Re: Magrefah

[Sheldon Levin <slevin...>]

The following is excerpted from Music In Ancient Israel by Alfred Sendrey 
published by Philosophical Library in 1969.

No instrument...has...so many contradictory reports as the Magrephah. It 
is considered (though not unanimously) to have been identical or 
substantially close to the Greek hydraulis, the water-organ. 

The ancient existence in the Mediterranean area, of the pneumatic organ 
(an enlarged species of the Pan's pipe), activated by bellows, is 
attested by some excavated objects dating in some instances before the 
4th century BCE. In the 3rd century BCE emerges a technical improvement 
of it, the hydraulis, its air flow having been regulated by a water 
pressure mechanism.

It is difficult to establish beyond doubt whether anyone of the two 
organs just referred to is of Egyptian or Babylonian origin. It is 
assumed, however, that a primitive form of the pneumatic organ was known 
in Mesopotamia and has been taken over eventually by the Hellenes. In 
Greek and later Latin writings the instrument is frequently mentioned 
under various names.

Among musicologists and modern talmudic scholares there are two schools 
of thought with regard to the problem of magrepha-hydraulis. Some hold 
that the two names refer to the same instrument...others think that they 
indicated two different instruments.

(The book then quotes Rabbis in the Talmud discussing whether or not a 
water-pressure instrument was used in the Temple.)

(Rashi describes two references for the word magrepha one being the 
musical instrument the other a shovel for ashes.)

(The articles goes on for 5 more pages and concludes that there was no 
use of the Magrepha in the Temple. Several illustrations are included)

Cantor Sheldon M. Levin
slevin (at) mciunix(dot)mciu(dot)k12(dot)pa(dot)us

On 27 Jan 1995, Benoni Boy wrote:

> Can anyone tell me of some authoritative study on this fabled "organ type"
> instrument (apart from the references to it in the Talmud).
>