RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Sacred Music
except that the frame grows wider above. It is likewise carried under the left arm, and is played with both hands. Other designs duly indicate finer forms, just as in case of the Egyptian drawings, and, in particular, the curved frame, with more or less fantastic turns. The number of strings varies; as from five to six or eight strings. From this harmony between the Egyptian and Assyrian delineations, both in the simpler and in the more elaborate forms, a corresponding diversity of forms may be assumed for the Israelitish kinnor. Neither is it anything striking and improbable if the imprints on coins exhibit a frame which in the Grecian period was fashioned according to Greek taste; corresponding now rather to the Grecian lyre, now rather to the cithara. The early Hebrew instruments, indeed, may have had simpler forms; in primitive times they probably resembled the simple Egyptian and Assyrian instruments.
In the case of the nebhel, it appears from the Church Fathers, who style this instrument psalterium, that the sounding-board was furnished by a hollow wooden body, at the upper end, as though roofing the strings; the flat surface downward, the convex arching above. The chief 2. The Harp, point is, that in this instrument the strings are not stretched athwart the sounding-board, but stand perpendicular, or else at an acute angle to the resonant surface, and run thence as uprights to their supporting arm at the other end. This arrangement applies to instruments of the harp class. The Egyptian harps, both the stationary upright and the portable, have the sounding-board below; the Babylonian and Assyrian designs exhibit it above, and the Church Fathers' account answers to the latter models. The use of the harp in Asia and Egypt goes back to primitive antiquity. The most ancient of all representations of stringed instruments, a stone from Telloh in Babylonia (c. 3000 B.C.), shows an upright stationary instrument with a box-like sounding-board, upon which rises a rude framework, while the strings, two in number, run fairly vertically from the sounding-board to the upper cross-beam. The whole instrument is rather large, about three-quarters of a man's stature, and has rough embellishments. The later Babylonian harp, carried upright, is more wieldy, as is also the similarly carried Assyrian harp. Both distinctly exhibit the characteristic features of all harps: the strings run unobstructedly from beam to beam, the frame sustaining them is not closed on all four sides, as in case of the lyre, but open on one side, and the instrument is played in a vertical position. Yet the Assyrian designs also reveal a recumbent harp ; and here, too, the strings are superposed, not side by side, but stretched like tendons between two pieces of wood that form an angle. It is especially interesting to note how, from the simple beam of the Babylonian harp, that holds the strings, the Assyrian harp has developed a broad sounding apparatus, which roofs the strings in the manner of a shield. The Egyptian harp shows a great diversity of forms. The ancient monarchy has only the medium-sized harp with six or seven strings, played in a sitting or kneeling position,
and the large harp, with twenty strings or upward, and as tall as a man, or still taller; in playing this harp, the player stood. All these harps distinctly show the instrument's original form; a great bow, whose harp-strings take the place of bowstrings. In this case, again, and in the course of development, the simple arching beam has expanded into a sounding-board, occasionally assuming somewhat the fashion of a wooden chest. In contrast, however, with the Assyrian harp, this Egyptian sounding apparatus is placed below, and serves at the same time as the harp's base of support. The pegs for tightening or tuning the strings are above. In the new monarchy appear also the various portable small harps, both with and without a sounding-board; now in the form of a strongly curved bow, again, angular like the Assyrian harps. They are borne before the breast, though there is also a kind that is carried on the shoulder, something between lute and harp. The manifold designs of harps of all sorts attest that this instrument was in great favor with the ancient Egyptians.
Two stringed instruments besides those already mentioned were probably not unknown to the Israelites: the lute and the psaltery. The lute is repeatedly understood within
3. Other the Hebrew term nebhel. For this Stringed In- the warrant rests partly upon the
struments. bulging form which nebhel is supposed to indicate; since the term elsewhere denotes the leathern bottle in which wine was preserved. But again, nebhel is often compared with the Egyptian name for lute, and the transfer of terms then readily suggests that of the objects they signify. Be this as it may, the lute, at all events , being an Egyptian instrument originally, was there highly favored. Nevertheless it migrated even quite early to Asia, and thus into Assyria, and in essentially the same form as in Egypt — an elongated, yet more or less bulging, hollow body for sounding-board, with a decidedly long support, or handle, for holding the few strings, only one to three in number and in parallel arrangement. The player holds the body of the instrument with his upper right arm. With the right hand, the strings are set swaying just above the hollow body; the left hand, quite agreeably to our custom with violins, grasps round about the upper end of the neck, and gives different lengths to the vibrating strings by downward pressure. This instrument was hardly unknown to the Israelites. And since apart from kinnor and nebhel there are no designations for a third stringed instrument, it must be assumed that the lute was comprised under one of these terms, hence probably under the name nebhel. The dulcimer is an Assyrian instrument, which the Egyptians do not appear to have possessed. According to the representations, it is played as the player walks along. It is a horizontal instrument, with a low, slightly concave box by way of sounding-board. Over this, and in parallel arrangement, ten strings are stretched, with their ends dependent across their supporting staff at the forward side. The player carries the instrument horizontally before him, with a band or belt attached to his body. With the right hand he
Sacred Music