ABSTRACT
Chapter 2, ‘Types of cultic activity and the music associated with them, 1’, identifies five types of cultic activity common throughout the Near East, to which music was integral. It discusses three of them (the remaining two are discussed in Chapter 3). The present discussion covers music in connection with liturgies and rituals, processions and cultic dance. The principal liturgies and rituals are those of various types of sacrifice, especially of animals. In Mesopotamia, ‘lamenters’ or ‘lamentation priests’ officiated as general temple singers as well as at obsequies. Processions were associated with both festive and funerary rituals, and typically took place in proximity to a temple or mortuary site. In funerary contexts, the customs of mourning had special types of music. Processions ranged in style from the flamboyant and popular to the dignified and quiet. Cultic dance occurred in both festive and funerary contexts. In ancient Israel cultic dance was extraneous to the sacrificial rites, in Mesopotamia there were acrobatic male ritual dancers, and in Egypt there were itinerant troupes of male ritual dancers.
