Ancient Arabian cymbals ring up Bronze Age musical connections

Ritually important musical practices resounded across Bronze Age cultures from Arabia to South Asia, a pair of unusual discoveries suggest.

Excavations at a roughly 4,000-year-old settlement near the modern village of Dahwa in Oman have uncovered two copper cymbals with far-reaching cultural implications, say archaeologist Khaled Douglas of Sultan Qaboos University in Muscat, Oman, and colleagues.

Despite looking much like previously unearthed copper cymbals from a Bronze Age civilization in what’s now Pakistan’s Indus Valley, chemical analyses peg the Dahwa cymbals as products of copper sources in Oman, the scientists report April 7 in Antiquity. That suggests residents of the Dahwa settlement used local metals to make regionally distinctive cymbals.

These findings indicate that contact between ancient communities on both sides of the Arabian Gulf resulted in shared musical traditions central to rituals and religious beliefs, Douglas’ team says. Cultural influences of this sort fostered close ties among disparate societies, the scientists suspect.

Indus Valley folk may have spread their ritual customs outside their homeland. Previous genetic evidence indicates that members of the Indus Valley Civilization traveled west, at least as far as eastern Iran.

But the direction of these cultural influences remains unclear. “Ritual traditions in which the Dahwa cymbals were used may have been transmitted from southeastern Arabia to the Indus Valley, or vice versa,” Douglas says.

Until now, evidence of contacts among Bronze Age societies in the Arabian Gulf region consisted of trade items such as pottery, beads and metal objects that included knives and cooking vessels.

Bronze Age sites from the Middle East to South Asia contain written descriptions and artistic depictions of cymbal players. Cymbals often appear among other instruments, including drums, used at ritual events such as temple commemorations.

Cymbals bearing embossed decorations date to around 3,500 years ago in the Middle East and Iran.

Researchers found the Dahwa cymbals in the corner of a rectangular building that overlooked a small settlement. Excavations revealed that the instruments had been placed, one atop the other, beneath a stone floor, possibly as an offering to gods.

Ceremonies at the Dahwa building included music, chanting and dancing, the researchers speculate.