Fig. 12.
The Egyptian Zummarah.
There is another popular native instrument, much more ancient than the arghool called the Zummarah it consists of two pipes tied together (not to be called double pipes) the holes in each being the same in position and the same in number, five. Some representations of very archaic kind, carved, have been found, I do not remember any paintings in old Egypt, but Mr. Flinders Petrie has discovered two specimens in the Coptic cemetery at Gurob, complete with the reeds, and the date of these is given about A.D. 500. The question arises, were such pipes in use at any period earlier than our era A.D. and if so, how near to the time of the Lady Maket?
The tonality is the old Egyptian.
Another kind of flute in primitive relation is seen figured in Egyptian paintings; it is a single long pipe, held aslant, and sounded by blowing across the tip obliquely. It was called seba or sabi; and the open, slant-cut, tip end is thinned off to a feather edge.
| Fig. 13. The Seba or Sabi. |
The representative national pipe now in use is called the “Nay.” This pipe is about fourteen inches long, and it is only in the method of blowing that it corresponds to the ancient pipe.
The various kinds of flutes we see depicted by the Egyptians in their paintings, were used in concert with other instruments—lyres and grand harps in pairs, capable of giving fine volume of tone—through which the flutes would have to be heard, although not perhaps so simultaneous was the playing, as with us; since there are reasons for believing that their orchestration was more in the nature of alternation of instruments, one class leaving off and others taking up the strain and only occasionally combining for fulness or strength, associated perhaps with the voices of the multitude in popular acclaim. In later days in Egypt’s decline, it is on record that Ptolemy Philadelphus employed a band of 600 musicians to celebrate the feast of Bacchus.
| Fig. 14. Arab Player on the Nay. |