Page:Pratt - The history of music (1907).djvu/53



sign, but later found with 1-5 strings, which were stopped against a fretted neck and sounded with a plectrum. Some of these, with the trigons—triangular, many-stringed harps—were perhaps of foreign origin. Viols and dulcimers seem to be lacking.

The wind instruments include both direct and transverse flutes, the former often double and sometimes blown by the nose, and all often having several finger-holes; oboes, often double, provided with finger-holes and sounded by reeds made of straw; trumpets of copper or bronze, chiefly used for military purposes; and perhaps the syrinx. [The fact that the principle of the organ was first applied in Egypt (in the Greek period) raises the query whether perhaps it may not have been known there earlier.]

Percussives are numerous, including clappers of bone or ivory, cymbals, sistra—metal frames with loose, rattling rods—tambourines, and at least two sorts of drums, besides several trivial jingles worn by dancers. Apparently there were no true bells or gongs.