in Israel; and a polished plate of mammoth tooth from Tata in Hungary, dated to between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago. These objects represent the ability of the makers to innovatively transfer meaning to something external. More simply, they represent symbolic thought. Any or all of them may very well eventually lead to different conclusions about the exact location of our cultural genesis.

On the other hand, some scientists tend to believe that the production of obvious art represents the beginning of modern culture. Many of the oldest art objects have indeed been found in Europe. Among these is a number of small, carved animal figures and a carved ivory flute, all dating back to between 30,000 and 40,000 years ago, discovered in southwestern Germany. The famous cave paintings in France, discussed in my last post, and lesser-known paintings in India and Africa do not show up until slightly later.

Part of the Chauvet Cave Paintings

Current thinking does, however, seem to be narrowing down to a consensus that the development of symbolic thought was a longer evolutionary process than at first believed.

References:

• Bednarik, R.G. (2003). The Earliest Known Palaeoart. In Bobrov, V.V. (Ed.), Pervobytnaya arkheologiya: chelovek i iskusstvo, Kemerovskii gosudarstvennyi universitet. Novosibirsk. pp. 23-31.
• Curry, A. (2007). The Dawn of Art: A controversial scholar claims modern culture was born in the foothills of the Alps. Archaeology September/October 2007. pp. 28-33.
• Diamond, J. (1999). Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. p. 39.
• Edgar, B. (2008). Home of the Modern Mind: Did culture begin with the color red and a Stone Age clambake? Archaeology March/April 2008.
• Matthews, D. (2008). Special Event Production: The Process. Oxford: Elsevier.
• The first Europeans – one million years ago. Science and Nature: Prehistoric Life. Retrieved August 14, 2008, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/prehistoric_life/human/human_evolution/first_europeans1.shtml.
• Wong, K. (2006). The Morning of the Modern Mind. Scientific American: Becoming Human: Evolution and the Rise of Intelligence, Vol.16, No.2. pp. 74-83.

Prehistoric Concert Halls

An intriguing development that has been under consideration lately is the use of ancient caves as “concert halls.” Our Paleolithic ancestors may have known a lot more about acoustics and music than we have given them credit for. French archaeologists Iegor Reznikoff and Michel Dauvois have, since 1983, carried out investigations of the acoustics inside caves that contain Paleolithic art dating between 25,000 and 15,000 years ago (mainly in Europe), and have found a remarkable correlation of art with resonance. They have also detected impact marks where stalactites were intentionally struck to possibly create specific musical tones (i.e., thus becoming lithophones). Indeed, many other types of instruments as mentioned in my last post, have been found in such caves. Their analysis of the results has led them to speculate that these decorated caves may have been the backdrops for religious and magic rituals.

This brings us to another legacy from our prehistoric ancestors and that is the concept of “sacred space.” The Rhino Cave itself was a sacred space. Until another discovery comes along, it is apparently the oldest probable sacred space yet found for anatomically modern Homo sapiens (other older spaces have been found belonging to Neanderthals).

Religious scholar Mircea Eliade was the first to propose that, for what he called religious people, the world is divided into two kinds of space, the sacred and the profane. Profane space is the ordinary space in which we live and go about our daily activities free of all reference to a larger reality. Sacred space is experienced differently. When one enters a sacred space, he or she acts in accordance with the environment (e.g., in a church or temple one might bow, genuflect, or remove a hat or speak in whispers). Eliade claimed that before modern times, “archaic people” established towns, built sanctuaries, and organized space and time with reference to the sacred. In those ancient times, the choice of location for a sacred space might have been simply due to a fortuitous sign (e.g., hilltops, because they were closer to the gods), or it might have been planned as a result of some specific ritual. Today, as Catherine Bell, one of the world's foremost scholars on ritual points out, a specific space or location is made sacred by the ritual-like activities that take place within it. These “modern” sacred spaces are differentiated from profane spaces “by means of distinctive acts and responses and the way they evoke experiences of a greater, higher, or more universalized reality—the group, the nation, humankind, the power of God, or the balance of the cosmos.” Thus today, sacred space may be a church, but it also may be a historic site, a natural geographic site (e.g., Niagara Falls or even a cave), or a built environment such as a stadium, city streets, or a conference center.

But back to prehistpric caves. Most modern Homo sapiens sites are from the Cro-Magnon people who moved into Europe with the final migration out of Africa, arriving in Western Europe around 30,000 years ago. Of the many such caves, Chauvet, France ranks among the most spectacular. It is so far one of the only, and certainly the oldest, to also contain what might be considered an obvious ritual artifact. Deep in the north end of the cave is located a small, altar-like flat rock that had presumably fallen from the ceiling. A bear skull had been set on top of it, and the remains of a small fire lay behind it. More than thirty calcite-covered and intentionally placed bear skulls surrounded the slab. This location, deep within the cave, is indicative of the “sacred center,” similar to an altar, identified by Thomas Barrie as a major “destination” of the path through a sacred space.

More than this, though, is the overt representation of what appears to be a religion. In sacred spaces today, this might be stained glass, wall frescoes, or a crucifix in a modern Christian church but, in the Rhino Cave, it just might be the python, a natural geological formation fortuitously located in the cave. However, in the later caves in France, like Chauvet (dated from 30,000 to 32,000 years ago), this representation takes the form of spectacular cave art. It is the general interpretation of this art by multiple experts that has led them to the conclusion that it is of shamanic origin. This means one of two things. Either the art was painted by a shaman during a trance and intended to be his vision of his out-of-body experience; or, it was a version of what he saw during the trance but painted after as a recollection of the experience. Nobody knows for sure, and undoubtedly, more information will surface in the near future.

In summary, all this leads to a fascinating conclusion. Ancient caves in Europe, pre-dated by others much older, such as the Rhino Cave in Botswana, were very likely the prehistoric equivalent of sacred spaces such as modern-day cathedrals, complete with ceremonies full of ritual and music.

References:

• Barrie, T. (1996). Spiritual Path, Sacred Place: Myth, Ritual, and Meaning in Architecture. Boston: Shambhala Publications, Inc.
• Bell, C. (1997). Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions. NY: Oxford University Press. pp. 138-169.
• Eliade, M. (1964). Shamanism: archaic techniques of ecstasy. New York: Pantheon Books. Originally published as Le Chamanisme et les techniques archaïques de l'extase. Paris: Librairie Payot, 1951.
• Fagan, B. (1998). From Black Land to Fifth Sun: The Science of Sacred Sites. Reading, MA: p. 23.
• Greeley, A.M. (1995). Sociology and Religion: A Collection of Readings. New York: Harper Collins College Publishers. pp. 94-105.
• Jones, C.B. (2007). Introduction to the Study of Religion, Part 2 of 2. Chantilly, VA: The Teaching Company. pp. 112-126.
• Than, K. (2008). Stone Age Art Caves May Have Been Concert Halls. National Geographic News, July 2. Retrieved August 20, 2008, from http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/07/080702-cave-paintings.html.
• Stix, G. (2008). Traces of a Distant Past. Scientific American, July. pp. 56-63. 
• The Cave of Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc. Sep. 17, 2008. http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/chauvet/en/index.html.
• Wingerson, L. (2008). Rock Music: Remixing the Sounds of the Stone Age. Archaeology. September-October. pp. 46-50.

How and When Did Music and Dance Become Part of Human Celebration?

There are numerous unproven theories as to what might have been the instigators of musical behavior. For melody perception and production, one theory suggests it resulted from the pitch variation vocalizations of mothers communicating with infants with the implicit emotion that attached to that communication (i.e., music first–language second concept). Another suggests it might have come from the relationship between pitch and dynamics in speech (i.e., language first–music second concept) relating to the intensity of emotional content. For rhythm perception and production (and obviously dance and drumming), one theory suggests it resulted from the “synchronous chorusing” or the calling of animals for mates, while another claims that mimesis was the beginning. A final theory about the evolution of both melody and rhythm as a combination of music and dance comes from the idea that they acted as a “coalition signaling system” and may originally have been used to coordinate territorial defence signals. What apparently underlies all theories is that musical behavior, including dance, evolved for its social interactive value, and that more than anything is the reason it has survived.

That is the how. The only thing needed now is to figure out when our ancestors acquired the physiological and neurological capacities to undertake music-related action, whether vocal or physical. Specifically, would they have acquired them in time to use them in the Rhino Cave ceremony of 70,000 years ago? The figure below is a representation of the possible evolutionary path of human performance, and is based on my own interpretation of the conclusions reached primarily by Cambridge professor Iain Morley. Both he and author Steven Mithen have independently postulated how melody and rhythm have evolved.



Proposed evolutionary path of human performance (click on image to enlarge)

I begin with the assumption that for archaic Homo sapiens and their hominid predecessors, there are two principal categories available for the early expression of thoughts, namely vocalization and physical or corporeal movement. This would be represented by Level 1 in the figure above. Thus, Level 1 represents a long and unknown period of time from the beginnings of hominids with Homo habilis right up to archaic Homo sapiens. Level 2 would represent a transition period of approximately 100,000 years between archaic and anatomically modern Homo sapiens, who arrived on the scene about 195,000 years ago. As Morley points out, based on his research, they would by this time have begun to use some form of melodic vocalization. On the physical side, we already know that Homo erectus would have been able to walk, run, and make other non-rhythmic movements well before even archaic Homo sapiens.

The next level, Level 3, is approximately where I have assumed our snake worshippers from the Rhino Cave to be in their performance evolution, at the very minimum. Based on the evidence and arguments of Morley and Mithen, by 70,000 years ago they should have at least been speaking in simple phrases, if not sentences; they should have at least been humming or chanting; they should have at least been tapping their feet or dancing in rudimentary form, clapping or hitting objects; and they were probably beginning to make symbols and art. This would seem logical, since over 120,000 years separate this time from the first appearance of fully anatomically modern Homo sapiens 195,000 years ago. The only problem is that there is very little tangible archaeological evidence. To find any, we have to skip to Level 4, a period that I have assumed covers from about 50,000 years ago to 3,000 years ago, or from the Upper Paleolithic to beyond the Neolithic.

Although there is no clear physical evidence of prehistoric singing, chanting, or dancing going back 70,000 years, there are numerous indications of early instruments. Morley has divided these instruments into five categories:

·    flutes and phalangeal whistles (a single-holed bone that creates a single note by blowing over the hole, similar to blowing over the opening of a wine bottle);

·    bullroarers or free aerophones (flat perforated pieces of wood or bone on the end of a cord, which create a whirring sound when spun in a circular motion);

·    rasps or scraped idiophones (pieces of wood, bone, or stone with grooves cut into them perpendicular to their length, which are then rubbed with another object to create a staccato vibration);

·    percussion; and

·    caves and lithophones.

All have been found in Europe and date from 50,000 to 11,000 years ago.

It is these final groups, percussion instruments, caves, and lithophones, that hold the most promise of being the instruments of choice for our snake worshippers. As stated by Morley, “ethnographic evidence shows that among modern hunter-gatherer groups instrumentation is dominated by percussive rather than melodic instruments.… If this were also the case amongst early humans we would be left with very little evidence of it, as these instruments are usually made from wood or skin, which would leave no archaeological trace.” Thus, even if what we know as real drums were used by the Rhino Cave worshippers, the artifacts would not survive the elements. Surviving percussive instruments would have to be constructed of more lasting material. He goes on to discuss a 20,000-year-old set of six mammoth bones from the Ukraine that when struck produce a selection of tones. Further to this are some fascinating recent developments. The concept of lithoacoustics, or the use of stones striking stones to produce music or rhythm, is now under consideration, and there is some evidence to prove that this method might have been used in prehistoric times. Ian Cross of Cambridge has carried out a preliminary study and has shown that the hypothesis is workable. His current studies have now extended to striking flint blades to produce tones similar to hand bells. Although time periods have not been determined for this type of musical production, it is not beyond belief that, given their physiological and neurological development, our snake worshippers in the Rhino Cave could have used the stone spear points found in the cave to create rhythmic accompaniment to dance rather than for hunting purposes. It is a good case for the first “rock music.”

We'll look at prehistoric "concert halls" in the next post.

References:

• Brown, S. (2000). The “Musilanguage” Model of Music Evolution. In Wallin, N.L., Merker, B., & Brown, S. (Eds.). The Origins of Music. London: MIT Press. pp. 271-300.
• Cross, I. (Oct. 2000). Lithoacoustics – Music in Stone. Unpublished preliminary study. Retrieved September 3, 2008, from http://www.mus.cam.ac.uk/~ic108/lithoacoustics/.
• Donald, M. (1991). Origins of the Modern Mind: Three Stages in the Evolution of Culture and Cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Donald, M. (2001). A Mind So Rare: The Evolution of Human Consciousness. London: Norton.
• Hagen, E.H., Bryant, G.A. (2003). Music and dance as a coalition signaling system. Human Nature, Vol.14, Part 1. Germany: Walter De Gruyter Inc. pp. 21-52.
• Merker, B. (2000). Synchronous Chorusing and Human Origins. In Wallin, N.L., Merker, B., & Brown, S. (Eds.). The Origins of Music. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. pp. 315-327.
• Mithen, S. (2005). The Singing Neanderthals:The Origins of Music, Language, Mind and Body. London: Orion Publishing Group Ltd.
• Morley, I. (2003). The Evolutionary Origins and Archaeology of Music. Unpublished Doctor of Philosophy thesis. Cambridge University: Darwin College Report DCRR-002.
• Wingerson, L. (2008). Rock Music: Remixing the Sounds of the Stone Age. Archaeology. September-October. pp. 46-50.

What Were the Legacies of Stone Age Prehistoric Celebration?

Although we cannot point precisely to the Rhino Cave rituals, we can be fairly certain that our Stone Age ancestors left a couple of legacies that would have enormous impact on human celebration in the future. The first one was the use of music. The second one was the use of a separate or "sacred" space for celebration. In this and the next one or two posts, I will talk about the legacy of music. I'll save sacred space for later.

With respect to the anthropological aspect of the Rhino Cave celebration, there is a dilemma that is the subject of considerable research and debate. The essence of the dilemma is determining exactly when and how our ancestors progressed from occupying themselves in the evenings with quiet fireside chats to putting on ceremonies full of symbolism, ritual, music, and dancing. In other words, when did true performance enter the evolutionary picture? And of course, could music and dancing really have been part of the fictitious cave ceremony 70,000 years ago? If it could, then this would also be one of the main historical legacies of the event.

It has been shown recently by scientists known as biogenetic structuralists that highly performance-driven ritual activities should be the most effective in conveying messages. Here is what happens. When humans hear the rhythm in music—or create rhythm in some form (e.g., clapping, beating sticks or rocks, drumming, etc)—a process known as entrainment takes place. This process essentially couples body rhythms to the beat. In other words, pulse rate, brain wave patterns, diastolic blood pressure, skin temperature, and other functions are altered so they align with the rhythm produced. Furthermore, if the resulting experience is positive—as it typically is if highly rhythmic music is played—then the brain may also release a neurotransmitter called dopamine. Dopamine is a chemical that is associated with the pleasure system of the brain and enhances feelings of enjoyment (sex and drugs usually cause it to be released too!). To put it simply, rhythmic music can be addictive—and humans crave it.

Given this, what now needs to be determined is how and when music and dance first appeared. The main question that so far has no definitive answer is whether there is an innate cognitive music module or processing mechanism within the brain that was there in our pre-human ancestors, or whether other basics of cognition have been adapted along the way to give us a propensity to enjoy music and dance. This concept of characteristics arising in one context before being used in another is known as exaptation. The question, though, is chicken-and-egg: did evolution cause music or did music cause evolution. But perhaps that’s being facetiously simplistic, because it appears to be more complicated and a little of both. It involves two primary aspects of music: melody and rhythm. How these came to be part of human capabilities is also dependent on physiological and neurological evolution. More in my next post.

References:

• Alcorta, C.S. and Sosis, R. (2005). Ritual, Emotion, and Sacred Symbols: The Evolution of Religion as an Adaptive Complex. Human Nature, Winter 2005, Vol.16, No.4. pp. 323-359.
• Goldman, Jonathan S. (2000). Sonic Entrainment. In Don Campbell (Ed) Music: Physician for Times to Come. Wheaton: The Theosophical Publishing House. pp. 217-233.
• Guthrie, C. (2000). Neurology, Ritual, and Religion: An Initial Exploration. Retrieved August 1, 2008, from http://www.geocities.com/iona_m/Neurotheology/Neuroritual.html.
  

The First Special Event?

Nobody knows when the first celebration or "special event" occurred.

Our form of Homo sapiens, the anatomically modern version of “us,” appeared about 200,000 years ago. It would be preposterous to assume that in the chasm of time between then and now nobody had the wherewithal to dance, sing, or get together for a celebration. Indeed, no end of writers has found it mindlessly easy to conceptualize wild, orgiastic revels by our hairy, heavy-browed predecessors. But the evidence has been in short supply. That is until a fascinating discovery in 2006.

*  *  *

The Woman in the Sky has appeared often since his last kill. Pulling three of his fingers together, the hunter knows he has seen her full body this many times, dancing radiantly across the frosty blackness, pushing aside the twinkling souls of dead kin that lie in her path. Many empty days and nights. Too long without proper food. Tonight, her body is almost full once again as she begins her journey, large and orange over the distant hills. Will this be the night she sends a sign? Will the game return?

He crouches on his thin, brown haunches and nervously readies the poison by firelight. Even in the night’s chill, he sweats with concentration. His head fills with the vision of his brother writhing on the ground after a speck of the poison touched his lips from a careless hand wipe. Convulsions wracked him all of a night, with the morning bringing welcome death, his face grotesquely swollen and red. The same mistake will not be made this time.

In a small empty tortoise shell, the hunter carefully grinds the bodies of several reddish-brown beetles together with sticky tree gum. After slightly warming it over the fire, he gingerly applies minute amounts of the acrid mixture to a dozen bone arrow tips, taking care not to touch the poison to any opening in his body. As he finishes each arrow tip, he holds it up to the pale Sky Woman and chants his simple prayer for good fortune. He stores the arrow tips in hollow reed cylinders that will be fitted to his arrows just before the next day’s hunt.

Sleep in his hut comes fitfully, broken by the coughs and retching of three of his six children. His two wives vainly try to care for them. Reduced to miserable bundles of brown-skin covered skeletons and pleading eyes, they are dehydrated and nearing the final stages of starvation. A kill on the next day is crucial for their survival.

That day dawns like an obsidian blade, the sun’s first rays slicing clean through the freezing heart of the desert.

The hunter prepares. With two companions, he lays out the plan for the hunt. Their conversation is a wavering series of tongue clicks, melodic intonations, and limb gestures. Their final guide is a crude dirt drawing. As if toasting their agreement, they consume a hasty breakfast of locusts, berries, and minimal water, sustenance that must last most of the day.

The hunt does not go well. By mid-day, their methodical tracking has not found even the droppings of a single animal and the dry grasses and rough ground of the desolate Kalahari yield nothing but fatigue and sweat.

They pause.

Suddenly a jackal appears, scrawny and nervous behind a low bush. Does he wish death? The hunter pulls an arrow from his leather quiver and hits the mark, but the wound is shallow, the poison slow.

It is time to run.

The chase takes most of the afternoon. After his companions drop off as markers for the return trail, the hunter continues alone, pursuing the weakening jackal into poisoned exhaustion. He has been in a constant trot for four hours, his only refreshment a short drink from an ostrich egg half-full of murky grey water that was stashed along this well-known hunting trail. The jackal whimpers plaintively as the hunter completes his kill with a rock and pauses to stroke the dead animal’s forehead in a gesture of spiritual connection. With what is left of his ebbing strength, the hunter returns the long distance to his companions with the animal over his shoulders. Their smiles announce a shared pride in the achievement. It is a good day after all. Perhaps the Sky Woman has answered his prayer.

But the answer is a temporary one. Even with the women’s efficient rationing, the hunter knows that the jackal will only provide relief from approaching starvation for a short time. It must feed all the families, too many mouths for such a small animal. Without a kudu or eland kill, they will all die.

The hunter knows his place. He cannot force the band to move for game; he cannot rule their lives. Only the spirits do that. He knows it is the place of the shaman to visit the spirit world and bring back the herds of game that have always come in the past.

Two days after the jackal kill, with the setting sun warming their backs, the small band of men, women, and children slowly treks around the rocky outcroppings leading up a steep hill from the scraggly desert floor to the “Rock that Whispers.” They are all clad in their finest leather loincloths, and the women wear short skin cloaks over their shoulders and breasts. Everyone has one or two amulets of snail shells on their wrists or around their necks, gifts from the recent travelers from far away. The adults carry small leather bags slung over their shoulders. The men hold reed torches to fend off the cold of the gathering desert night and to help light their way. As they climb, they all chatter excitedly about the curing ceremony soon to unfold, their clicks and hums echoing off the surrounding rocks.

Slightly hidden away from the main path, the “Rock that Whispers” is a large cave, home to the Serpent. In the long ago, legend tells it was the Serpent that dug the riverbeds as it circled these hills searching for water. Its home is a sacred place. Approaching the dark rocks forming the cave entrance, two of the hunter’s still-healthy children begin crying. They are exhausted from the climb and from a daily diet of only a handful of locusts and nuts. Whimpering, they crouch down to enter the cave, followed by their mother. Inside, they join the other families seated on the floor of the large rocky chamber. The mother gives the children a few berries gathered on the long climb up the hill to help quiet them. The hunter finally sits down cross-legged beside them. He places his lit torch in line along the wall beside those of the other families. He looks worried. What has he done—what have they all done—to bring this famine on themselves? He and the others believe that they have somehow angered the Serpent, who has kept the animals away. They must appeal to the Serpent to right their wrong. He can only pray that tonight’s curing ceremony will bring the game back and save them in time.

The ceremony begins. One by one, the men add dry branches they have gathered to a growing fire in the middle of the chamber. As the fire builds, the fearsome Serpent comes alive in front of them, its stony eye scowling at each person. Its body slithers in the lambent firelight as if to seize them and carry them to the far-off place where it lives with the other animals. Into this terrifying world they must venture tonight to find the spirits of the game and bring them back to the desert. Their shaman will lead the way.

He sits alone under the head of the Serpent, waiting, his dark eyes closed. His thin face, pinched and nervous, is luridly painted. Black ash forehead, red ochre cheeks swiped as if with the blood of the kudu. Smears of ochre adorn the rest of his torso and limbs in bizarre slashes. Ankle and wrist bracelets of snail shells accompany a necklace of ostrich eggshell beads as adornments. A long kudu-skin cloak covers his body. It is topped by the animal’s terrifying death mask, complete with curled horns. This is the garish ensemble of a powerful spiritual leader. His mere presence instills fear and respect in the onlookers. They are at his mercy.

He motions to the adults who reach into their bags and remove two stones each, one a finally crafted spear point and the other a chopping stone. They are the stones brought by the travelers from afar. The band gave some of their precious meat to the strangers in exchange for beads and these sacred stones, especially the magic red spear points they had never seen before. Each person takes their chopping stone and makes a clean stroke on the side of the serpent, adding yet another reptilian scale. For a token sacrifice, they place the red spear points onto the blazing fire. The shaman throws powdery perfume onto the flames, which glitter and burst into showers of sparks.

As smoke fills the cave, the shaman sits peacefully several moments longer. Then…movement—slow, subdued. The hunter knows what is coming.

He watches as the shaman’s hands, resting on his crossed legs, begin to tremble. The face twitches, at first almost imperceptibly, then suddenly uncontrollably. His eyes remain partially closed, eyelids fluttering. Low guttural sounds issue from his mouth as he rises from the floor and beckons all to take part. The women and children begin to clap loudly and soon add mouth clicks and vocal intonations. The Serpent slithers even more wildly as the rhythm accelerates. The journey begins.

After the guttural grunts, more spirit voices pass through the shaman. As he twirls and reels in improvised dance, his eyes rolling back, the kudu and eland spirits arrive with snorts and snarls. The hunter and other men join him. They catch his mesmerizing ecstasy. Jumping … crouching … spinning … their bodies move almost uncontrollably in time with his. They are all in the spirit world now. Wild screams come from the shaman. Arms outspread, he is bent forward at the waist and spinning with abandon. His nose bleeds profusely and the hunter knows he must be communicating with the animal spirits. Shrill chanting pours from the women. Their hands beat a frenetic tempo. The cavern is a surreal expanse of two worlds, spirit and real, no longer separate. The muskiness of smoke, sweat, and leather permeates the air. As the night wears on, the dance ebbs and flows like the beat of a heart, some men resting while others take their places, the women and children continuing to clap and chant at an unwavering tempo. As the approaching dawn sends shafts of light through the cave, the men all join in again, this time dancing faster as the women sing louder and increase the rhythm. The shaman, by now nearing complete exhaustion, soon utters a final scream and deathly groan, collapsing into a state of mystical fatigue on the dirt floor. The leather cloak and kudu horns fall loosely like a dead animal over his panting body. The men stop their trance dance and sit exhausted nearby. Hands and bodies are stilled once again. Save for heavy breathing, all is silence. At that moment, a voice, faintly audible, seems to come from within the Serpent. “I am happy. Go. Hunt.”

They have returned from the other side. Life will go on.

* * *

This story is a fictional reproduction of what might have been one of the world’s oldest special events. Unfortunately, “might have been” is the only way we can surmise how the lives of our ancestors unfolded in prehistoric times. Educated guesses take the place of recorded history for the period between the first appearance of bipedalism in our very distant relatives, the Australopithecines more than 3.5 million years ago, and the modest beginnings of true civilizations with written records, about 5,500 years ago in the near east. This is one of those guesses.

Fortunately, archaeological evidence helps to explain what took place during this period. The above account is based on just such evidence. In 2006, in the remote Tsodilo Hills of northwestern Botswana above the Kalahari Desert, archaeologists uncovered ritual objects in a hidden cavern known as Rhino Cave. These objects included a rock resembling the head of a huge python. Along with this, they dug up over 13,000 stone spearheads and tools, some more than 70,000 years old, the time of the Middle Stone Age.

View Larger Map

Location of Tsodilo Hills in Botswana

Tsodilo Hills (Photo courtesy Joachim Huber via Wikimedia Commons)

Associate Professor Sheila Coulson of the University of Norway made the discoveries. She speculated that the cave was an important one for ancient rituals. “You could see the mouth and eyes of the snake. It looked like a real python. The play of sunlight over the indentations gave them the appearance of snakeskin. At night, the firelight gave one the feeling that the snake was actually moving.” She also discovered a secret chamber behind the python stone. Some areas of the entrance to this small chamber were worn smooth, indicating that many people had passed through it over the years. According to her, “The shaman, who is still a very important person in San culture (the famous ‘Kalahari Bushmen’ indigenous to the area, and from whom we are all descended ), could have kept himself hidden in that secret chamber. He would have had a good view of the inside of the cave while remaining hidden himself. When he spoke from his hiding place, it could have seemed as if the voice came from the snake itself. The shaman would have been able to control everything.”

The sacred python stone during the day (above) and at night (below), as it may have been during worshipping. (Photos courtesy Dr. Sheila Coulson, Institute of Archaeology, Conservation and History at
University of Oslo)



If Dr. Coulson is correct, then this is convincing evidence for one of the world’s oldest rituals. For the small band who participated, it was more than ritual, it was a true "special event." Perhaps in coming years more such exciting discoveries will be made of even older celebrations.

References:

• Boswell, Randy. (Dec.1, 2006). Rock carving of snake hailed as world’s oldest religious relic. The Vancouver Sun. p. A1.
• Stix, G. (2008). Traces of a Distant Past. Scientific American, July. pp. 56-63.
• Vogt, Y., Belardinelli, A.L., and afrol News staff (1 December, 2006). World’s oldest religion discovered in Botswana. afrol News. Retrieved April 8, 2008, from http://www.afrol.com/articles/23093.

Ancient Celebration

It’s deceptively light and easy, this word “celebration.” It rolls around inside our heads and flows frivolously off our tongues, carrying with it images of joyous gatherings and popping champagne corks. It forms the happy face bookends to segments in our lives—or those of others: expectant beginnings, poignant endings. Ultimately, it is a social act, one that validates shared beliefs and values. It is something that we can do alone but choose to do with others, drinking in the emotional impact that only collective communion can give us. Celebration provides us with the opportunity to escape the humdrum of our daily existence, taking us into multi-sensory, fresh experiences. In doing so, we satisfy many of our higher human needs: social contact and acceptance, the exploration of knowledge, and the pursuit of aesthetically pleasing imagery. We come away refreshed and fulfilled, our thirst satiated until the next opportunity comes along.

But why do we so enthusiastically embrace these opportunities? In short, because we are programmed to party. Scientists have discovered that humans seek out ritual activities. For example, we like to associate ourselves with sacred symbols, whether they are religious icons or football team logos. We act differently when in sacred spaces, whether they are churches or hockey arenas. We recognize and respect the differences between formal activities and casual ones, whether they are weddings or picnics. We appreciate traditions, whether they are ancient costumes or social customs. We are less stressed when participating in repetitive or rule-governed activities, whether they are daily ablutions or the controlled nine innings of a baseball game. Finally, we respond with emotion to human performance, and the more emotion generated, the more our decisions and actions are influenced. When all of these components of ritual coalesce in just the right way as in a well-executed celebration, we overcome social distance and are more inclined to take group action.

Emile Durkheim, sometimes regarded as the founder of sociology, first theorized that performing rituals created and sustained “social solidarity.” Anthropologist Victor Turner further defined the communal spirit generated by social groups participating in rituals with the term communitas. He discussed this concept in his many writings but one statement best explained it. “Is there any one of us who has not known this moment when compatible people—friends, congeners—obtain a flash of lucid mutual understanding on the existential level, when they feel that all problems, not just their problems, could be resolved….?”

It did not take long for our ancestors to discover this universal human trait and for leaders to use it to convey messages to their own people and to the rest of the world. Two powerful examples should serve to illustrate the extremes to which leaders—both modern and ancient—have gone to send messages in this form. In 2008, China’s leaders reportedly spent in excess of US $40 billion to stage a political coming-of-age party, the Summer Olympics, including over $100 million on the Opening Ceremonies. In addition, sixty-three companies spent an average of over US $70 million each to be a part of the message. Broadcasting giant NBC alone spent $894 million. Almost twenty-three hundred years earlier, King Ptolemy II of Egypt spent the equivalent of over US $200 million to stage a single dinner as part of a large festival that demonstrated the power of Egypt to the world, and supposedly hundreds of times that to stage what might very well have been the most extravagant parade ever seen.

History is rife with spectacular events and all have something to tell us. Indeed, many were defining moments for the civilizations that spawned them. Over the coming months, I will review a lot of these and discuss what made them special and what their legacy was.

I hope you enjoy this journey.

References:

• Rabinovitch, S. (Aug. 5, 2008). Beijing Games to be costliest, but no debt legacy. Reuters. Retrieved November 24, 2008, from http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-Olympics/idUSPEK25823820080805
• LeMay, Paul. (April 17, 2008). The corporate bottom line comes to the Olympics. The Vancouver Sun. p. A19.
• Karecki, M. (1997). Discovering the Roots of Ritual. Missionalia.
• Alcorta, C.S. and Sosis, R. (2005). Ritual, Emotion, and Sacred Symbols: The Evolution of Religion as an Adaptive Complex. Human Nature, Winter 2005, Vol.16, No.4. pp. 323-359
• Guthrie, C. (2000). Neurology, Ritual, and Religion: An Initial Exploration. Retrieved August 1, 2008, from http://www.geocities.com/iona_m/Neurotheology/Neuroritual.html.
• Durkheim, E. (1965). The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. New York: Free Press.
• Turner, V. (1982). From Ritual to Theater: The Human Seriousness of Play. New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications. pp. 44-48.