Sumerian Goblet of Puabi

The ethnic goblet drum darbuka (doumbek) is primarily a cultural heritage of the region of modern-day Egypt, though it also appeared in Southern Asia and Eastern Europe. From around 1100 BCE, it was made from clay or wood, and in later periods also from metal, but it is difficult to definitively determine how the earliest darbukas, which we see in Sumerian culture iconography, sounded. The inspiration for these depictions may have been the discovery of the monumental tomb of Queen Puabi in Mesopotamia, in the city of Ur, around 2500 BCE. Among the preserved items discovered in 1927 was a metal goblet, reminiscent of the darbuka’s source of origin.

The captivating emission of low overtones is not a typical way of using these drums, but it was precisely this that gave rise to this installation: precisely tuned membranophones create a delicate space of four-directional resonances from 24 goblets.