With this we will leave Egyptian music, simply calling attention
to the works of Resellini, Lepsius, Wilkinson, and Petri,
which contain copies of mural paintings and temple and tomb
sculptures relating to music. For instance, pages 103, 106, and
111 of Lepsius's third book, "Die Denkmäler aus Aegypten und
Aethiopen," will be found very interesting, particularly page
106, which shows some of the rooms of the palace of Amenotep
IV, of the eighteenth dynasty (about 1500 or 1600 B.C.),
in which dancing and music is being taught. In the same work,
second book, on pages 52 and 53, are pictures taken from a tomb
near Gizeh, showing harp and flute players and singers. The
position of the hands of the singers--they hold them behind
their ears--is a manner of illustrating the act of hearing,
and arises from the hieroglyphic _double_ way of putting things;
for instance, in writing hieroglyphics the word is often first
spelled out, then comes another sign for the pronunciation,
then sometimes even two other signs to emphasize its meaning.

The music of the Assyrians may be summed up very briefly. All
that can be gathered from the bas-relief sculptures is that
shrill tones and acute pitch must have characterized their
music. As Rowbotham says, alluding to the Sardanapalus wall
sculpture now in the British Museum in London, "What can one
think of the musical delicacy of a nation the King of which,
dining alone with his queen, chooses to be regaled with the
sounds of a lyre and a big drum close at his elbow?" The
instruments represented in these bas-reliefs, aside from the
drum, are high-pitched: flutes, pipes, trumpets, cymbals, and
the smaller stringed instruments. These were all portable,