Ensemble De Organographia - Music of the Ancient Sumerians, Egyptians and Greeks

The instruments used here are either original (i.e., the pair of krotala cymbals) or copies of ancient instruments, built mainly by the performers, patterned after surviving museum originals and iconographical representations. The instruments are listed below with their descriptions.

Asymmetrical Lyre: nine-string box lyre patterned after a representation on an ivory panel from Megiddo, c. 1300 B.C., a type used throughout Egypt and Mesopotamia.

Aulos: reed pipe, with cylindrical bore and double reed, most often depicted as a pair of pipes played by a single musician. Contrary to a popularly held belief, the Greek aulos had a type of double reed, as described by Theophrastus (not single). One pipe played alone was sometimes called monaulos. Aristoxenus gives five sizes: parthenioi (maid en type), paidikoi (boy type), kitharisterioi (kithara-playing type), teleioi (complete), and hyperteleioi (extra complete), corresponding roughly to soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, and bass. Unfortunately, the word "aulos" is often mistranslated as "flute".

Bagpipe: bagpipe with 2 cylindrical bore pipes, known from 1st c. B.C. if not earlier.

Barrel drum: two-headed drum in barrel form.

Bell: terracotta and bronze bells after extant specimens.

Clappers: a pair of carved wooden blades struck against one another.

Conch: conch shell blown like a trumpet through an opening made in the top.

Double reed pipes: a thin pair of unattached aulos-like metal pipes sounded by double reeds after specimens found at Ur.

Double idioglottic reed pipes: a pair of attached reed pipes sounded by idioglottic single reeds (like the drone reeds of some bagpipes). A copy of an ancient Egyptian specimen similar to the modern zummara.

Echeia: bowls of earthenware or some other material made in a variety of sizes in order to produce an assortment of pitches when struck.

Frame Drum: a shallow drum with a skin head.

Goblet drum: a drum with a body of baked clay in goblet form with a skin head on the wide end.

Harp: angle harp after an Egyptian original now in the Louvre.

Hourglass drum: wooden shell in hourglass form with skin heads on both ends.

Kithara: ornate wooden lyre of professional Greek musicians. It was built from several shaped and hollowed out pieces of wood, with a deeply carved sound box and intricately carved arms. The arms support the crossbar to which the gut strings are attached.

Krotala: plain wooden clappers or clappers with small cymbals attached. The krotala cymbals used here are period specimens found at Alexandria, dating from c. 1st century B.C.

Kroupeza: a shoe with a clapper or krotala attached.

Kymbala: Greek cymbals with a bell-like sound.

Long-necked lute: three-string lute after an extant original found in the tomb of Harmosi at Thebes. Similar to the Greek pandoura and modern Turkish saz.

Lyra: Greek lyre, originally made from a tortoise shell and animal horns. Sometimes the shell was imitated in wood.

Menat: Egyptian string of faience beads attached to a handle.

Pandoura: long-necked Greek lute with three to five plucked strings.

Psithyra: rattle shaped like a ladder made of metal with wooden rungs which were surrounded by coils of wire or metal rings.

Sistrum: rattle in hoop or stirrup form with a handle, pierced by loose metal rods.

Syrinx monokalamos: vertical flute resembling a single tube from a syrinx (panpipes) pierced with fingerholes.

Three-holed vertical flute: end-blown flute after an extant specimen, similar to the modern Egyptian nay.

Timbrel: frame drum with jingles or small cymbals.

Trichordon: small lute or pandoura with three strings.

Trumpet: short trumpet of copper, bronze, silver and/or gold; here patterned after the silver trumpet from the tomb of Tutankhamun.

Two-holed whistle: baked clay whistle with two fingerholes after an original found at Birs Nimrud, formerly in the Museum of the Royal Asiatic Society.