Abstract
The numerous depictions of drumming – mainly figurines of female drum players as well as the Old Testament – indicate that the drum was a feminine instrument. The present study considers the gender-related contexts of drumming in Iron Age II Israel.
Following a survey and analysis of the archaeological, biblical, and ethnographic data, the study ascertains a gender model characterizing this musical activity and its contexts in Israelite society.
One facet of drumming by women, very pronounced in the archaeological record, but totally ignored by Scripture, was the fertility cult. The second facet of the women drummer tradition is reflected in both the archaeological record and the Hebrew Bible. Drumming in the framework of the "Victory Song” was a female tradition of popular (folk) character, which included drumming, song and dance.
In contrast to the women drummers’ tradition, the Canaanite Orchestra was specifically cultic in its function, and it comprised a number of different instruments, including the drum, played exclusively by men. The differences between the women drummers’ traditions and that of the Canaanite Orchestra reflect social differences between male and female, public and domestic, official and unofficial.
The women drummer figurines with which this study is concerned are a material reflection of these musical traditions and their implications. The drumming traditions, and the figurines depicting them, provide an expression in spirit and substance, of the daily tension between ideologies, lifestyles, and interests that shaped the lives of women in Iron Age Israel.
Paz, Sarit