Jane

Does anyone have reliable documentation about the history of zills? When did they become a part of Belly Dance?

Mara2

They've found a set of them in a Babylonian excavation (they were connected with chains), and I have a photo of a dancer using one set of them (similar to the Hindi bell/zils) from a wall painting done a couple thousand years ago (near Pompeii). Also, the Zildjian company has been making them specifically for dancers since the 1600's. My wild guess is that they've been around pretty much forever? lol

Jane

I've heard of the ancient Greek kind and the Indian type, but I'm looking for the small ones worn on the middle finger and thumb like we do today. Where did you find the info about the Zildjian finger cymbals dating back so far? I'm really interested in that

PriscillaAdum

That info is on the Zildjian Website. It seems Avedis Zildjian became the official cymbal maker to the Sultan over 400 years ago in Turkey.
As for cymbals themselves, according to Yasmine (Serptentine Communications) 4000 year old brass cymbals that look exactly like our modern day one holed cymbals have been unearthed all over egypt, and there are many on display in the Egyptian and British museums.

Finger cymbals

Regards
Priscilla

Jane

Okay, I looked that up but the cymbals they show are big like the ones in a military marching band. Where are the finger cymbals? They don't have any small finger types on the site anywhere.

Okay, I looked at her site and there aren't any links, pictures or information about where these facts come from. There's nothing to say that these cymbals they found were small enough worn on the middle finger and thumb. The percussion instruments are a good lead, but I really want to tie in belly dance and finger cymbals.

I'm looking for positive proof for a class. Please bare with me, to back up cymbal playing as historical I need to play devil's advocate. If I don't *prove* it with documentation I will get dinged.

Marya

Jane,

I have communicated a little with Yasmine when i ordered music and videos from her and I think she would be willing to provide you sources if you e-mail her, I think she has a contact Yasmine button on the web site.

In general the information that comes with her music seems to be accurate and informative

Marya

Aisha Azar

Dear Jane,
While finger cymbal playing might be pretty old, belly dance is pretty new, so you might want to look into that in the 20th century as opposed to looking into ancient sources. ( Cymbal playing belly dancers may have been influenced by the Ghawazi, for example, which would take you back further, but belly dance itself is a modern development on the dance scene in the Middle East.) I can not supply you with any more information than that, but it is a reasonable starting point for your quest. Best wishes for a successful research project and I hope you will post your findings here.
Regards,
A'isha

maylynn

I'm not sure if this is helpful or just distracting, but I was very interested to learn a few years ago that there is a style of flamenco done in the region around Granada in Andalucia, that is *very* 'Moorish'-influenced.

It is danced barefoot (a shocker for flamenco), was performed in the caves around Granada (secrecy but I can't remember why - possibly had to do with the fact that Granada - the Alhambra - was the last Moorish stronghold outside of N.Africa/M.E. for a long time), has figure-8 hipwork, soft movements, and is danced with finger cymbals (rather than castanets)!

I've seen it performed, and it's very pretty. I find that fascinating!

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Jack

This is were you explain that belly dance is so ancient that historical documents have shrivled to peices from old age... Or something like that.

I don't have any "proof" but I know a little history about the finger cymbal things being connected to the more band cymbal like things (this history comes from my Persian teacher who probably knows more about her country's history than you know of Persia). I'm probably going to get in trouble for this one, but here it goes anyway.

Apperantly when Egyptian and Persian bands played the monkey cymbals a long long time ago, Egyptian and Persian dancers started to play them when they were not dancing (like any other musician would play them, not like modern dancers today).

After a while, the dancers started to play the monkey cymbals while they danced (why not multi-task?), but still like a normal musician would play them.

A while after that, Persia went to war with Turky. Persia and Turky, having the need to be better than each other started to do everything bigger, better, but being alike was a no-go as well, so most everything had to be opposite from each other. This included everyone, even the dancers were concerned about not being better than Turky.

Eventually, Persian dancers witnessed the Turkish wooden spoon thingys,
and proceded to think what could top that. Eventually they came up with using their monkey cymbals to perform like the Turkish dancers, but they needed the monky cymbals to be smaller rather than the size of a plate.
So then the Persian dancers got someone to make smaller cymbals (they probably worked out the defects on thier won).
You can imagine what the result of this looked like, as you probably own a pair today!

And I imagine the Persian dancers shared their inventions with the Egyptian dancers.


Here come the rocks...

Do I detect a pun?

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Lydia dubai

Hi Jane, i believe that the Gawazee people ( the early gawazee) the nawar are decendent of the roma gypsy and i believe they are the ones that brought them and danced with them already in the year 1100 and much more early than that...when they migrated to the middle east and other country,s in the area....aswell ottoman empire was using zills in the army believe it or not that time....i think the best thing to do ( i dont know if you did already?) search under ,,sagat musical instrument) on the net there are many many links that talk about the hystory i geuss that is the best info you can get on this, have a nice day Lydia