it would be a very difficult thing for posterity to form any
idea as to what our music was like if all the actual music in
the world at the present time were destroyed, and only certain
scientific works such as that of Helmholtz on acoustics and a
few theoretical treatises on harmony, form, counterpoint and
fugue were saved.

From Helmholtz's analysis of sounds one would get the idea
that the so-called tempered scale of our pianos caused thirds
and sixths to sound discordantly.

From the books on harmony one would gather that consecutive
fifths and octaves and a number of other things were never
indulged in by composers, and to cap the climax one would
naturally accept the harmony exercises contained in the books
as being the very acme of what we loved best in music. Thus
we see that any investigation into the music of antiquity must
be more or less conjectural.

Let us begin with the music of the Egyptians. The oldest
existing musical instrument of which we have any knowledge is
an Egyptian lyre to be found in the Berlin Royal Museum. It
is about four thousand years old, dating from the period just
before the expulsion of the Hyksos or "Shepherd" kings.

At that time (the beginning of the eighteenth dynasty, 1500-2000
B.C.) Egypt was just recovering from her five hundred years of
bondage, and music must already have reached a wonderful state
of development. In wall paintings of the eighteenth dynasty
we see flutes, double flutes, and harps of all sizes, from