ABSTRACT
Terracotta figurine playing a double reed. Tel Malchata (Negev), fifth-fourth centuries BCE (Israel Antiquities Authority, Jerusalem)
Natural horns QARNA’ (Aram. qarna’/anrq from Akkad. qarnu, a horn as a musical instrument and an animal horn), the Assyrio-Babylonian horn or trumpet, analogous to qeren. It is mentioned in the Bible as part of the court orchestra of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II (Dan. 3:5, 7, 10, 15). Various scholars (E. Wellesz, C. Engel, C. H. Dyer and T. C. Mitchell) think that in the period when the book of Daniel was compiled (third-second centuries BCE) either a metal or a wooden horn was used in the official ceremony instead of a natural one. This hypothesis is based on surviving Assyrian pictographic material. The qarna’ may well have been such an instrument. Like the qeren in Jewish culture it was probably a secular aerophone in Assyrian musical practice. A. Sendrey assumes that the term qarna’, as well as other Aramaic instrumental names (qaytros, pesanterin, sabbeeka’ and mashroqita’ ) was used by
the compiler deliberately in order to emphasize the contrast between the pagan cult of the Babylonians and the high spirituality of the Jews. However, in current biblical studies there is a reasonably convincing view that Daniel 3 was compiled and existed separately in the Jewish diaspora of southern Mesopotamia. For this part of the nation Aramaic had become the mother tongue. If this view is correct, then all the instruments mentioned in Daniel 3 reflect the regional musical tradition of the Hellenistic period. In the majority of Bible translations qarna’ is rendered as a trumpet: σáλπιγξ (LXX), “tuba” (Vulg.), “saquiri” (GB and GCB), “tuba” (BIM), “Posaune” (LB),1 “Basuyne” (BGvW), “trompe” (BB),2 “trompet” (BNvW), “truba” (PrB), “trauba” (KrB), “trąba” (BP), “trumpet” (DouB, TEV and CEV), òð@áà/òðuáà/труба (DanCyr, DanMeth, DanSim, GennB and its main copies: SidB, JoachB, UvarB, also SkorB, OstB, ElizB, SynB and WCBT). In some versions however it is presented as a horn: qarna’ (Syr.), būq (Taf),3 qarn (KMA),4 “p‘oł” (MtsB, WAB and EAB), “horn” (NüB), “cor” (LyB and GenB),5” “cornu” (BLJ), “cornet” (BpB, KJV and ASV),6 “horn” (MofB, RSV, NASB, NIV and NJB), “rog” (SSP), рог (TanJer). In Modern Hebrew the term is not used in a musical sense. QEREN (Heb. qeren/@rq, a horn; the root as a verb means “to be solid, hard”; the word is of Semitic origin and is related to the Akkadian qarnu and Arabic qarn). It is (1) the generic name of ancient Jewish aerophones (horns and trumpets); (2) the instrument made of the horn of a bull or ox.7 It was of medium length (about 20 cm) and had a strongly curved shape (Figure 3.1). Some scholars (J. Jahn and others) state that the qeren is one of the most ancient forms of the horn type of instrument. Its original form was a natural horn of a bull or ox, hollow inside and with a hole at the narrow end.
