THE FLUTE OF LIBYA

THE FLUTE OF LIBYA

The flute is considered the first musical instrument in human history. The Greek rhetorician Athenaeus of Naukratis confirmed in his book Deipnosophistae that the Libyans were the ones who invented the flute and the first to play were a tribe called seirites, and this was confirmed after the discovery of a bone flute in 1955 in the caves of Haua Fteah dates back to 100,000 years, and it is now recorded that the oldest specimen of the flute was discovered in northeastern Libya. This was mentioned by McBurney in his paper “The Haua Fteah (Cyrenaica) and the Stone Age of the South-East Mediterranean”. Legends about the invention of the flute also inspired ancient Greek artists to create many sculptures, including statues discovered in the ancient Cyrene region in Libya, and we must mention that the writer by Paraskevas-Marios Tourtounis mentioned in her research paper entitled “The Art of the Flute in Ancient Libya – 2020” that the Greek myths that say that Athena invented the flute can only be understood in the context of the Libyan-Greek cultural conflict in the painting. Cyrene represents the place and the Libyan land in which the flute was discovered.

150*105
Oil on canvas
2021