SEVEN DAYS SINCE I LAST SAW MY LOVE

There are dozens of ancient Egyptian songs and hymns for which we have the words, but not the music. Unfortunately, the ancient Egyptians did not have a formal system of notation so we can only guess at what the melodies for the songs might have been. We do know, however, quite a lot about the instruments they had because many of them have survived, while others can be seen illustrated on the walls of tombs and temples. I built the harp you see in this video several years ago, made a couple of videos with it, and then moved on to other things. I recently decided to dust it off and play it again. It is what is called an “arched harp”, known to the ancient Egyptians as a “djedjet”. Unlike modern harps, these instruments were C-shaped, and did not have a front supporting pillar. The words of the song in this video are taken from the seventh song of a set of love songs written on papyrus scrolls in the Egyptian language of the New Kingdom about 3,500 years ago. The scrolls are part of the Chester B