Musical Instruments Timeline

Timeline

c. 1700 BCE
The earliest written hint to a hand-drum: the Jewish tof played by Moses’s sister, Miriam, in Exodus.
c. 750 BCE
The earliest depiction of the tympanon on a bronze disc found in the Idaean Cave in Crete.
c. 575 BCE
Scythian Philosopher Anacharsis plays the tympanon in his celebration of the Eleusinian Mysteries, as accounted by Herodotus.
c. 525 BCE
The tympanon first appears on Greek pottery.
c. 499 BCE - c. 456 BCE
Aeschylus in The Edonians tells of the bull-roaring sound of the tympanon in the rites of the moon goddess, Kotys.
c. 405 BCE
Euripides in The Bacchai has Dionysos tell us how the tympanon was invented by him and his Mother Goddess, Rhea.
c. 205 BCE
The tympanon is adopted by the Romans together with the cult of Magna Mater.