TIL In 1939, the BBC got special permission to record the sounds of two trumpets found in the tomb of Tutankhamun.
TIL In 1939, the BBC got special permission to record the sounds of two trumpets found in the tomb of Tutankhamun.
"After a silence of 3000 years..."
Among the remarkable treasures found in Tutankhamun's tomb were two ornate trumpets, one made of silver and the other of bronze. In 1939, BBC radio broadcast the trumpets' music to 150 million people listening in world wide, broadcast to "The Four Corners Of The World". During the looting of the Cairo Museum in 2011, one of the trumpets had been stolen and has since been recovered.
How cool would it be to be that musician? I thought it was cool when I got to play a 120 year old coronet, those things are 3000 years old man.
It’s amazing that the sound hasn’t changed much to today’s modern horns. Absolutely awesome.
It's a big metal tube you make a fart noise into... How could you mess with perfection?
It probably helps that it was modern horn players playing a fanfare that sounded more or less "right" to them, but ultimately, as has been said elsewhere, it's a metal tube you make a fart noise into.
I'll use this to drop a link to one of my favorite podcasts, which is where I first learned about these horns. The host is a Kiwi who either just defended his PhD or is about to, so he's an actual Egyptologist. He's also a dork and a gamer.