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By Luca Bombardieri

 

What did the past sound like? Archaeologists agree that grinding, along with spinning, was one of the major economic activities within the ancient household. More significantly, grinding was a primary shared lived experience for members of the community. Thus it is not surprising that early figurative representation includes a large array of grinding scenes from the Near East and the ancient Mediterranean.

But that shared experience included more than just repetitive work. Our archaeological and literary evidence, along with ethnographic counterparts, may tell us about the soundscape of collective grinding and the possible association of grinding with rhythm and musical performance.

Among the earliest secure representations of a grinding scene is a clay sealing from Susa dated to the 4th millennium BCE (Uruk period).

Susa. Uruk period. Clay sealing with grinding scene (after Ellis 1995: Fig. 1).

 

Two figures are represented kneeling on the opposite sides of a sloping worktable, which can be interpreted as a quern. Interestingly, this earliest representation suggests that grinding was a cooperative activity.

Communal grinding scenes are also represented through the Iron Age and are found across a vast sweep of the ancient Near East.

Cyprus. Archaic period. Terracotta depicting a grinding scene. Credits: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The Cesnola Collection, Purchased by subscription, 1874–76 (accession number 74.51.1643).

 

Among these images is a grinding scene on one of the decorated bronze bands that adorned the main doors of public and sacred buildings at Balawat in Assyria. The scene was included as part of a longer visual narrative dedicated to the military expedition to Syria carried out by King Shalmaneser in the year 858 BCE. It is part of a larger depiction of daily life within the Assyrian military camp, one of many food-processing activities carried out to feed the troops.

Balawat. Neo-Assyrian period. The Balawat gates in the British Museum. London.Balawat. Neo-Assyrian period. Scene incised on decorated bronze bands of the Balawat gates, with two soldiers in the Assyrian camp of king Shalmaneser III (after Trokay 2000: Fig. 5).

 

The art of figurines in Bronze Age Cyprus is particularly informative, especially the ceramic vases and terracotta models with scenic compositions, that provide a rich set of collective representations and genre scenes from everyday life. For example, numerous figures modeled in the round on an amphora depict scenes associated with domestic tasks. A seated female figure holds a swaddled child in her right arm, while in front a group of three female figures are kneeling and bending forward with both arms on the inner border of what appears to be an elliptical trough.

Amphora with modelled complex scenic composition. Musée National de Céramique at Sèvres (after Morris 1985: fig. 493).

 

Analogous scenes appear on a deep conical bowl in the Pierides collection at Larnaka and on a terracotta in the collections of the Louvre Museum.

Provenance unknown. Red Slip terracotta. Louvre Museum, Paris (adapted from Caubet et al. 1992: 34-35; drawn by Giulia Albertazzi).

 

Provenance unknown. Red Slip terracotta. Louvre Museum, Paris. Detail of the standing woman holding her child (adapted from Caubet et al. 1992: 34).

 

These representations show a similar pattern, where two basic elements appear associated, a raised bench (or trough) with several grinders working together, and a single woman holding her child nearby.

A comparable association of elements also appears in later periods. A Greek terracotta in the Louvre Museum, dated to the end of 6th century BCE, shows four women grinding while a bearded standing man plays the flute on one side.

Thebes, Boeotia. Terracotta. Musée du Louvre, Paris (after Pottier 1899: Fig. 8).

 

There is little doubt that the flautist is providing a rhythmic accompaniment for the work.

All these representations imply that grinding made characteristic sounds and thus created a recognizable (and evocative) soundscape. These sounds must have been familiar to all members of an ancient household or a larger community. Moreover, grinding was an activity in which two spheres of cultural activity could be combined: food preparation and singing. Weaving was probably another such activity. The grinders could also orchestrate recognizable repeated percussive rhythms, providing the base for a single monodic or solo line, either played or vocally performed.

Textual evidence about the combination of grinding, singing and playing goes back to the Sumerian period. One Sumerian text appears to be a possible fragment of a song sung by the grinders as they worked. A later Assyrian proverb also mentions the connection between grinding and singing:

‘As they say, I do not know the work song, If the millstone gets lost, I will not suffer’

There is significant evidence for work songs in classical antiquity, and women’s singing was an aspect of communal life. We also know from literary sources that in Classical and Hellenistic Greece many daily activities and work tasks commonly had musical accompaniment. Men sung herdsmen’s songs, while winnowing songs and mill songs were sung by women. There was a meaningful relation between grinding and rhythm, indicating a possible specific working soundscape where the complex rhythmical action of multiple individuals grinding was associated with music. The work group also became an ensemble, the workplace a stage and the work session a performance.

Some evidence of mill songs is even documented in modern Greek folk poetry and the folk poetry of southern Italy, especially from Sicily, where an allusive reference to grinding and sexual performance is more evident than in the Greek counterparts.

Sounds are missing from the archaeological record. Nevertheless, ancient imagery and documents, and comparable evidence from literary and ethnographic sources, suggest that mill songs existed in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East. Mill songs, like modern work songs, featured call-and-response structures designed to enable the laborers who sang them to coordinate their efforts in accordance with the rhythms of the songs.

Rhythm and even noise have been comfortingly social since the most distant human past: what can appear to us as noise may create a characteristic and evocative soundscape. In the words of the celebrated avant-garde composer John Cage: ‘if we try to ignore noise, it’ll drive us nuts; but if we concentrate on it and listen deeply, it’s as fascinating as Bach’.

 

Luca Bombardier is a member of the Department of Humanities, University of Torino (Italy).