Image Details

From The Birth of Greek Art

Four marching musicians entertain unseen guests at a banquet in an eighth-century B.C. relief from Karatepe, Turkey. The scene shows, from left to right, four instruments: a small, handheld drum, or tambour, two types of lyre and a flute. If ancient orchestras commonly included two types of lyre, this might account for the pesanterin and qayteros in Nebuchadnezzar’s orchestra. The tambour may be related to the biblical sumponeya.