30th century trumpets sound wonderfull

After 3000 years or more, the trumpets of king Tutankhamen were played and broadcasted by BBC in 1939.

The BBC presented a made-up piece with a "cavalry tune" in between on 3,000-year-old trumpets said to have been found at Tutankhamen's Tomb.

The trumpets were discovered in 1922 by Haward Carter in the tomb of King Tut in the Valley of Kings, Luxor Egypt.

In the silver trumpet, Tut his name was included in the delicate design. It was found in the burial chamber itself, while the bronze or copper horn only made it as far as the antechamber.

The trumpets from Tut’s tomb are the oldest trumpets anywhere in the world.

A british army trumpeter James Tappern played on King Tut s trumpets on April 16, 1939. The performance was recorded using a BBC studio microphone.

James Tappern used a modern mouthpiece into the 3,500-year-old instruments, and played improvised a false sounding cavalry charge song. Some 150 million people listened to the broadcast and were shocked.

Without the use of a modern world mouthpiece, those ancient trumpets are only capable of playing “one good note” according to Percival Robson Kirby, who had attempted an earlier trumpet performance while visiting Cairo in 1933.

Kirby disapproved the BBC broadcast, which presented a misleading rendition of ancient Egyptian trumpet music.

Kirby dicovered a wooden insert in the Tut tomb trumpet, which others have guessed was a kind of mute perhaps used in the manner of Miles Davis or Louis Armstrong to play the “good note.”

However Kirby, surmised that the insert was merely used to protect the trumpet, and especially prevent denting. In his opinion King Tut was happy with just one good tone.

Ancient Egyptians believed that the trumpets possessed magical properties.

After the bronze/copper trumpets were stolen during the Egyptian riots of 2011, museum curator Hala Hassan warned that “whenever someone blows into it a war occurs.”

Just a week before the Arab Spring rioting, a member of the museum staff had done just that, and soon there was violence in the streets. The same thing had happened before the 1967 Six-Day War and the 1991 Gulf War.

The BBC broadcast of 1939 took place just five months before the outbreak of WW II. Tooting on Tut’s horn, may in 1941, have led to Pearl Harbor and tooting many years later could have caused 09 11.

These are lessons, they help understand why an Egyptian Pharaoh required a trumpet in his tomb.