18. The Melding of Kinyras and Kothar This chapter confronts the issue of Kinyras’ extra-musical qualities, which he regularly assumed on Cyprus, and which already seem to inform the Kinyras(es) of Pylos and the Kourion stands, both in the thirteenth century. I refine and develop the position, taken by J. P. Brown […]
Part III: Kinyras and the Lands around Cyprus 17. Kinyras at Pylos Important evidence for a BA Kinyras comes from an unexpected quarter: Mycenaean Pylos. Although the texts present ‘Kinyras’ as a PN, not DN, the contexts are consistent with the attributes of the Kinyras. This material, I shall argue, […]
16. The Kinyradai of Paphos Evidence from and relating to Paphos especially lets us pick up the thread of Kinyras’ cult in the Classical period, and follow it down until later antiquity. Here the two broad patterns explored above—the social and political manipulation of Kinyras as a cultural icon, and the maintenance […]
15. Crossing the Water I have now shown that the evidence for a musical Kinyras is much more extensive than previously realized; that this was not a secondary accretion, but an early and essential dimension; and that his erstwhile divinity echoed into the Roman period as “Our Kenyristḗs Apollo.” We have also […]
14. Restringing Kinyras This chapter further documents Kinyras’ fundamental connection with pre-Greek Cyprus. I shall examine traces of popular narratives featuring the Cypriot king and his family which variously mythologized Aegean settlement in the eastern Mediterranean during the LBA–IA transition, and the evolving relationships between the new Greek-speaking communities and the pre-Greek […]
13. The Talents of Kinyras Our analysis of Cypriot iconography and the prehistory of kinýra (and associated music) is compatible with the idea that Kinyras could go back to the pre-Greek island in some form. And after all, our best evidence for divinized instruments is of BA date, from Kinnaru of Ugarit […]
12. Kinyras the Lamenter In the Gudea Cylinders, the ‘court’ of Ningirsu included two separate balang-gods, one overseeing music to “make the temple happy,” the other “to banish mourning from the mourning heart.” [1] This dichotomy, reflecting basic aspects of human experience and their musical expression, is also found in the evidence […]
11. Lyric Landscapes of Early Cyprus Pindar, supplemented by the scholia and other relevant texts, has established a musical Kinyras some five centuries older than “Our Kenyristḗs Apollo” at Roman Paphos. Three initial forays into Cypriot iconography have indicated earlier horizons still, although such pieces, being mute, can never prove that ‘Kinyras […]
10. Praising Kinyras Pindar’s Pythian 2 contains the most elaborate allusion to Kinyras in early Greek literature and is our first explicit source for him as a familiar of Aphrodite and Apollo. [1] The latter relationship by itself readily suggests the musical and prophetic abilities credited to Kinyras elsewhere. [2] This natural […]
Part II: Kinyras on Cyprus 9. Kinyras the Kinyrist A fundamental obstacle to connecting Kinyras with Kinnaru of Ugarit, and Syro-Levantine lyre-culture generally, is the relative scarcity and lateness of sources linking him to music. It is therefore best to begin by securing this elusive dimension, which should be the […]