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.
Fig. 2.—Painted Wooden Harp. Ancient Egyptian, XVIIIth dynasty (B.C. 1450).
British Museum.
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[2] . 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 6½ 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 bene. Its frame had no front pillar; the tension of the strings therefore cannot have been anything like so strong as on our present harp. ([Fig. 2].)
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 walls of a sepulchre at Thebes, supposed to be the tomb of Rameses III. who reigned about 1170 B.C. Bruce’s discovery created a sensation among 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 nefer, 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, and occurs in representations of concerts dating earlier than from B.C. 1500. The nefer 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 nefer are represented. The painter has distinctly indicated the frets.
Small pipes or flutes 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 ([Fig. 3]). 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.