The most ancient nations historically known possessed musical instruments which, though in acoustic construction greatly inferior to our own, exhibit a degree of perfection which could have been attained only after a long period of cultivation. Many tribes of the present day have not yet reached this stage of musical progress.
As regards the instruments of the ancient Egyptians we now possess perhaps more detailed information than of those appertaining to any other nation of antiquity. This information we owe especially to the exactness with which the instruments are depicted in sculptures and paintings. Whoever has examined these interesting monuments with even ordinary care cannot but be convinced that the representations which they exhibit are faithful transcripts from life. Moreover, if there remained any doubt respecting the accuracy of the representations of the musical instruments it might be dispelled by existing evidence. Several specimens have been discovered in tombs preserved in a more or less perfect condition.
The Egyptians possessed various kinds of harps, some of which were elegantly shaped and tastefully ornamented. The largest were about six and a half feet high; and the small ones frequently had some sort of stand which enabled the performer to play upon the instrument while standing. The name of the harp was buni. Its frame had no front pillar; the tension of the strings therefore cannot have been anything like so strong as on our present harp.
The Egyptian harps most remarkable for elegance of form and elaborate decoration are the two which were first noticed by Bruce, who found them painted in fresco on the wall of a sepulchre at Thebes, supposed to be the tomb of Rameses III. who reigned about 1250 B.C. Bruce’s discovery created sensation among the musicians. The fact that at so remote an age the Egyptians should have possessed harps which vie with our own in elegance and beauty of form appeared to some so incredible that the correctness of Bruce’s representations, as engraved in his “Travels,” was greatly doubted. Sketches of the same harps, taken subsequently and at different times from the frescoes, have since been published, but they differ more or less from each other in appearance and in the number of strings. A kind of triangular harp of the Egyptians was discovered in a well-preserved condition and is now deposited in the Louvre. It has twenty-one strings; a greater number than is generally represented on the monuments. All these instruments, however much they differed from each other in form, had one peculiarity in common, namely the absence of the fore pillar.
The nofre, a kind of guitar, was almost identical in construction with the Tamboura at the present day in use among several eastern nations. It was evidently a great favourite with the ancient Egyptians. A figure of it is found among their hieroglyphs, signifying “good.” It occurs in representations of concerts dating earlier than from B.C. 1500. The nofre affords the best proof that the Egyptians had made considerable progress in music at a very early age; since it shows that they understood how to produce on a few strings, by means of the finger-board, a greater number of notes than were obtainable even on their harps. The instrument had two or four strings, was played with a plectrum and appears to have been sometimes, if not always, provided with frets. In the British museum is a fragment of a fresco obtained from a tomb at Thebes, on which two female performers on the nofre are represented. The painter has distinctly indicated the frets.
Small pipes of the Egyptians have been discovered, made of reed, with three, four, five, or more finger-holes. There are some interesting examples in the British museum; one of which has seven holes burnt in at the side. Two straws were found with it of nearly the same length as the pipe, which is about one foot long. In some other pipes pieces of a kind of thick straw have also been found inserted into the tube, obviously serving for a similar purpose as the reed in our oboe or clarionet.
The sêbi, a single flute, was of considerable length, and the performer appears to have been obliged to extend his arms almost at full length in order to reach the furthest finger-hole. As sêbi is also the name of the leg-bone (like the Latin tibia) it may be supposed that the Egyptian flute was originally made of bone. Those, however, which have been found are of wood or reed.
A flute-concert is painted on one of the tombs in the pyramids of Gizeh and dates, according to Lepsius, from an age earlier than B.C. 2000. Eight musicians (as seen in the woodcut) are performing on flutes. Three of them, one behind the other, are kneeling and holding their flutes in exactly the same manner. Facing these are three others, in a precisely similar position. A seventh is sitting on the ground to the left of the six, with his back turned towards them, but also in the act of blowing his flute, like the others. An eighth is standing at the right side of the group with his face turned towards them, holding his flute before him with both hands, as if he were going to put it to his mouth, or had just left off playing. He is clothed, while the others have only a narrow girdle round their loins. Perhaps he is the director of this singular band, or the solo performer who is waiting for the termination of the tutti before renewing his part of the performance. The division of the players into two sets, facing each other, suggests the possibility that the instruments were classed somewhat like the first and second violins, or the flauto primo and flauto secondo of our orchestras. The occasional employment of the interval of the third, or the fifth, as accompaniment to the melody, is not unusual even with nations less advanced in music than were the ancient Egyptians.
The Double-Pipe, called mam, appears to have been a very popular instrument, if we judge from the frequency of its occurrence in the representations of musical performances. Furthermore, the Egyptians had, as far as is known to us, two kinds of trumpets; three kinds of tambourines, or little hand drums; three kinds of drums, chiefly barrel-shaped; and various kinds of gongs, bells, cymbals, and castanets. The trumpet appears to have been usually of brass. A peculiar wind-instrument, somewhat the shape of a champagne bottle and perhaps made of pottery or wood, occurs only once in the representations transmitted to us.