The flutes that my thoughts so long lingered over are gone. They are deposited, after their strange travel, in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford—a long way indeed from that land where the Lady Maket played them under a cloudless sky.
CHAPTER IV.
In the Land of Egypt.
MORE EGYPTIAN FLUTES: THE EVIDENCES OF THE SCALE.
The finder of Lady Maket’s flutes, Mr. Flinders Petrie, did not coincide with me in the opinion I had formed on the method of blowing, mainly on the ground that no reeds were found with them. The objection loses its force if we consider that at all periods it has been customary for reed pipe players to have a reserve of reed tongues, and that to preserve the tongues after use it was desirable to keep them covered, that the air should not too rapidly dry up the moisture acquired during the holding in the mouth. At the present day, the players of oboes and bassoons remove their reeds from the instruments directly they cease to use them; and the clarionet player covers his reed with the cap even during a prolonged pause in the score for his instrument, for the same reason. Oboes and bassoons, when put aside, are deprived of the reeds, which are placed carefully in little cases which the players provide for them, and carry about. So that we should not expect to find the reeds with the Egyptian pipes. Another reason, too, might operate; the reeds themselves might not be ceremonially required, as these flutes might have only a certain representative character. The learned Mr. A. S. Murray, late keeper of the Greek treasures in the British Museum, tells us that “it is noticeable that, among the vases of bronze found in tombs, the metal of some of them is so thin that they can do little more than stand with their own weight; they must have been produced expressly for show at funeral ceremonies.” So long as custom was conformed to, the relatives of the deceased were not called upon to do more; and the exact significance of what was done we of a different race cannot estimate.
Taking a practical view, we are justified in the conclusion that the Egyptians had boxes for the safe keeping of these reeds, for the Greeks, who seem to have carried forward the customs of the Egyptians, had such. Mr. W. Chappell states that these reed boxes, called Glossocomeia, had a sliding lid top like a modern common domino box; and, according to Hesychius, the small reed tongues agitated by the breath of the performers were called glottis. Dr. Stainer, in his “Music of the Bible” says:—
The very existence of the word “tongue box” shows that the player was accustomed to carry his tongues or reeds separately from the instrument. The word, it will be remembered, is used in St. John xii. 6 and xiii. 29, where it is translated bag; but it is quite possible Judas Iscariot carried the money in a reed box, as implied by the Greek text.
And we may add, also, that from this explanation the inference may be drawn that very probably Judas Iscariot was a musician.