Historians have noted that Roman coins depict Nero playing the bagpipe, not the fiddle. The Roman bagpipes or “tibia utricularis” represented a major innovation, the addition of the reservoir. These early pipes used materials with a natural bore (hollow reeds, corn stalks, bamboos, etc.) Musical history dictates that pipers have to take a back seat to percussion instruments in this case. These early pipes or “Pan” pipes, without the bag or reservoir, were probably the second musical instrument to evolve. Biblical mention is made of the bagpipe in Genesis and in the third Chapter of Daniel where the “symphonia” in Nebuchadnezzar’s band is believed to have been a bagpipe. This sculptured bagpipe has been dated to 1,000 B.C. The “Oxford History of Music” makes mention of the first documented bagpipe being found on a Hittite slab at Eyuk. The bagpipe is an instrument of great antiquity, an instrument which has its origins in the Middle East and traveled through and evolved in Europe alongside the diffusion of early civilization. Scotland’s national instrument, the Bagpipe or in Gaelic “piob-mhor” (the great pipe) is not, contrary to popular belief, an instrument which has its origins in and has diffused from Scotland. History of Bagpipes The Evolution of the Great Highland Bagpipe by Robert Worrall
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