The Lebedev Concerto for tuba (or bass trombone): clearing up some questions

by Douglas Yeo (September 10, 2026)

The first Concerto for Tuba and Piano by A. Lebedev is one of the most popular pieces in the repertoire for tuba and bass trombone players. I have performed it on many occasions, in recitals in the United States, Europe, and Asia, and I recorded it on my compact disc recording, Two of a Mind (link to Hickeys Music Center). Despite its popularity, Lebedev’s concerto raises a lot of questions, especially for bass trombone players.

Recently, my friend Brad Edwards—Professor of Trombone at Arizona State University—asked me some of those questions. With Brad’s questions fresh in my mind, I think this is a good time to do something I’ve thought about doing for many years—put together some of what I’ve learned about Lebedev’s concerto. Maybe what you read here will help answer some of your questions about the piece.

WHO WAS LEBEDEV?

First, we should straighten out the man’s name. In various publications and biographies, I have seen his name given as A. Lebedev, Alexej Lebedjew, Alexei Lebedev, and Alexey Konstantinovich Lebedev. The last one is a full, correct, English transliteration of his Russian name, and it is the way his name is spelled on the website of the Moscow Conservatory. That said, friends of mine who are native Russian speakers and readers have told me that Alexei is equally acceptable. “Lebedjew” has appeared on German editions of the concerto but that that’s a uniquely German rendering.

Alexey Lebedev (1924–1993) was a Russian tuba teacher, performer, and composer. A full biography of Lebedev appears on the website of the Moscow Conservatory (in Russian). In 2001, when I went looking for biographical information about Lebedev, the Conservatory had an English version of Lebedev’s biography but, unfortunately, that does not seem to be available today, and it was different than the version that appears in Russian on the Conservatory’s website today. Here is a printout (below) I made of the Conservatory’s English biography of Lebedev as it appeared on its website in 2001 (if you try the URL at the bottom of the bio’s page, you will see the link is broken today):

Biography of Alexey Lebedev as it appeared on the Moscow Conservatory website, December 5, 2001.

In 1998, the Tubists Universal Brotherhood Association, or T.U.B.A. (in 2000, the Association was renamed the International Tuba Euphonium Association, or ITEA) posthumously awarded Alexey Lebedev its prestigious lifetime achievement award. At that time, the T.U.B.A. Journal published a short article about him with some biographical information (ITEA Journal 26, no. 1, Fall 1998, 22), “T.U.B.A. Gives Lifetime Achievement Award to Lebedev.” Since then, the ITEA has published several other tributes to Lebedev, including “Alexei K. Lebedev: Tubist, Pedagogue, and Composer” (September 1, 2022), and “Alexei Konstantinovich Lebedev’s 100th Birthday Celebration“ (January 8, 2025). None of these articles have an author attribution. These articles are available to ITEA members and membership in ITEA is required for access. Join ITEA now for immediate access to these resources.

THE FIRST PUBLISHED EDITION (1950)

Among Lebedev’s many compositions are two tuba concertos and a Concert Allegro for tuba. They are among the most popular and frequently performed works ever written for tuba, and bass trombonists—who have always looked for excellent repertoire composed for other instruments that might lend themselves well to performance on bass trombone—also play them. It is one particular adaptation of Lebedev’s first Concerto for Tuba and Piano that has caused a great deal of confusion for bass trombonists, and that edition, by Allen Ostrander, is the primary focus of this discussion.

Lebedev composed his Concerto for Tuba and Piano in 1947 when he was a student at the Moscow Conservatory. It was first published in 1950 by the Soviet Union’s State Music Publishing House (Moscow and Leningrad, catalog 21014). It was only after the publication of Lebedev’s second tuba concerto that the first concerto was renamed Concerto No. 1, although that was not the only name the concerto has been known by, as discussed below. The 1950 first edition does not have measure numbers or rehearsal letters, and tempo markings are in both Italian and Russian, as seen on the first page of the piano score, below:

• • •

Title page and first page of Alexey Lebedev’s Concerto for Tuba and Piano (Moscow and Leningrad, 1950)

THE SECOND PUBLISHED EDITION (1954)

In 1954, the concerto was republished by Friedrich Hofmeister of Leipzig (catalog 30219) which, at the time, was in what was known as East Germany. In this edition measure numbers are given, Lebedev’s name is given a German transliteration (Lebedjew), and the Russian tempo markings have been removed:

• • •

Title page and first page of Alexey Lebedev’s Concerto for Tuba and Piano (Leipzig: Friedrich Hofmeister, 1954).

THE 1995 EDITION

Hofmeister issued a new engraving of the concerto in 1995 (catalog FH 2317), two years after Lebedev’s death. This publication states that this edition is “revidierte Fassung 1980” (revised version 1980) and it is therefore reasonable—but not certain—to assume that Lebedev approved the several changes that appear therein. In this publication, the title was changed to Konzert Nr. 1 für Tuba/Baßposaune und Orchester (Concerto No. 1 for Tuba or Bass Trombone and Orchestra). A new, four-measure introduction was added (based on the concerto’s second theme), and measure numbers and the years of Lebedev’s birth and death were also included.

Title page and first page of Alexey Lebedev’s Concerto No. 1 for Tuba/Bass Trombone and Piano (Leipzig: Friedrich Hofmeister, 1995).

The 1995 edition also includes a significant change in the piano accompaniment in measure 30 of this edition compared to the parallel place, measure 26, in the 1950 and 1954 editions. Look at and compare these measures:

Alexey Lebedev Concerto for Tuba (1950), measures 24–27.

Alexey Lebedev Concerto No. 1 for Tuba/Bass Trombone (1995), measures 27–29).

THE ORCHESTRA ACCOMPANIMENT (1999)

In 1999, Hofmeister issued an orchestra accompaniment for Concerto No. 1 (FH 8234). It is faithful in all musical respects to the 1995 edition, which was, again, positioned as “revised version 1980.” No arranger of this orchestra accompaniment is listed. Did Lebedev himself create this accompaniment? We don’t know. This orchestra accompaniment is available for rental on the Friedrich Hofmeister Musikverlag website. and the full score is available for purchase (the link is to Hickeys Music Center).

First page of the orchestra accompaniment for Alexey Lebedev Konzert No. 1 for Tuba/Bass Trombone and Orchestra(Leipzig: Friedrich Hofmeister, 1999).

ALLEN E. OSTRANDER AND THE LEBEDEV “CONCERTO IN ONE MOVEMENT”

In 1960, Edition Musicus (New York) published the Lebedev Concerto for Tuba in an edition by Allen E. Ostrander. Ostrander’s edition was the first publication of the concerto outside the Soviet bloc and it quickly became its most frequently performed version. Among many changes Ostrander made (discussed below), is this: he changed the title of the concerto to Concerto in One Movement.

First page of A. Lebedev Concerto in One Movement, rearranged and edited by Allen Ostrander (Edition Musucus, 1960).

Allen Ostrander (1909–1994) graduated from Ithaca College (then the Ithaca Conservatory of Music) with a B.S. in instrumental music education in 1932. He subsequently was a member of the National Orchestral Association in New York City and joined the National Symphony Orchestra (Washington D.C.) as its bass trombonist in 1935. He was a member of the Pittsburgh Symphony for one season (1937–1938), a member of the NBC Symphony from 1938–1946 (he served in the U.S. Army from 1942–1945), and then was bass trombonist of the New York Philharmonic from 1946–1975. Ostrander then joined the faculty at his alma mater, Ithaca College, where he served as its trombone professor for a short time.

I knew Allen Ostrander. I grew up in Queens and Valley Stream, New York (I lived there from 1955–1971), and heard many concerts by the New York Philharmonic during those years. In 1972, after my family moved to New Jersey, I had several lessons with Ostrander in a music store in Teaneck, New Jersey where he taught private lessons. In the early 1990s, I had some correspondence with Ostrander. I was interested in acquiring a number of his trombone ensemble publications that had gone out of print. I asked if he had plans to re-issue them again. Unfortunately, I received an angry letter from him in which he complained bitterly about the “pirates” who had cheated him by photocopying much of his music and depriving him of royalties, and that he would not publish anything again. He had done so much for the bass trombone; the several versions of his bass trombone method book were very important to the evolution of bass trombone pedagogy in the mid 20th-century. His bitterness was a sad coda to a very influential life.

[An aside: For some insight into Ostrander’s early bass trombone method and its place in modern bass trombone pedagogy, see Jeanette Velasco, “A Comparative Analysis of Bass Trombone Method Books,” DMA document, Texas Christian University, 2025.]

I had heard that Ostrander discovered a copy of the Lebedev Concerto for Tuba in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. However, while working on his Doctor of Musical Arts monograph, “The Life and Work of the Orchestral Bass Trombonist, Allen Ostrander, and the Development of His Bass Trombone Methods and Solos” (Louisiana State University, 1992), Ronald G. Smith interviewed Ostrander about many subjects. Citing a letter he received from Ostrander dated January 13, 1985 and his interview with Ostrander (conducted between January 13–16, 1990), Smith wrote:

Another solo which Ostrander edited for bass trombone was a piece originally written for tuba, Concerto in One Movement by A. Lebedev, also published by Edition Musicus in 1960. He purchased from a music store a copy of the Russian edition for the tuba several years before the United States publication. (Smith, 136)

This telling of the Concerto in One Movement’s origin story is not wholly accurate. Ostrander could not have purchased a piece by A. Lebedev titled Concerto in One Movement because Lebedev himself never used that title. That title was Ostrander’s creation. However, it is entirely plausible that Ostrander purchased a copy of a Russian edition of the concerto in a music store. He would have been in New York City at the time and there were certainly several music stores that might have stocked some publications from the USSR. Ostrander’s account of how he first obtained a copy of the Concerto for Tuba puts to rest the Library of Congress story.

Ostrander subsequently edited the concerto and it was published by Edition Musicus in 1960. At that time, the Soviet Union did not recognize or respect international copyright conventions. The Universal Copyright Convention had been signed by most countries in 1952 but the Soviet Union did not sign it until 1973. Before 1973, publishing companies in both the East and West published—a less polite word would be “stole”—music that was under copyright in one country but that copyright was not respected in another. Subsequently, many USA publishing companies published dozens and dozens of works without paying royalties to composers from the Soviet bloc. Pirates. And the Soviets did the same thing with music by American and European composers. Pirates. Did Edition Musicus pay royalties to Lebedev for Concerto in One Movement? I don’t know. I haven’t seen the payment ledgers. But we do know that Edition Musicus put a copyright notice on the Concerto In One Movement. That was not legal; Ostrander did not “materially change” Lebedev’s concerto enough to qualify for it to appear under copyright. Edition Musicus could have published Ostrander’s edition under license from the USSR’s State Music Publishing House but it did not. Instead, it published the concerto in the wild west of the Cold War’s murky copyright reality.

There is another important aspect to Ostrander’s edition: its printing is identical to that of the 1950 Soviet editions. It as if Edition Musicus used the same engraving plate for Ostrander’s version that had been used when the concerto was first published. Ostrander made some editorial changes to the piece (discussed below) but with two notable exceptions, the actual printing of the music in Ostrander’s edition is the same as the first published edition.

OSTRANDER’S CHANGES TO LEBEDEV’S CONCERTO FOR TUBA

In his interview with Allen Ostrander, Ronald Smith discussed Ostrander’s arrangement of Lebedev’s Concerto for Tuba:

After playing it [Lebedev’s Concerto for Tuba] and deciding that he [Ostrander] liked it, he made a few changes in the music to fit the bass trombone. He felt that the notes were fine as they were for bass trombone, so he simply added some style markings, breath marks, and suggestions for using the valve. (Smith, 136)

Let’s look at the changes that Allen Ostrander made to Lebedev’s concerto.

In addition to changing the concerto’s title to Concerto in One Movement, Ostrander added 30 breath marks. Lebedev had no breath marks in his original. To the opening phrase (measures 1–14) of the concerto, below, Ostrander added six breath marks, far more, in my opinion, than the musical idea supports (by comparison, I take 3 breaths in the same phrase):

Alexey Lebedev, Concerto in One Movement, rearranged and edited by Allen Ostrander (Edition Musicus, 1960), mm. 1–20.

Ostrander also added two suggested slide positions in measure 9, and he bracketed Lebedev’s trill marking in measure 13 for tuba alone, not for bass trombone. [Bass trombonists, you can actually make this trill work really well if you play the B-natural in seventh position and then use the first valve—the F-attachment—for the C, also in seventh position. With a little practice, you can make this trill work nicely.]

Now, have a look at measure 17, above. Ostrander added a rit. (ritardando) on the third beat; he did the same thing in measure 58, below. Lebedev did not indicate a rit. in either of those instances. But this is an old trick for players: slow down the difficult parts.

Alexey Lebedev, Concerto in One Movement, rearranged and edited by Allen Ostrander (Edition Musicus, 1960), mm. 52–59.

Throughout Ostrander’s edition, he continued adding breath marks, making a few slide position suggestions (usually limited to suggesting that an individual play B-flat2 in third position using the F-attachment), marking the return of the trill in the recapitulation as for tuba only, and marking the pedal E1 as optional for bass trombone. All of these relatively minor editorial choices made sense to him and they can make sense to today’s players. However, Ostrander did make some radical changes to Lebedev’s concerto that dramatically changed the character and demands of the piece.

In measure 18–20, Lebedev dramatically interrupted the motion and contour of the melodic line by writing seven quarter and half notes for bass trombone and piano—in unison. This line is downward from its beginning at the second note of measure 18 (D-flat3) to its conclusion on the pedal E-flat1 (which both Lebedev and Ostrander marked as optional; a player can play the note an octave higher, an E-flat2). Here is what Lebedev wrote:

Alexey Lebedev Concerto for Tuba (1950), measures 17–21

Ostrander, on the other hand, changed the low C-flat1 to a pedal A-flat1 :

Alexey Lebedev, Concerto in One Movement, rearranged and edited by Allen Ostrander (Edition Musicus, 1960), mm. 17–21

As a result, Ostrander changed a descending line to a descending and then ascending line. When we look carefully at Ostrander’s edition, we can see that Edition Musicus did a crude “cut-and-paste job” to change the A-flat to a C-flat. The staff lines are not exactly lined up, and the flat symbol for the A-flat in the pianist’s right hand is slightly cut off. It’s not very elegant, but the intent is clear.

Ostrander made another significant change in measures 50, 51, and 52. In Lebedev’s own publications of the concerto, he wrote triplets on the first and third beats in each measure (only the first beat in measure 52):

Alexey Lebedev Concerto for Tuba (1950), measures 49–53

Ostrander changed the triplets to two sixteenth notes. Once more, like he did by adding rit. in several technical passages, Ostrander changed a difficult part to make it easier to play:

Alexey Lebedev, Concerto in One Movement, rearranged and edited by Allen Ostrander (Edition Musicus, 1960), mm. 49–53

These changes—changing the pitch of a note and changing the rhythm of several notes—are not small things. While Allen Ostrander is no longer with us and we cannot ask him to explain or defend his decisions, bass trombonists have asked this question over and over again, “Why did Ostrander make those changes?” We have some clues.

WHY DID OSTRANDER MAKE THOSE CHANGES?

Ronald Smith’s interview with Allen Ostrander addressed the changed C-flat:

He did change one note, a low C-flat to a pedal A-flat in the twentieth measure. Also, the accompaniment was changed in that particular measure because it played in octaves with the solo. (Smith, 136–137)

Ostrander did not, however, explain WHY he changed the note. But he alluded to “the low C-flat/B-natural problem”:

A low B was left in the last measure because Ostrander thought the bass trombonist had time to pull the valve tuning slide so it could be played in tune. (Smith, 137)

This sentence needs some unpacking and a little historical context.

Today’s double-valve bass trombone was born in 1938 when F. E. Olds Company of Fullerton, California, added a second valve to a single-valve bass trombone, thereby creating an instrument in B-flat (using no valves), F (using first valve alone), and E (using first and second valve together). This was a “dependent valve” bass trombone—the second valve had no impact on the pitch because it was dependent on the first valve being activated. This was the first double-valve bass trombone that was able to play a low B-natural 1 with the hand slide fully extended while using two valves.

F and E bass model (later named Super B-flat/F/E model, and still later, Model S-23) by F. E. Olds and Son, c. 1940. Collection of Jon Moyer; photo by Jon Moyer.

Olds was a niche market company on the West coast of the United States. As such, it was far from the large populations in the East and Midwest where most major orchestras in the country were found, such as Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, New York, and Philadelphia. The Olds double-valve bass trombone was not widely adopted at the time of its invention; most bass trombonists of the first six decades of the twentieth century continued to use a single-valve bass trombone with an F-attachment.

With a single-valve bass trombone with an F-attachment, the lowest possible note with the hand slide fully extended (before playing pedal tones) is a low C2. It is not possible to play the low B-natural1 on a single valve bass trombone; the instruments’ tubing simply isn’t long enough. However, many manufacturers made their F-attachment tuning slide very long. By pulling the F-attachment tuning slide out, the F-attachment became an E-attachment (E2 played in first position when activating the valve) and—voilá!—the low B-natural could be played with the hand slide fully extended.

So, the B-natural WAS available on a single valve bass trombone, but you needed time to pull the F-attachment slide out, and then you needed to remember a new set of positions for any notes on the former F-attachment which was now an E-attachment. It worked, but it was cumbersome.

Alexey Lebedev, Concerto in One Movement, rearranged and edited by Allen Ostrander (Edition Musicus, 1960), mm. 98–120

Lebedev wrote a low B-natural1 in the last measure (measure 120) of his concerto (above). Ostrander evidently felt that because a bass trombonist could pull out the F-attachment slide to make it an E-attachment and therefore play the low B-natural1, he would leave the note in, and not change it to something else like he did earlier in the piece. But just where would the player pull out his F-attachment tuning slide? Way back in the four-measure rest that began in measure 100. That would make for many notes played on the E-valve, and it would have been a bit of a brain twister for most bass trombonists to remember the new slide positions. But it could be done.

But we have to ask ourselves: Why was Allen Ostrander assuming that players would be using a single-valve bass trombone with an F-attachment? After all, with a double-valve bass trombone of any configuration (dependent or in-line), the low-B natural is quite easy to produce without any slide pulling gymnastics.

We learn the answer by understanding the development of the double-valve bass trombone. When Olds developed and began marketing their double-valve dependent model bass trombone in 1938, most players didn’t notice. Meanwhile, on the east coast, bass trombonists Kauko Kahila (Boston Symphony Orchestra 1952–1972), Allen Ostrander (New York Philharmonic, 1946–1975), and Louis Counihan (Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, 1944–1968) began working with the Roth-Reynolds Company (Cleveland, Ohio) to develop a dependent double-valve bass trombone in B-flat/F/E. That instrument, the Roth–Reynolds Stereophonic Contempora model 78-X (and model 72-X) was introduced in 1958. Here is an advertisement from 1959 that features Allen Ostrander endorsing his double-valve Roth–Reynolds bass trombone:

Roth–Reynolds trombone advertisement featuring Allen Ostrander, 1958. Courtesy of ElShaddai Edwards.

In 1960, when Ostrander published his edition of Lebedev’s concerto, the double-valve bass trombone was new, notwithstanding Olds’ mostly overlooked contribution over twenty years earlier. Most bass trombonists did not adopt Reynolds’ double-valve model right away; it wasn’t until the late 1960s that bass trombonists widely began embracing the double-valve bass trombone. In fact, Ostrander himself didn’t immediately use his Roth–Reynolds double-valve bass trombone much. In 1960, Ostrander, Kahila, and Counihan were featured in advertisement for Reynolds bass trombones, but this time, it was the Roth–Reynolds Contempora Philharmonic Model bass trombone—a SINGLE-VALVE bass trombone—they were endorsing. Even the players who worked with Roth–Reynolds to develop their double-valve bass trombone did not embrace it wholly in its early years.

Roth–Reynolds bass trombone advertisement featuring Kauko Kahila, Louis Counihan, and Allen Ostrander, 1960. Courtesy of ElShaddai Edwards.

Given that most bass trombonists in 1960 had probably never heard or, or seen, or much less played a double-valve bass trombone, Ostrander probably felt that changing the low C-flat1 in measure 18 of Lebedev’s concert was a very practical concession. If he had left that low C-flat 1 in the part, most bass trombonists of the era would have either taken the note up an octave (not, in my opinion, a viable option musically), or lipped a low C-2 with the hand slide fully extended down to pitch as a C-flat1 (another questionable decision). Hence, the note was changed to an A-flat1.

A quick aside: For more about the evolution of the double-valve bass trombone—including how today’s modern “in-line” double valve bass trombone came to be—have a look at my article, “Evolution: The Double-Valve Bass Trombone,” International Trombone Association Journal 43, no. 3 (July 2015), 34–43. You can read it HERE. It unpacks a great more about the development of the double-valve bass trombone including the invention of the earliest known trombone with in-line valves, a concept that was applied to a contrabass trombone (not a bass trombone) in Germany 1921. That it took until the 1970s for the in-line concept to be applied to bass trombones is a head-scratcher, and part of the story I tell in my article.

Back to Lebedev. . .

We still have to ask ourselves why Ostrander changed the triplets in measures 50 and 51 to two sixteenth notes. The same for his adding rit. on two technical passages. I can’t read his intentions, but my guess is that he concluded that most players would find the sixteenth notes easier to play than the faster triplets, and slowing a brisk technical passage was simply an easier way to make it work. Ostrander was not known for having a blistering technique; maybe he felt they were easier for himself, too. We don’t know.

WHAT EDITION SHOULD WE PLAY NOW?

Today, two editions of the Lebedev Concerto for Tuba are available: the 1995 edition by Hofmeister (the link is to Hickey’s Music Center) or Ostrander’s 1960 adaptation as Concerto in One Movement (the link is to Hickey’s Music Center). For me, there’s no question that we should play the Hofmeister edition. It is faithful to Lebedev’s intentions in every respect. Ostrander’s arrangement was useful during a time when, in the West, the USSR and East German editions of the concerto were simply not widely available. With the modern advances in bass trombone development—both the instrument and the individuals who play it—today’s players have no reason to play Ostrander’s simplified version, unless one wants to play it “for old time’s sake.” I recorded the 1995 Hofmeister edition and I have always encouraged my students to play that edition ever since it was published. Thankfully, we longer have Cold War music distribution challenges. Acquiring Lebedev’s concerto in an edition he approved is now as simple as clicking a mouse.

Still, this conversation about Alexey Lebedev’s Concerto for Tuba provides us with a glimpse into Cold War musical politics, the development of the modern double-valve bass trombone, and how players (and arrangers) often make changes to a composer’s intentions for practical reasons.

Now you know the answers to some of your burning questions about the Lebedev concerto. You did have burning, questions, right?

Baseball, the Chicago Cubs, and Egyptian Pharaohs. Seriously?

by Douglas Yeo (June 26, 2026)

I live in the Chicago area and a few weeks ago, I went to Wrigley Field to see a Chicago Cubs game. But this was not an ordinary sporting event for me. I took part in the playing of the National Anthem before the game with the University of Illiniois Trombone Choir, conducted by Dr. Jonathan Whitaker. I was trombone professor at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign from 2022-2024 while the University was conducting a search for a new trombone professor. I was thrilled when Jon Whitaker was hired to the position and when the Chicago Cubs invited the UIUC trombone choir to play the National Anthem on June 2, — part of the Cubs’ annual University of Illinois night at Wrigley Field — it took me exactly one second to accept Jon’s invitation for me to play with the group.

The University of Illinois Trombone Choir conducted by Dr. Jonathan Whitaker, Wrigley Field, Chicago, June 2, 2026. You can see me fifth from right among the bass trombone players (photo by Matt Dirksen/Chicago Cubs).

The day was very special for me. I’ve played the National Anthem at dozens of professional and collegiate sporting events during my lifetime. It’s always been a thrill to be on the field or at center court in a stadium and this was a chance to enjoy the moment with some of my former students at Illinois who were also playing the Anthem. CLICK HERE to view the official video of the performance (on YouTube) that was provided to the University of Illinois Trombone Studio by the Chicago Cubs.

With my former trombone students Sam Murray, Louis Gray, and Derrick Neal. Wrigley Field, Chicago, June 2, 2026.

Before the game, I stopped in a sports shop in Wrigleyville and picked up a copy of a new book, Chicago Cubs 150 Years: The Official Illustrated History. I flipped through the pages and my eyes popped out when I saw a two page spread with photos of baseball players playing a game at the Pyramids and Sphinx in Egypt. Seriously.

Scott Gummer, Chicago Cubs 150 Years: The Official Illustrated History (Skybox Press, 2026).

Baseball game at the Pyramids of Giza. Chicago White Stockings (Chicago Cubs) vs. All America All-Stars, February 9, 1889.

Members of the Chicago White Stockings (Chicago Cubs) with members of the All American All-Stars at the Sphinx, Giza, Egypt, February 9, 1889.

Given my interest in Egypt (readers of TheLastTrombone can read my articles about Egypt HERE, HERE, and HERE), I started looking for more information about this. I found that the story has been told HERE (“The surreal afternoon a baseball game was played among the great Egyptian pyramids”), and, for detailed accounts with team rosters, the schedule, results of games, and much more, HERE (February 9, 1889: A Wondrous Ball Park: The Pyramid Game in Giza, Egypt”), and HERE (“The Great Base Ball Trip around the World in 1888–’19”).

The Chicago Cubs were founded as the Chicago White Stockings in 1870 and in 1876, the team joined baseball’s National League. In 1890, the team took on the name the Chicago Colts and by 1902, they adopted the name Chicago Cubs.

From October 1888 to April 1889, Chicago White Stockings team owner Albert Spalding took the team on a world tour where the White Stockings played exhibition games against a “All America” team of National League all-star players. The tour, which started in the United States, took the teams to New Zealand, Australia, and Europe, and included a game in Sri Lanka (January 26, 1889) and one in the shadow of the Great Pyramid of Giza (February 9, 1889) before returning to the United States to finish the tour. Three players on the tour were later inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame: Cap Anson, John Montgomery Ward, and Ned Hanlon. In addition, Albert Spalding and Henry Chadwick, who accompanied the teams on the tour, also were also inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Seeing these photos seems almost surreal. As if that wasn’t enough, as I was looking for more information about the games, I came across a page on the website of Because Baseball that implied that a type of baseball may have been invented and played in ancient Egypt. And they included a photograph to support their argument:

Photo courtesy of Because Baseball.

Well, it sure LOOKS like someone with a baseball and bat. Yes? This led me to dig more deeply and learn that there are a number of such representations in Egyptian temples. The photo above is captioned “400 BC relief from the Temple of Philae in southern Egypt: Baseball has deep roots in ancient Egypt.” I visited Philae in January 2026 when my wife and I took a tour of Egypt. We did not see this relief (there was so much to see on Philae. . .) and after doing some research, I learned that it appears in the Temple of Isis at Philae, on the outer east wall of the sanctuary/nous.

Here is the location of the relief:

The Temple of Isis at Philae, Egypt. Bertha Porter and Rosalind L. B. Moss, Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs, and Paintings: VI. Upper Egypt: Chief Temples (Excluding Thebes), Abydos, Dendera, Esna, Edfu, Kôm Ombo, and Philae (Oxford: Griffith Institute, 1991), 230. The location of the relief is circled in red.

And here is an epigraphic drawing that shows the relief in context:

Georges Bénédite, Le Temple de Philae, Vol. 2 (Paris: Leroux, 1895), plate XXIX.

Carl E. DeVries described the scene (Carl E. DeVries, “A Ritual Ball Game?,” in Studies in Honor of John A Wilson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969), 30.):

The second register on the exterior of the east wall of the temple of Isis [at Philae] has nine scenes of offerings made by Augustus. The eighth scene from the left shows the ruler striking a ball before Sekhmet, who is seated on a throne at the right. The king wears the double crown above horns, as in the first Edfu relief described above. Again he holds the ball in his left hand, while in his right he holds a stick which is more accurately described as a club or bat since it is considerably thicker at the striking end than at the handle. The position of the arms and the grasping of the club are more realistic than in the earlier representations.

It sure looks like baseball to our modern eyes. And there are some scholars that think that it’s plausible that some kind of game may be in play at the scene. However, recent scholarship seems to point to an act where the King — in the case of the Philae image, Caeser Augustus dressed as a Pharaoh — engages in a ritualized act of destruction, not a sport. The “ball” is not there to be played with; it is the evil eye Apophis (an ancient Egyptian diety of chaos and darkness). It is a symbolic enemy to be destroyed. The “bat” is not a baseball bat; it is a club or stick whose power derives from royal and divine violence. The setting is the temple wall, before the god Sekhmet (an ancient Egyptian diety of war and healing), within a series of offering scenes. Here, “hitting the ball” is an act of violence and royal protection whereby the King (Augustus) destroys a hostile power. For more on this, see, Panagiotis I. M. Kousoulis, “Some remarks on the ritual of ‘striking the ball’ in the liturgical environment of the Ptolemaic temples,” in ed. Ben Haring and Andrea Klug, Ägyptologische Tempeltagung, Leiden, 4–7 September 2002, Function und Gebrauch altägyptischer Tempelräume (Wiesbaden: Harrossowitz, 2007), 153–166.

And here is something else that’s important. Because Baseball’s article on baseball in Egypt dated this relief to 300 BC. That’s not correct. Rome conquered Egypt in 30 BC, and Augustus’s rule in Egypt was from 30 BC to 14 AD. The temple of Isis at Philae was erected in the third and second centuries BC during the Ptolemaic era of Egypt’s history but the Augustus reliefs were not made until the Roman era, several centuries later.

All of this is an interesting intersection of ancient Egypt and today’s modern sport of baseball. Things are not always as they appear but letting our imagination run wild — even if it flies in the face of historical accuracy — is fun. I will be visiting the Temple of Philae again when we return to Egypt next year and I will be sure to take some photos of the scene and then revise this article. For now, we’ll continue cheering for the Cubs (in baseball) and the Egyptian national team (in soccer/football). Go Cubs! Go Egypt!

Ancient Egypt’s “Mansion of Millions of Years” and the lessons of Ozymandias

by Douglas Yeo (June 4, 2026)

I am at work on several research and writing projects, including an article for the International Trumpet Guild Journal about the trumpet in ancient Egypt. Alongside that work, I continue to reflect on the trip to Egypt that my wife and I took in January of this year, and on our plans for a return trip in 2027.

One of the sites we plan to visit next year is Medinet Habu, the mortuary temple of Pharaoh Ramesses III (reigned 1187–1156 BC). Although he was not directly related to the much more famous Ramesses II (reigned 1279–1213 BC), Ramesses III is often considered the last of the great Pharaohs. Medinet Habu includes many reliefs that depict trumpets, and its decorative scheme is central to my article.

Today, while reading Aidan Dodson’s Rameses III: King of Egypt, His Life and Afterlife (Cairo: American University in Cairo, 2019), I came across this paragraph on page 83:

Since the beginning of Egyptian history, the ideal Egyptian tomb had comprised two distinct elements: an accessible offering place where the worlds of the living and the dead met, and where sustenance and prayers could be delivered as part of mortuary cult; and the actual burial place, usually subterranean, and intended to be sealed for eternity. By the time of Rameses III, the kingly implementation of this scheme comprised a memorial temple (or “mansion of millions of years”) close to the edge of the desert at Thebes West, and a subterranean tomb in a desert wadi—now known as the Valley of the Kings—beyond the curtain of cliffs that rose behind the royal memorial temples.

A “mansion of millions of years.” A million years is a long time. Millions of years is a span of time that is impossible for a human being to grasp. Still, after visiting Egypt and gaining some understanding of what made ancient Egypt and Egyptians tick—their complex religious beliefs, their art, and their system of government—I have become increasingly intrigued by the bold phrase “mansion of millions of years.”

Dodson’s book does not provide a citation for the phrase, but it is not a modern invention. It is rooted in ancient Egyptian usage.

When we were in Egypt earlier this year, I visited Chicago House, the home of the Epigraphic Survey of University of Chicago in Luxor. There, we met with Brett McClain, field director of the Survey, who has been immensely helpful to me in my research. The University of Chicago has had a presence in Egypt for over 100 years, and its work photographing and drawing the reliefs and inscriptions in dozens of Egyptian temples and monuments has been, and continues to be, vitally important to our understanding of ancient Egypt.

The cover of The Epigraphic Survey, Medinet Habu—Volume VIII, Plates 591–660. The Eastern High Gate with Translations of Texts (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1970). The University of Chicago has made its volumes of work by the Epigraphic Survey available for free online. This volume may be viewed and downloaded HERE.

In preparation for our visit to Medinet Habu in 2027, I have been reading the Epigraphic Survey’s many volumes about the temple. Dodson’s comment about the “mansion of millions of years” finds a secure ancient source in one of them (cover and link above): The Epigraphic Survey, Medinet Habu—Volume VIII, Plates 591–660. The Eastern High Gate with Translations of Texts (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1970). Plate 608 shows an epigraphic drawing of reliefs that depict “Rameses III Offering Ma’at to Ptah of Medinet Habu and Sekhmet.” The transcription of the hieroglyphic text is found on page seven. The first part of the translation reads:

Words spoken by Ptah the Great, South of (His) Wall, Lord of Ankhtowi, the great god who hears prayer, who resides in the Mansion of Millions of Years “United with Eternity” in the estate of Amon: “I have given you the lifetime of Re and the years of Atum. I have given you all health and all joy forever and eternally.”

There it is: a securely cited ancient Egyptian instance in which the Pharaoh’s temple was called “the Mansion of Millions of Years.” It was a bold claim. The ancient Egyptian Pharaohs truly thought they were gods and they would live forever. That’s why they constructed such elaborate tombs and mortuary temples—so they would have everything they needed to be transported to the afterlife and be remembered forever. Tomb robbers had something to say about that, as did the march of time and the drifting of sand.

My interest in Egypt runs deep and wide. I have written about this on TheLastTrombone—you can read about it HERE—and at this season of my life, I think, read, research, learn, and write about ancient Egypt every day. That ancient civilization is remembered for its pyramids, tombs, temples, and stunning artifacts, many of which are still present today. I am fascinated by all of this. But ancient Egypt itself—the culture, the civilization— is no longer with us. Today, Isis and Osiris, Ptah, and Sobek (and the rest of the pantheon of ancient Egyptian deities) are not worshipped as they were in ancient Egypt. World religions today generally do not include funerary traditions involving mummification. There has not been a Pharaoh for over 2000 years. But, like the Pharaohs of old, many of us also want to “live forever” in the minds and hearts of others, a sentiment born more of pride than humility.

The pyramids of the Giza Plateau, Egypt. Left to right: The “Great Pyramid” of Khufu, the pyramid of Khafre, the pyramid of Menkaure. Photo by Douglas Yeo, January 17, 2026.

And yet we are still talking about the Pharaohs today. The names of Ramesses II (“the Great”) and Tutankhamun, as well as Akhenaten, the female Pharaoh Hatshepsut, and Khufu, builder of the Great Pyramid (the last standing wonder of the ancient world), remain on the lips of schoolchildren and scholars alike. The ruins of ancient Egypt continue to be discovered and restored, although my Egyptian friend Ashraf Masoud recently told me that many Egyptologists believe 90 percent of ancient Egypt’s past has not yet been excavated. What has been found captures our imagination.

Part of this, I think, is our fascination with the rise and fall of civilizations. They grow, they thrive, they fall—as ancient Egypt did, and as the Greeks and Romans did after them. They disappear, and sometimes bits and pieces of them are rediscovered. This is the cycle of all civilizations. It will happen to our civilization, too.

In late 1817 or early 1818, the English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley—his wife, Mary, was the author of Frankenstein—wrote a poem that spoke directly to this. Shelley knew of the work of the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, who was born in the first century BC. In his Bibliotheca historica (Library of History), Diodorus endeavored to narrate the history of civilization, both mythical and real, in regions around the known world. Book I is devoted to Egypt.

In Book 1 (chapters 47 and 49), Diodorus described a massive monument in Thebes, near modern Luxor, with pylons, columns, and a huge seated statue of Osymandyas. The name Osymandyas is a Greek/Hellenized form of the throne name of Pharaoh Ramesses II, Usermaatre Setepenre. Diodorus does not give the statue’s height, but he says its foot measured over seven cubits. A Greek cubit in his time was about 18 inches. Extrapolating from that measurement, scholars today conclude that the seated statue Diodorus described would have been between 56 and 62 feet high—about the height of a six-story building—and, had the figure been standing upright, it would have been over 100 feet tall.

Diodorus described the statue’s impact:

And it is not merely for its size that this work merits approbation, but it is also marvelous by reason of its artistic quality, and excellent because of the nature of the stone, since in a block of so great a size there is not a single crack or blemish to be seen.

Then he gave the statue’s famous inscription:

The inscription upon it runs: “King of Kings am I, Osymandyas. If anyone would know how great I am and where I lie, let him surpass one of my works.”

This is a stunning statement of hubris, but we have heard words like these from many leaders over the millennia, from ancient times to today. The irony is that the massive colossus of Ramesses II in his temple, the Ramesseum—scholars believe this is the statue Diodorus described—is now a toppled ruin.

The fallen statue of Ramesses II at the Ramesseum, Thebes, Egypt. Photo by Francis Frith (1857).

Now, fast-forward eighteen centuries to get back to Percy Shelley. Born in 1792, Shelley died in 1822, a month before his thirtieth birthday. During his lifetime, England was busy building empire. Impressed by Diodorus’ account of the colossal statue of a Pharaoh, Shelley wrote a poem about the fall of the powerful that is now considered one of the greatest works of literature in the English language:

Ozymandias
by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1817)

I met a Traveller from an antique land,
Who said, “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is OZYMANDIAS, King of Kings.”
Look on my works ye Mighty, and despair!
No thing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that Colossal Wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Here is the poem as it first appeared in print (below), from the January 11, 1818 issue of the London newspaper, The Examiner. Shelley submitted it under a pseudonym, Glirastes.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias. As it first appeared in The Examiner (London), Vol. 524, January 11, 1818, page 24.

And so it goes, year after year, century after century, millennium after millennium. Kingdoms rise and kingdoms fall. Some, like ancient Egypt, have left us extraordinary ruins that cause us to pause and wonder. Others have vanished without a trace. The “mansions of millions of years” all eventually disappear. I am reminded of the words of John Ellerton who, in his great hymn written at the height of the Victorian-era British Empire, “The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, Is Ended,” stated:

So be it, Lord; Thy Throne shall never,
Like earth’s proud empires, pass away.

We all pass away. All empires pass away. Like ancient Egypt, we may remember them, study them, and learn from them, but only God remains eternal—for more than “millions of years.”

The fallen statue of Ramesses II at the Ramesseum, Thebes, Egypt. Photo by Tim Adams (2019). A cropped version of this photo appears at the top of this article.

The Tutankhamun trumpets

by Douglas Yeo (February 12, 2026)

Our recent trip to Egypt brought with it many avenues for ongoing exploration and learning. Among these are the two trumpets found in the tomb of Tutankhamun, now on display in the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza. I have been interested in these instruments ever since I heard of them many years ago, and I recently wrote about them in the new book about the trombone I’m writing for Oxford University Press. In an opening chapter about the ancestors of the trombone, these trumpets figure in an important way.

Douglas Yeo with the trumpets found in the tomb of Tutankhamun, Grand Egyptian Museum, Giza. Photo by Patricia Yeo, January 15, 2026.

Of course, Tutankhamun’s tomb is especially famous for the over 5,000 treasures that were buried with him. Among these are his golden throne and golden death mask, iconic works that have entered into the consciousness of people around the world since the tomb discovered in the modern era by Hussein Abdel Rasoul—a 12-year Egyptian water boy who, while working on the site, discovered the first step that led to the tomb—and the site’s lead archaeologist, Howard Carter, who spent the next ten years cataloguing and removing all of the tomb’s artifacts. All of those artifacts are now beautifully displayed at the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza, and a sample of them may be found in this article I wrote recently on TheLastTrombone, Egypt. It is amazing.

The golden mask of Tutankhamun, Grand Egyptian Museum, Giza. Photo by Douglas Yeo, January 15, 2026.

The throne of Tutankhamun, Grand Egyptian Museum, Giza. Photo by Douglas Yeo, January 15, 2026.

The trombone was invented in the fifteenth century. Whether it evolved from an instrument scholars refer to as the “Renaissance slide trumpet”—the existence of such an instrument is presumed from iconography but no contemporaneous descriptions or physical specimens have ever surfaced—or through another creational path is not settled. But no matter how it came to be, the trombone is a direct descendant of the trumpet, an instrument known for thousands of years. Long before the invention of the valve by Heinrich Stölzel and Friedrich Blühmel in the early nineteenth century—both filed patents for their valve invention around the same time and a joint patent was eventually awarded to both men in 1818—the trumpet (and horn) were “natural” instruments with fixed lengths of tubing. The trombone, therefore, was a huge step forward in brass instrument development, with its ability to play chromatically throughout the range of the instrument.

That said, the trumpet is the most important and direct ancestor of the trombone. While ancient iconography shows what may be lip-activated instruments made of natural materials—wood, bone, ivory—none of those instruments from antiquity have survived. It is metal ancestors we look for, instruments that we can hold in our hand and say, “Aha! So THIS is what it looked, felt, and sounded like.” But before claims can be made, researchers need to establish a secure date for any historical artifact. Brass cannot be dated through carbon-14 dating, so finding instruments in places alongside other materials found in the same location that can be dated is important.

Two distinct instruments have vied for pride of place as the “first” metal brasswind instrument: the Scandinavian lur and the Egyptian trumpet.

Two lurs. Photograph from H. C. Broholm, William P. Larsen, and Godtfred Skjerne, The Lures of the Bronze Age: An Archaeological, Technical, and Musicological Investigation (Copenhagen: Glydendalske Boghandel, 1949), plate 4.

The lur—a beautifully elegant instrument made in the lost-wax casting process—is often described as made between from between c. 1500 and 500 BC.[1] These instruments have been discovered in bogs mostly in Denmark and other parts of Scandinavia. As Hans Broholm, William Larsen, and Godtfred Skjerne said in their seminal book about the lur, “The main difficulty in solving [the lur dating] problem is that the lures were never found together with other objects the chronological data of which within the Bronze Age were known.”[2] Other scholars, like John Coles, have cast serious doubt on the early dating of lurs, noting that dating lurs based on comparison of their decorative elements with other securely dated Bronze Age artifacts for which an accurate date of construction is known, represents “an error in this line of thought.”[3]

As a result, consensus has coalesced around a date of about 1000 BC for the earliest lurs, as recognized by The National Museum of Denmark (Nationalmuseet).

Continuing the search for even older brasswind instruments of metal led to the tomb of Tutankhamun.

Two trumpets were found in Tutankhamun’s tomb. One of silver with gold accents (item 175) was found on the floor in a corner of the Pharaoh’s burial chamber, between the wall and the first of the four golden shrines that surrounded his sarcophagus.

The silver (with gold accents) trumpet found in Tutankhamun’s tomb, with its associated wooden protective insert, Grand Egyptian Museum, Giza. Photo by Douglas Yeo, January 15, 2026.

The silver (with gold accents) trumpet of Tutankhamun, Grand Egyptian Museum, Giza. Photo by Douglas Yeo, January 15, 2026.

Drawing by Howard Carter of the burial chamber in the tomb of Tutankhamun, showing the place where the silver trumpet was discovered. Courtesy The Griffith Institute.

Another trumpet—of bronze or copper with gold accents (item 50gg)—was found in a box in the antechamber that led to the burial chamber:

The bronze or copper (with gold accents) trumpet found in Tutankhamun’s tomb, with its associated wooden protective insert, Grand Egyptian Museum, Giza. Photo by Douglas Yeo, January 15, 2026.

Drawing by Lindsey F. Hall and Walter Hauser of the antechamber of the tomb of Tutankhamun, showing the place where the bronze or copper trumpet was discovered, inside a chest. Courtesy the Griffith Institute.

The bronze or copper trumpet found in a chest in the Antechamber of the tomb of Tutankhamun, in situ. Photo by Harry Burton, The Griffith Institute. Reproduced in, Lise Manniche, Musical Instruments From the Tomb of Tut’ankhamūn (Oxford: Griffith Institute, 1976), vol. VI, plate XII.

These trumpets are simple, straight instruments, beautifully engraved with hieroglyphics (including his two cartouches, or signatures) and scenes featuring Tutankhamun and various Egyptian gods.

The literature about these trumpets is copious, and various sources emphasize particular aspects of the trumpets—their materials, construction process, decoration, and use. Over the years, I’ve collected many resources that discuss the Tutankhamun trumpets and for those interested, they provide an interesting study. Here is a sample:

Hans Hickmann, La trompette dans l’égypte ancienne (Cairo: l’institut Français, 1946)
Lise Manniche, Musical Instruments From the Tomb of Tut’ankhamūn (Oxford: Griffith Institute, 1976), vol. VI.
Jeremy Montagu, “One of Tut’ankhamūn’s Trumpets,” The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 64 (1978), 133–134.
Nicholas Reeves, The Complete Tutankhamun (London: Thames and Hudson, 1990), 164–165.
Zahi Hawass and Sandro Vannini, Tutankhamun: The Treasures of the Tomb (London: Thames & Hudson, 2007), 76.
Jeremy Montagu, Horns and Trumpets of the World (Lanham: Roman & Littlefield, 2007), 71–74.
Jeremy Montagu, Tutankhamon’s Trumpets and the Hatsots’rot, www.jeremymontagu.co.uk/tutankhamon.pdf
Toby Wilkinson, Tutankhamun’s Trumpet: Ancient Egypt in 100 Objects From the Boy King’s Tomb (New York: Norton, 2023), 410–413.

Happily, Tutankhamun’s trumpets can be securely dated. We know that Tutankhamun ruled from c. 1332 to 1323 BC. The fact that these trumpets were found undisturbed in his tomb allows us to date the trumpets to as early as 1323 BC—the date the tomb was sealed—or perhaps earlier. With this, we can—until or unless an earlier example can be identified—look to Egypt as the birthplace of the metal trumpet, an instrument securely documented to be around 3350 years old—or older.

Iconography in Egyptian temples also shows images of trumpeters, and a particularly interesting example is found in the mortuary temple of Queen/Pharaoh Hatshepsut, daughter of Thutmose I. Hatshepsut reigned from 1473 to 1458 BC. Her mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahari (Luxor) includes a painted, carved frieze on the south side of the lower colonnade that shows a trumpet player in a procession with a trumpet that looks similar to the ones found in Tutankhamun’s tomb.

Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut (Deir el-Bahari). The location of the following photos is circled in red. Photo by Douglas Yeo, January 20, 2026.

The image was badly defaced in antiquity, so much so that the trumpet is barely visible today. The carving was probably defaced by a successor to Hapshetsut to remove a vertical hieroglyphic inscription (see the images below), and the trumpet, which was next to the inscription, became a casualty. In January 2026, during a trip to Egypt, I took this photo of the trumpet player—from a distance of about 30 yards. The south side of the lower colonnade was closed so this was the best photo I could obtain from my vantage point. Unfortunately, the faint image of the trumpet was not visible from where I stood.

Painted frieze of a trumpet player, lower colonnade (south wall), Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut (Deir el-Bahari). Photo by Douglas Yeo, January 20, 2026.

However, in 1908, Edouard Naville made a drawing of the image based on his close examination of the south wall. Because of his drawing, and a subsequent redrawing by Hans Hickmann in 1946, we know the trumpet is still there, however faint. I am hoping that when I return to Egypt someday, the south wall of the lower colonnade at Dier el-Bahari will be open so I can carefully examine this important image myself.

Drawing of painted frieze of a trumpet player, lower colonnade (south wall), Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut (Deir el-Bahari). From: Edouard Naville, The Temple of Deir El Bahari (London: Egypt Exploration Fund, 1908), part VI, plate CLV.

Drawing of painted frieze of a trumpet player, lower colonnade (south wall), Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut (Deir el-Bahari). From: Hans Hickmann, la trompette dans l’égypte ancienne (Cairo: l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, 1946), 4. Based on, Edouard Naville, The Temple of Deir El-Bahari (London: Egypt Exploration Fund, 1908), part VI, plate CL.

Because we know that Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple was built in her lifetime, we can securely date the image of the trumpet player as from at least 1458 BC—or earlier. This is 135 years before the death of Tutankhamun.

All of this is a walk along a fascinating breadcrumb trail through history. The search for the earliest metal ancestor of the trombone leads through Egypt, one of the most important, advanced, and influential civilizations in human history. Who knew that when Howard Carter looked inside Tutankhamun’s tomb for the first time and said—in response to the question, “Do you see anything?”—”Yes, it is wonderful”—two of the wonders would be trumpets.[4] Think about that the next time you pick up your trombone.

• • •

NOTES:

Header image: The silver (with gold accents) trumpet from the tomb of Tutankhamun, Grand Egyptian Museum, Giza. Photo by Douglas Yeo, January 15, 2026

[1] James W. McKinnon and Birgit Kjellström, “Lur,” in Grove Dictionary of Music Instruments, ed. Laurence Libin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), Vol. 3, 322

[2] H. C. Broholm, William P. Larsen, and Godtfred Skjerne, The Lures of the Bronze Age: An Archaeological, Technical, and Musicological Investigation (Copenhagen: GlydendalskeBoghandel, 1949), 51.

[3] John M. Coles, “Irish Bronze Age Horns and their relations with Northern Europe,” in Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 29 (December 1963), 344.

[4] Howard Carter, diary entry for November 26, 1922, from the first excavation season in the tomb of Tutankhamun, Part 1: October 28 to December 31, 1922.