Call of the Nile

With its pharaohs, hieroglyphs, mummies and gods, Egypt has long fascinated composers, keen to capture its unique allure, says Claire Jackson

- Claire Jackson

The pencil-drawn diagrams are meticulous, noting the contents and whereabouts of their author's discoveries. A map depicts a bird's eye view of one room, showing a pile of wheels; another shows a series of steps. The documents - recently displayed at Weston Library in Oxford as part of "Tutankhamun: Excavating the Archive' - describe the discovery of the first known intact royal burial from ancient Egypt that became a world-famous archaeological find.

But long before Howard Carter and co's 1922 haul, the land of the pharaohs had proved an irresistible draw, with a fascination for the early dynasties frequently translated into music. Biblical connections were a focus for the likes of Handel (Israel in Egypt), Rossini (Moses in Egypt; Moses and Pharaoh) and Anton Rubinstein (Moses), whose works were based on the Old Testament's deliverance of the Israelites, while the 'Arabian Dance' from Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite No. 2 evokes a historian who visits the Sphinx, and Philip Glass's 1983 opera Akhnaten explores the titular pharaoh's monotheism.

Interest in the mysterious world of mummies and hieroglyphs was stirred when merchants began importing curiosities from their travels, generally acquired by dubious means (tomb looting was common until the early 20th century). Collectors such as Giovanni Battista Belzoni (1778-1823) paved the way for Egyptology to become an area of academic study, usually defined as the period from the 5th millennium BC to the 4th century AD.

The dry climate of Egypt supported the survival of ancient musical instruments such as end-blown flutes and pipes played originally with single or double reeds, harps and trumpets (see box, p50), providing evidence of music in this early civilisation. Pythagoras is believed to have investigated musical theory in Egypt before moving to mathematics and Plato is said to have praised its practice of the art form.