Tutankhamun’s trumpets

Overview

Tutankhamun’s trumpets are the pair of trumpets recovered from the burial chamber of the Eighteenth-Dynasty pharaoh Tutankhamun (reign c. 1332-1323 BCE). One trumpet is sterling silver; the other is bronze (or possibly copper — the metal has not been definitively analysed). They are considered the oldest operational trumpets in the world and the only ancient Egyptian trumpets known to survive.

The Egyptian Museum in Cairo holds the trumpets. Both have wooden internal cores (used to support the trumpets when they were placed in the tomb and possibly for storage during life) and both have been played in modern times — most famously in a 1939 BBC live broadcast.

Origin & History

The trumpets were found in 1922 by Howard Carter, the British Egyptologist, during the excavation of Tutankhamun’s tomb (KV62) in the Valley of the Kings. The bronze trumpet was discovered in the tomb’s antechamber inside a sizeable chest containing military objects and walking sticks alike. The silver trumpet was found subsequently in the burial chamber itself, near the body of the king.

Each instrument carries fine engraving, including engraved images of the deities Ra-Horakhty (the falcon-headed sun god), Ptah (the patron of craftsmen and the dead), and Amun (the chief god of New Kingdom Egypt). The silver trumpet’s bell carries an additional engraving of a stylised lotus flower (whorl of sepals and calices) and the king’s praenomen and nomen. The decorative scheme links the trumpets directly to the New Kingdom royal cult and to the king’s military and ceremonial role.

Trumpets in ancient Egypt are documented in tomb paintings and reliefs as instruments used by army contingents — not as melodic musical instruments but as signal devices in battle and ceremony. The Tutankhamun pair are the only physical examples of this widely-depicted instrument that have survived, and the only known ancient Egyptian musical instruments that can still be played.

Construction & Materials

The silver trumpet measures approximately 58 cm long; the bronze trumpet approximately 50 cm long. Both have the same general design: a narrow conical tube of beaten metal flaring to a small bell at the end, with a small mouthpiece end shaped to fit the lips. There are no valves and no slide — these are natural trumpets that produce only the harmonic series of their fundamental pitch.

The harmonic series available on the silver trumpet centres on a fundamental of approximately C; on the bronze trumpet on approximately D. Each trumpet can produce two or three usable pitches in the working register of a player familiar with natural-trumpet technique.

Both trumpets contain wooden inner cores — internal supports that keep the metal from collapsing when the trumpets are stored or transported. Modern attempts to play the instruments require the cores to be removed, which is itself a delicate operation given the fragility of the surviving metal.

How They Were Played

Egyptian tomb paintings show trumpeters playing their instruments while standing or marching, with the trumpet held horizontally or angled slightly downward. The mouthpiece was small enough to be played by buzzing the lips against the rim, in essentially the same fundamental way as a modern brass instrument. The repertoire was almost certainly limited to short signal calls — military commands, ceremonial fanfares, perhaps temple-ritual punctuation — rather than melodic music in the modern sense.

In 1939 the Egyptian Museum agreed to a controlled performance of both trumpets by the British military bandsman James Tappern, recorded and broadcast live by the BBC on Easter Sunday 1939 to an estimated worldwide audience of 150 million listeners. The performance was conducted on Egyptian state radio with a backup electric light system in the Cairo studio (the trumpets were said to have caused a power failure during rehearsal — a detail that may be apocryphal but became part of the instruments’ modern reputation). A second performance was recorded in 1941. The instruments have been played only a handful of additional times since.

Cultural Significance

The Tutankhamun trumpets are the most famous individual ancient musical instruments outside the Royal Cemetery at Ur lyres. Their fame combines the broader Tutankhamun celebrity (the 1922 tomb discovery was the most-publicised archaeological event of the 20th century) with the intrinsic interest of the trumpets themselves as the only surviving operational ancient Egyptian musical instruments.

A persistent modern legend holds that playing the trumpets foretells war — based on the coincidence that the 1939 BBC broadcast preceded by months the outbreak of the Second World War, and that the 1941 recording preceded the Egyptian campaign. The legend is folkloric rather than historical, but has become part of the instruments’ modern aura and is one reason the Egyptian Museum has restricted further performances.

The trumpets were among the artefacts reportedly looted from the Egyptian Museum during the political instability of 2011, but were subsequently recovered. They are now back in the museum’s collection and are exhibited in protected display.

Notable Examples & Recordings

• The 1939 BBC Easter Sunday broadcast is the most famous recording, surviving in the BBC sound archives.
• The 1941 follow-up recording is also archived.
• Comparable surviving ancient brass-family instruments include the Bronze Age Irish dord, the Scandinavian lurer, and the Etruscan lituus, all of which were signalling instruments rather than melodic ones.

Related Instruments

• Trumpet — the modern descendant of the ancient trumpet family.
• Bronze Age Irish dord — comparable ancient European bronze signalling horn.
• Lur — the Scandinavian Bronze Age cast-bronze signalling horn.
• Bull-headed lyre of Ur — a comparably significant museum-grade ancient string instrument.
• Conch — another ancient signalling instrument with multi-cultural distribution.
• Shofar — the Hebrew ram’s-horn signalling instrument with continuous use to the present day.
• Cornu — the Roman G-shaped military signalling horn.

Where to Hear It

The trumpets themselves are on permanent display at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo (with planned eventual transfer to the Grand Egyptian Museum at Giza). The 1939 BBC broadcast survives in the BBC sound archive and is widely available online.

• Wikipedia: Tutankhamun’s trumpets
• Wikidata: Tutankhamun’s trumpets (Q2539852)
• DBpedia: Tutankhamun’s trumpets
• Egyptian Museum Cairo

Learning Resources

The trumpets are not learnable instruments in any practical modern sense — they are unique surviving museum objects. Scholarly study draws on Howard Carter’s The Tomb of Tut-Ankh-Amen (three volumes, 1923-1933), the BBC’s published history of the 1939 broadcast, the Egyptian Museum’s published catalogues, and the broader ancient-Egyptian-music scholarship of Hans Hickmann (the central 20th-century scholar of Egyptian instruments) and others.

Frequently Asked Questions

How old are the trumpets?
Approximately 3,300 years old, dating from the reign of Tutankhamun (c. 1332-1323 BCE).

Are they really the oldest playable trumpets?
Yes — they are the only known surviving ancient Egyptian trumpets and the oldest brass-family instruments anywhere in the world that have been played in modern times.

What do they sound like?
The 1939 BBC broadcast is the central available recording. Both trumpets produce a thin, slightly nasal, distinctly metallic tone — narrower in dynamic range than a modern trumpet but recognisably a trumpet. The harmonic-series limitation means each instrument can produce only two or three pitches.

Why is it bad luck to play them?
The legend grew from the coincidence that the 1939 BBC broadcast preceded the outbreak of the Second World War by months and the 1941 broadcast preceded the Egyptian theatre of the war. There is no documented ancient Egyptian belief connecting the instruments to warfare beyond their general military signalling role, but the modern legend has acquired its own life.

Where can I see them?
At the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, with eventual transfer planned to the Grand Egyptian Museum at Giza. They are exhibited in protected display alongside other artefacts from the Tutankhamun tomb.