Ancient Octaves and Harmony

Ancient Octaves and Harmony

            I was reading an internet article by Robert Fink the other day and I noticed that a section in his article was on the possibility of harmony in ancient music http://www.greenwych.ca/evidence.htm.  He included some pictures performers playing ancient instruments.  Intrigued I looked at some of them in Engels book.   Fig. 33 0n page 190 shows a musician with his hands placed on two strings at the same time.  Figures 35 and 36 on page on page 195 likewise show musicians with their hands at the same time. One of the musicians pictured in figure 38 on page 196 and the musician pictured in figure 39 on page 197 appear to also be playing two notes simultaneously.  All of the examples above are taken from The Music of the Most Ancient Nations by Carl Engel

                Although the te’amim above and below the entire text of the Hebrew Old Testament scrolls only represents one note to be performed at a time, it is possible that the ancient Hebrew Temple Levite musicians also made use of harmony.  A study of the work of Suzanne Haik Vantoura and her associates shows that they believed that there is evidence from the musical nature of some of the O.T. Scriptures that the Levites did sing some of the Scriptures in harmony.  

            The deciphered Hurrian cult song deciphered by Dr. Anne Kilmer et al revealed that the cuneiform symbols indicate a melody and a harmony part.  The significance of her find is that up until the time of the deciphering of the Hurrian cult song honoring the goddess Nikkal musicologists adamantly denied the use of octaves let alone harmony in ancient music.