A Popular History of the Art of Music

ple had the curious custom of depositing the mummies of their dead in tombs elaborately hewn out of the rock, or excavated in more yielding ground, in the hills which border the narrow valley of the Nile. Many of these excavations are of very considerable extent, reaching sometimes to the number of twenty rooms, and a linear distance of 600 feet from the entrance. The walls of these underground apartments are generally decorated in outline intaglio if the rock be hard; or in color if the walls be plaster, as is often the case. The subjects of the decorations embrace the entire range

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(2) Singer, seated; above him, hes t (b) "singer." (3, 4) Similar harper and singer, and same inscriptions (c, d). (5, 6) Singer and player on the direct flute or pipe

t not until the colossal work of Lepsius, issued under the auspices of the German government, were we i

ced state. The preceding cut shows one of these pictures. A musical group is represented, consisting of eight fig

re of the instrument without a "pillar" in front for resisting the pull of the strings, the tones must have been within the register of the male voice. The long flute played by the figure bearing the number 8 must also have p

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re not playing together; each harper plays before his own particular divinity. They occupy opposite sides in the same hall. The players, by their white robes and positions, evidently belonged to the highest order of the priesthood. The harp upon the right is represented by some writers as having had twenty-one strings; whereas the one upon the left has

borately colored and ornamented in gold and carving. The strings are shorter than those of Bruce's harpers, and the pitch was most likely within the treble

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ece and Rome. Several complete instruments have been found, which, although dating most likely from a period near the Christian era, are nevertheless sufficiently like the representations of ten centuries earlier to make them instructive as well as interesting. Figs. 4 and 5 are from Fétis. One of these lyres had originally six strings,

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. (2) Cithara. (3) Te-bouni, or banjo. (4) Double f

ore the Christian era. The harp in this case is of a different construction, and lighter than those in the former examples. It would seem to have been played while the player walked, for we find it in what seems to be moving processions. The lyre occupies here the post of honor next the harp

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ilkinson gives the dimensions of the most perfect one in the British Museum as forty-on

amore, the sounding board being a piece of parchment or rawhide. Some of these have two strings, others one; three are occasionally met with. The name of this instrument was te-bouni,

is, however, an ancient poem, called "The Song of the Harper" found in a papyrus dating from about 1500 B.C., which gives

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e. People of lower social grade had to be content with the temporary services of the street musicians, such as those represented in Fig. 6. They played and sang and danced for weddings and festivities, and undertook the ent

like a straight trombone. They had drums of many kinds, but as none of these instruments hav

nstruments a tenth part as stimulating as those of to-day. Moreover, we have here to deal with childlike intelligences, slow perceptions, and limited opportunities of comparison. Hence if these were all the discouraging elements there would be but little cause for wonder at the slow progress. But there was another element deeper and more powerful. The Egyptian mind was conservative to reaction. Plato in his "Laws," says: "Long ago the Egyptians appear to have recognized the very principle of which we are now speaking-that their young citizens must be habituated to the forms and strains of virtue. These they fixed, an

rger or less number of persons; and they distribute to pugilists and wrestlers, or they follow one another, or pair together by lot. Another mode of amusing them is by taking vessels of gold, and brass, and silver, and the like, and mingling them, or distributing them without mingling. As I was saying, they adapt to their amusement the numbers in common use, and in this way make more intelligible to their pupils the arrangements and movement