Heavy Metal & Global Premodernity II online conference, hosted by Miami University, 15-17 March 2024
Full conference program:
sites.miamioh.edu/heavy-metal...
"'Ancient Egypt and Extreme Metal"
-Markus Kutschka, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
Abstract:
This contribution provides an overview of the motifs of the reception of ancient Egypt by extreme metal bands, focusing on death and black metal. The reception in music, image and lyrics of bands coming from Egypt itself and Germany will be described. A basic observation indicates that the incorporation of ancient Egyptian elements primarily manifests in the lyrics and visual elements, such as album artwork. Generally, the musical compositions themselves appear to remain relatively unaffected. The connection to ancient Egypt is predominantly forged through the synergy between music, imagery, and textual content. Prominent visual motifs include ancient Egyptian symbols such as the “Ankh” and the “Udjat eye,” depictions of deities and pharaohs, hieroglyphic texts, as well as representations of monuments such as temples. At least six major lyrical themes are covered: historical events, mythological stories, conceptions about gods and theology, fictional stories set in Egypt, modern social and regime criticism, and the reception of an already existing reception of ancient Egypt.
Biography:
Markus Kutschka is presently pursuing his Bachelor’s thesis in Egyptology and Coptology, with a research emphasis on applying statistical inference to historical Nile heights. Prior to this, he obtained a bachelor’s degree in Statistics from the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, Germany. His academic focus revolves around the utilization of statistical analytical methods within the field of Egyptology. In addition to his academic pursuits, Markus has been an active member of the metal music scene for approximately two decades, and he has been involved in music performance for ten years. He initially started with 80s hard rock but has since evolved his musical interests towards more extreme metal genres. Furthermore, he has been engaged in exploring the incorporation of ancient Egyptian themes in primarily black and death metal music. In conjunction with this, he aspires to employ Statistical text mining techniques to analyze the lyrics within these musical genres.