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strings, a drawing of one of which (Fig. XI) we will now present from Dr. Jahn's Archæology. It is taken from Analibus Syria, sports pictured on two coins of the Makkabees. Tab. xviii. Nor. XIX, and of Jahn's V. Kupfertafel Nro. VI.

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suppose them to belong to that class of instruments.

Fig. XIII is a harp with sixteen strings found at Herculaneum, which has laid buried beneath the ruins since A. D. 79.

We will close our illustrations of this class of stringed instruments by presenting the two following grand Egyptian Harps (Fig. XIV) highly ornamented. One has ten and the other twenty-one strings.

II. The Tebouni, or stringed instruments of the second class, according to Villoteau, are in the form of the lyre. Says he, "we have discovered

Fig. XIII

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Ancient Harp from the ruins of Herculaneum.

instruments of this kind in but two places in the temple of Denderah." The first, he informs us, had four strings and the second three, and that they resembled the con

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stellation of the same name. He remarks that it is the instrument which Diodorus Siculus described in his Universal History, and Homer in his hymn to Mercury, and that it is now common in Africa and called Kussir.

Diodorus Siculus makes Hermes (one of the councillors of Osiris in Egypt), the inventor of the Lyre, furnishing it with three strings which produce three sounds, the grave, mean and acute, representing the seasons. The grave sound indicated winter, the mean, spring, and the acute, summer. It is a well authenticated fact, that not only the Egyptians, but the ancient Greeks divided their year into no more than three seasons, spring, summer, and winter, which, according to Hesiod, were called ópai, horai, hours.

The same instrument is found pictured on maps and globes of the heavens. It has been found copiously sculptured on the monuments of Greece. Passow informs us that it had a deeper sounding board or chest than the cithara, and that, according to Lucian, horns proceeded out of it as out of a goat's skull.

What Villoteau says upon the subject is correct, though not new. Many have testified to the same facts before him. Numerous traditions preserved in fable, indicate that this was one of the earliest instruments of Egypt, though not so much used as in Greece. It is undoubtedly very ancient, and perhaps was

invented in Babylon or possibly in India. A very ancient painting at Beni Hassan in Egypt represents the arrival of some foreigners in that country who are supposed to have been Joseph's brethren. The following engraving (Fig. XV) exhibits

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the variety of costume of the individuals indicated. No. 1 represents a person holding in his hands a lyre with four strings. From the supposed ancient character of the person holding the lyre, some suppose that instrument to have been more ancient than the

Fig. XVI.

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harp; but it is not certain that these individuals were Joseph's brethren, nor that they were persons as ancient as they. Again, future discoveries may reveal the fact that the harp was as anciently used, and until we have more substantial evidence to the contrary, we incline to the opinion that the harp was the most ancient stringed instrument, and that it represents the Hebrew kinnor. The five following forms of the lyre are taken from the ruins in Egypt, viz.: No's 1, 2 and 3 of Fig. XVI, and No's 1 and 2 of Fig. XVII.

III. The third class of Tebouni had the form of the Guitar. This instrument resembled the Turkish Tambura. Niebuhr asserts that it was called by the Greeks at Kahi

Ancient Egyptian Lyres.

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ra (Cairo), Beglama and Tambura. The first is probably the Grecian, and the last the Arabian general term indicating Gre

cian stringed instruments.

Villoteau writes the word

Fig. XVII.

tombour or tunbour, and informs us that it was much more rare and less important than those mentioned above. "We have seen none of them" he remarks, "except in one place." This must have been a very ancient instrument. Burney found it sculptured on a broken pillar. Villoteau gives a specimen of it (Ant. Plane. Tom. ii. pl. 44, Thebes Hypogées No. 6), and describes it as a kind of mandoline or tanbour, as the instrument is now called in Turkey. It has been frequently seen by travelers sculptured or painted in grottos and other places in Egypt. Belzoni saw it in a mummy-pit which he opened at Gornou. The guitar is now common in Europe and this country, but is evidently of Spanish origin, it being a national instrument in that country, originally derived from the Moors, and through them from the Eastern nations. The Spaniards believe it to be as ancient as the harp or lyre.

Egyptian Lyres of the Leyden Collection.

Judging from the similarity between the kussir or tambura* and the harp and guitar, Mr. Taylor supposes the latter to be an improvement upon the lyre in the Egyptian shape, or hand form. Villoteau found hand shaped harps.

The guitar is seldom found sculptured on the monuments of Greece and Rome. It would seem that it has been common there from its close resemblance to the modern tambura. The fact that it was not considered as a dignified instrument, may account for its not appearing on the ruins of those proud

*The tambura is thought by Niebuhr and Pfeiffer to be the ancient Nebhel.

cities. The circumstance that the instrument was small and had but few strings, would indicate that it was not much used, as the Grecians and Romans did not appreciate the means it furnished of diminishing the number of strings. It was, undoubtedly, one of the most ancient musical instruments of Egypt. We here present in No. 1, of Fig. XVIII, a specimen of an Egyptian guitar; in No.

2, an ancient lute, and in No. 3, an Arabian tanbur. Numbers 1, 2 and 3 of Fig. XIX, represent Egyptian instruments of the lute class. Numbers 1, 2 and 3 of Fig. XX, represent Egyptian stringed instru

Fig. XVIII.

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2

Ancient Guitar, Lute and Arabian Tanbur.

ments of the guitar class with necks.*

The three classes of stringed instruments which we have briefly considered, were certainly very ancient. In the earliest ages of Egypt, instruments having the same general form as the harp,

lyre and guitar of mo

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dern times, were common, as the discoveries by various travelers in that country have clearly proved. The ancients had many other stringed instruments, but these three classes were the principal and contain the grand characteristics of the several classes at the head of which

they stand.
stand. Having

* It will be noticed that, in the groups of musical instruments which we have presented, we have, in several cases, followed the arrangement of Dr. Kitto, in his Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature.

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