Kinyras and the Musical Stratigraphy of Early Cyprus

The Pharos Arts Foundation in association with the English Speaking Union Cyprus present a lecture on the mythical symbol of Kinyras and the Musical Stratigraphy of early Cyprus by Dr. John Franklin, Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Vermont.

Kinyras, in Greco-Roman sources, is the culture-hero of early Cyprus: legendary king, metallurgist, Agamemnon’s (faithless) ally, Aphrodite’s priest, father of Myrrha and Adonis, rival of Apollo, ancestor of the Paphian priest-kings (and much more). Kinyras increased in depth and complexity with the 1968 demonstration that Kinnaru – the divinized temple-lyre – was venerated at Ugarit. The lecture by Dr. John Franklin will show how Kinyras as a mythological symbol of pre-Greek Cyprus (i.e. Alashiya) may be harmonized with what is known of ritual music and deified instruments in the Bronze Age Near East.

Dr. John Franklin
Dr. Franklin began life in music composition, with a degree from the New England Conservatory of Music (1988). An M.A. in Classics at the University of Washington, Seattle, led to a doctorate in Classics from University College London (2002).

He then held a series of fellowships in Rome, Athens, Cyprus, and Washington D.C. before joining the University of Vermont, where he is now Associate Professor of Classics. He is currently on research leave as a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and as Annual Professor at the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem.

His research has dealt largely with the musical interface between early Greece and the Near East. He is working on three books: Kinyras: The Divine Lyre; The Stormy Seas of Cyprus: Music, Memory, and the Aegean Diaspora; and The Middle Muse: Mesopotamian Echoes in Early Greek Music. He has also published a lighthearted CD of Greek musical impressions, The Cyprosyrian Girl: Hits of the Ancient Hellenes.