The Egyptian trumpets that lay silent for over 3,000 years

By Sheena McKenzie, CNN

(CNN) — On an April evening in 1939, an estimated 150 million listeners from across the globe tuned in to a remarkable BBC radio broadcast that even now evokes wonder.

“The trumpets of the pharaoh Tutankhamun!” booms the BBC announcer. A short intake of air and then — the blare of a trumpet which for more than 3,000 years had lain silent inside the boy-king’s tomb. For the next minute, the military-like fanfare travels from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, out across the airwaves of the world.

This “chilling and exciting” recording is “an auditory and sensory bridge between the time of Tutankhamun and now,” said Salima Ikram, professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo. And for the British army bandsman, James Tappern, who blew into the oldest surviving metal trumpets in existence, “the intimacy is extraordinary.”

The instrument was one of two small, ornate trumpets — one silver, the other thought to be bronze or copper — found among Tutankhamun’s treasures over a decade and a half earlier. Originally, the trumpets might “have been played in procession as the king came through,” said Ikram, adding that ancient Egyptian art depict trumpets being used in military, religious and ceremonial events.

The trumpets required skilled metal workers capable of making both a beautiful and working musical instrument. The fluted ends feature intricate imagery — floral motifs and Egyptian gods. And the fact there were two – one brassy like the sun, the other silver like the moon — could be seen as “encompassing the 12 hours of the day, and 12 hours of the night, which is all part of Tutankhamun’s journey from this world to the next,” said Ikram.

Today, the BBC broadcast gives the uncanny sense of travelling doubly through time — to the people gathered around their radios in the 1930s, who are themselves hearing the sound of ancient Egypt.

But the recording itself — which happened in eerie circumstances and nearly destroyed one of the trumpets — also underlines how our handling of antiquities has evolved dramatically in the intervening decades.

A haunting recording

The radio broadcast very nearly didn’t happen. During rehearsals, a modern mouthpiece was placed on the end of the silver trumpet to play it. When the trumpeter blew, the instrument shattered. Archaeologist Alfred Lucas, who was part of Howard Carter’s team which excavated the tomb and present at the time, was reportedly hospitalized from the shock of it.

Not that it put them off another attempt with the mended instrument. Shortly before the broadcast, the power went out in the museum – and the session was played by candlelight. Then a few months after the trumpets were blown, World War II broke out. For some, it was all confirmation of the fabled Tutankhamun curse — something Ikram was quick to dismiss.

Due to their fragility, the trumpets will now almost certainly never be played again. “In an ideal world, they would have made a replica, and then tried that,” said Ikram. “Of course, it’s never the same as using the original,” she added. “But I think doing that is quite dangerous and taught us a lesson.”

A grand new home

Today, the trumpets have a new home in the billion-dollar Grand Egyptian Museum, which opened in November. Inside the state-of-art facility, located within view of the Pyramids of Giza, the trumpets and their original wooden cores are housed in climate-controlled displays.

The ornate cores protected the shape of the metal. But it also means the display must be just the right temperature for preserving both metal and wood, which is an organic material, explained Jasmien Abdalraouf, archaeologist and curator at the museum’s Tutankhamun exhibit. That’s between 18 and 22 degrees Celsius (64 to 71 degrees Fahrenheit), she added.

Security here is also paramount – one of the trumpets was stolen from its previous home in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo during the 2011 uprising. It was found some weeks later, along with other stolen relics, in a bag at a Cairo Metro station. The new museum features not just security for the building – but a complex system for each display, said Abdalraouf.

Precious metal

Was the 1939 recording worth the risk? In our excitement to have the past up close and personal, it’s a risk people appear willing to take, said Christine Finn, journalist and archeologist who has reported on the trumpets and authored the book, “Artifacts: An Archaeologist’s Year in Silicon Valley.”

Finn drew parallels with the recent loan of the nearly 1,000-year-old Bayeux tapestry from France to the British Museum. The move drew opposition from the French art world over fears it could damage the 11th century embroidery. Even renowned British artist David Hockney felt the plan too dangerous, calling it “madness” before he died in June.

It’s part of a deeper question about the role of museums in an era when famous artifacts can be viewed online. Things like trumpets cracking, lights failing, and the BBC presenter’s original record of the broadcast breaking – all remind us of the fragility of relics, said Finn. “If everything is too pristine and glossy, and, dare I say, AI generated, then it rather misses the point.”

That said, the power of technology also means the sound of the trumpets — if not the instruments themselves — may live on indefinitely.

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