We may then sum up, following Weiss. The ancient versions render kinnér by kithara: the kithara was of Asiatic origin, was introduced by Semites into Egypt, and was in common use in Western Asia; and the representations on Jewish coins of the 2nd cent. before Christ clearly resemble the Greek kithara. The view is therefore very credible, that we should regard the ancient Heb. kinnor as a simple and primitive form of the kithara.
(6) The nebel. Tf we suppose the kinndr to have been a /yre, then it almost necessarily follows that the nebel was a harp. We can hardly imagine this instrument, so familiar to all early nations, to have been absent from the Jewish orchestra. Many other suggestions have been made, mostly based on the etymological meaning of the word ($33 “ἃ skin or bottle’). It has been identified with the bagpipe, with some sort of wind instrument, and with the lute, guitar, or mandoline; but none of these suppositions is satisfactory. The lute was held to be supported by reference to the Egyptian nfr, which denotes a lute with two or three strings and a very long neck; but the identification of n/Z with nfr is now abandoned, and the lute, as has been said, is not known to have been a popular Semitic instrument. A somewhat more likely supposition is that the nebe? was a kind of duleimer. This instrument occurs in a monument of the time of Assurbanipal (B.C. 668-626), on which is depicted an Assyrian orchestra of 11 performers. Of these, 7 are harpists, 2 flantists, one a drummer, and one a dulcimer player. This dulcimer is said by some to have been the nede/, the chief reason being that its Arabic name, santir, is a corruption of the Greek psalterion, which in turn is the equivalent of the Heb. nadlion or nebel. But psalterion was ἃ
400
MUSIC
MUSIC
general name for several kinds of instruments, | cian knelt, and the frame rested on his shoulder.
and was CapeRalLy applied to every stringed in- strument which was played upon with the fingers
ASSYRIAN DULCIMER. (c. B.c. 640).
of both hands, instead of by one hand and a plectrum held in the other. Therefore the Greek name fora harp was also psalterion. The Greek
PRIEST PLAYING HARP, (Tomb of Ramses m11.).
translation does not, therefore, decide in favour of the dulcimer, and the very fact that psalterion was a generic term would make it particular] appropriate as a designation of the harp, which varied so much in size and shape. That a corrup- tion or derivative should be applied to a stringed instrument of another kind is quite intelligible. The description of the nabla by Ovid (Ars. Am. iii. 327), the statement by Josephus (Ant. vil. xii. 3) that the nebel had 12 strings and was played with- out plectrum, and, as we shall see, the distinction drawn by the early Fathers between instruments with a sound-body below and those having a resonance-board above the strings, all point to the harp.
The Egyptian monuments present us with a great variety of harps. The earliest form shown is very primitive ; it isin the shape of an archer’s bow, possesses no sound-box, and has but a limited number of strings. As early as the 5th Dynasty,
As time advanced, harps were still further developed. The lower part of the frame was con- verted into a sound-body, which was broadened at the base so that it could rest on the ground unsupported by the player. Some harps were placed on a stool, or raised upon a stand or limb attached to the lower part. The players of these large instruments stood during the performance. While we cannot deny the possibility or even the probability of the Hebrews having been familiar with such harps, they were not the common or papalee nebels, which were easily portable.
Now, smaller portable harps did exist in Egypt in a great variety of forms. One is bow-shaped with a transverse string-holder ; a second has a quadrangular flat-shaped sound-box pierced with holes, while the strings are stretched En astring- holder resting on the sounding-board to a post rising at right angles from one end of the latter ; and a third, ornamented with a bird’s head, is quite triangular, the upright post being at once string-holder and sound-box. Another instrument is very common in Upper Egypt. It resembles a mandoline, with the neck bending abruptly upwards from the sound-body ; the strings, which are from three to five in number, are not attached to the body of the instrument itself, but to a string- holder attached to its centre. At the upper end of the neck are pins for stretching and tuning the strings.
We might have regarded one or other of these smaller harps as furnishing the model of the nebel
SS SS
EGYPTIAN HARPS,
but for one fact. They all have the sound-hox at their base. But we have already come to thie conclusion that the inndr had its resonance-body beneath ; and if we are to follow the description given by the Fathers (Augustine on Ps 42, Jerome
ASSYRIAN HARP,
however, improvements began to be effected ; the | on Ps 149°, Isidore Efym. 11. xxii. 2), who dis- upper part, to which the strings were affixed with | tinguished between instruments with the sound- pegs, was broadened and developed into a sound- | body beneath and those possessing it above, we