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Lot Essay
According to Piamenta (in Westenholtz, ed., Sounds of Ancient Music, p. 54), "the instrument's sound was produced not by striking (as in the modern xylophone) but by rubbing the tubes with either a metal or wooden rod."
Related examples have been found in Phoenician and South Italian contexts dating from the 8th-6th centuries B.C. For an ivory pyxis from Nimrud showing a frieze of musicians, including two each playing an idiophone, see no. 121 in Curtis and Reade, eds., Art and Empire, Treasures from Assyria in The British Museum. A similar instrument appears on Apulian red-figured pottery of the 4th century B.C., (see Fredriksen, "Archaeology in South Italy and Sicily, 1973-1976," in Archeological Reports 23).
Related examples have been found in Phoenician and South Italian contexts dating from the 8th-6th centuries B.C. For an ivory pyxis from Nimrud showing a frieze of musicians, including two each playing an idiophone, see no. 121 in Curtis and Reade, eds., Art and Empire, Treasures from Assyria in The British Museum. A similar instrument appears on Apulian red-figured pottery of the 4th century B.C., (see Fredriksen, "Archaeology in South Italy and Sicily, 1973-1976," in Archeological Reports 23).