Uploaded October 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
A 'live' presentation of track 1, "Babylonian Banquet" - from my 2020 album, "Echoes of Ancient Mesopotamia & Canaan" - available from all the usual main digital music platforms, studio quality audio plus a PDF booklet of the detailed album notes is also available from Bandcamp:
michaellevy.bandcamp.com/album/echoes-of-ancient-mesopotamia-canaan
This album is my mostly historically inspired evocation, of the lost music of ancient Mesopotamia & Canaan; but as the final track, this release also features my most recent arrangement of the reconstructed melody of an actual bronze age hymn to Nikkal; the oldest notated fragment of music which can still be interpreted and performed today; performed this time, on a replica of an actual surviving bronze age lyre.
For most of the tracks, I play this fascinating replica of an actual, typical bronze age Canaanite form of asymmetric lyre; custom-made for me by Luthieros. The design of this lyre was based on the same proportions of a Canaanite form of lyre found in Egypt, dating to circa 1,500 BCE and which is preserved in Leiden. These types of lyres were almost certainly introduced into Egypt during the reign of the Canaanite Hyksos kings, that ruled northern Egypt as the 15th dynasty, c.1630–1523 BCE.
A fascinating discovery I made with my replica Bronze Age lyre, was when I changed the strings! In the album recordings, I had the lyre string with thicker gut strings, all in the same gauge, which created a fascinating sitar-like buzz on the flatter-topped bridge the lyre has. After the top string snapped a few weeks ago, I recently changed to unpolished gut strings in a more of a gradient of gauges between the bass and treble strings, which created a totally different, warmer yet more delicate timbre. Presumably in antiquity when similar unpolished gut strings had to be changed, due to the non-standard, non-uniform manufacturing techniques of musical gut strings in antiquity, I am sure that quite often, the timbre of the lyre was also similarly completely changed?
For some of the tracks, I also use the more sinister, darker timbre of my tenor register 10-string lyre - ideal for evoking the mystery of the long-forgotten pantheon of ancient Mesopotamian & Canaanite gods!
Subscribe:
youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=Klezfiddle1
Official Artist Links:
Official Website:
ancientlyre.com
Facebook Page:
facebook.com/beautifullyre
Twitter:
twitter.com/AncientLyre
Spotify: open.spotify.com/artist/7Dx2vFEg8DmOJ5YCRm4A5v
Amazon:
amzn.to/2zmJph3
Apple Music & iTunes:
itunes.apple.com/us/artist/michael-levy/id4324920
Bandcamp:
michaellevy.bandcamp.com
A 'live' presentation of track 1, "Babylonian Banquet" - from my 2020 album, "Echoes of Ancient Mesopotamia & Canaan" - available from all the usual main digital music platforms, studio quality audio plus a PDF booklet of the detailed album notes is also available from Bandcamp:
michaellevy.bandcamp.com/album/echoes-of-ancient-mesopotamia-canaan
This album is my mostly historically inspired evocation, of the lost music of ancient Mesopotamia & Canaan; but as the final track, this release also features my most recent arrangement of the reconstructed melody of an actual bronze age hymn to Nikkal; the oldest notated fragment of music which can still be interpreted and performed today; performed this time, on a replica of an actual surviving bronze age lyre.
For most of the tracks, I play this fascinating replica of an actual, typical bronze age Canaanite form of asymmetric lyre; custom-made for me by Luthieros. The design of this lyre was based on the same proportions of a Canaanite form of lyre found in Egypt, dating to circa 1,500 BCE and which is preserved in Leiden. These types of lyres were almost certainly introduced into Egypt during the reign of the Canaanite Hyksos kings, that ruled northern Egypt as the 15th dynasty, c.1630–1523 BCE.
A fascinating discovery I made with my replica Bronze Age lyre, was when I changed the strings! In the album recordings, I had the lyre string with thicker gut strings, all in the same gauge, which created a fascinating sitar-like buzz on the flatter-topped bridge the lyre has. After the top string snapped a few weeks ago, I recently changed to unpolished gut strings in a more of a gradient of gauges between the bass and treble strings, which created a totally different, warmer yet more delicate timbre. Presumably in antiquity when similar unpolished gut strings had to be changed, due to the non-standard, non-uniform manufacturing techniques of musical gut strings in antiquity, I am sure that quite often, the timbre of the lyre was also similarly completely changed?
For some of the tracks, I also use the more sinister, darker timbre of my tenor register 10-string lyre - ideal for evoking the mystery of the long-forgotten pantheon of ancient Mesopotamian & Canaanite gods!
Subscribe:
youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=Klezfiddle1
Official Artist Links:
Official Website:
ancientlyre.com
Facebook Page:
facebook.com/beautifullyre
Twitter:
twitter.com/AncientLyre
Spotify: open.spotify.com/artist/7Dx2vFEg8DmOJ5YCRm4A5v
Amazon:
amzn.to/2zmJph3
Apple Music & iTunes:
itunes.apple.com/us/artist/michael-levy/id4324920
Bandcamp:
michaellevy.bandcamp.com
