the small one carried in the hand, to the great harps, almost
seven feet high, with twenty-one strings; the never-failing
sistrum (a kind of rattle); kitharas, the ancestors of our
modern guitars; lutes and lyres, the very first in the line
of instruments culminating in the modern piano.

One hesitates to class the trumpets of the Egyptians in the
same category, for they were war instruments, the tone of
which was probably always forced, for Herodotus says that
they sounded like the braying of a donkey. The fact that the
cheeks of the trumpeter were reinforced with leather straps
would further indicate that the instruments were used only
for loud signalling.

According to the mural paintings and sculptures in the tombs
of the Egyptians, all these instruments were played together,
and accompanied the voice. It has long been maintained that
harmony was unknown to the ancients because of the mathematical
measurement of sounds. This might be plausible for strings,
but pipes could be cut to any size. The positions of the hands
of the executants on the harps and lyres, as well as the use
of short and long pipes, make it appear probable that something
of what we call harmony was known to the Egyptians.

We must also consider that their paintings and sculptures were
eminently symbolic. When one carves an explanation in hard
granite it is apt to be done in shorthand, as it were. Thus, a
tree meant a forest, a prisoner meant a whole army; therefore,
two sculptured harpists or flute players may stand for twenty
or two hundred. Athenaeus, who lived at the end of the second