Universität zu Köln

Vogels, Oliver and Lenssen-Erz, Tilman (2017). BEYOND INDIVIDUAL PLEASURE AND RITUALITY: SOCIAL ASPECTS OF THE MUSICAL BOW IN SOUTHERN AFRICA'S ROCK ART. Rock Art Res., 34 (1). S. 9 - 25. CAULFIELD SOUTH: ARCHAEOLOGICAL PUBL. ISSN 0813-0426

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Abstract

Bows in hunter-gatherer societies are not mono-functional items. Besides hunting and fighting, they may also have been used for musical purposes. Rock art in southern Africa provides a record of this use, giving way to investigating past music cultures. This paper brings together the published depictions of musical bows from across southern Africa with some new discoveries. Although depictions of bows being played as musical instruments have been recorded for decades, these scenes still lack archaeological or musicological investigation. When analysing these depictions, it turns out that there is a comparatively wide variety of technical aspects of sound production, of ways of playing and of contexts of the musical performance, indicating rich cultural diversity among the early peoples of the subcontinent. Moreover, the paintings show details in these aspects that are not corroborated by ethnographic studies. Nevertheless, they open up a tableau of the potential context variability in the musical practice of pre-History and also indicate that rock art studies should be open to finding contexts of meaning beyond the dichotomy of the purely ritual and the profane.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Vogels, Oliver UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Lenssen-Erz, Tilman UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-232582
Journal or Publication Title:	Rock Art Res.
Volume:	34
Number:	1
Page Range:	S. 9 - 25
Date:	2017
Publisher:	ARCHAEOLOGICAL PUBL
Place of Publication:	CAULFIELD SOUTH
ISSN:	0813-0426
Language:	English
Faculty:	Unspecified
Divisions:	Unspecified
Subjects:	no entry
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language Archaeology; Art Multiple languages
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/23258