448 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 



bilingual incantation (V Rawlinson, 50, 47-I9/>) describing the action of 

 :the disease called asdkku. The passage reads: turdha ina qaqqadisu u 

 qarnisn iggabit, atuda sappar sadi sappariasunu iggabit, " the -mountain 

 goat by its head and horns it seizes, the lie goat, the sappar of the 

 mountain, by its sappartu it seizes." Here sappartu undoubtedly means 

 "horn," being the feminine form used in Semitic to denote lifeless objects 

 '(Gesenius, Grammar, par. 107, 3, a) ; the conclusion would, therefore, be 

 that the shofar is so called because it was originally made of the horn 

 of the species of goat called sappar.* The Hebrew shofar corresponds 

 to Assyrian sappartu, it being worthy of notice that shofar, although 

 not possessing the feminine termination in the singular^ always makes 

 a feminine plural. 



In the discussion on the Wetzstein paper Mr. Hartmann suggested 

 that the peculiar shape of the horn given to it artificially was intended 

 to imitate the shape of the horn of some wild animal, possibly the wild 

 sheep (Oris cyprias) ; not that I apprehend that the suggestion is exactly 

 correct, since, as will be seen, the shape is not uniform. The suggestion, 

 however, that the horn was not that of a domesticated animal, but of an 

 animal more difficult to get, seems to have a certain inherent probability. 



Wetzstein is of the opinion that the use of the ram's horn may have 

 been borrowed by the Israelites and goes back to a people who were 

 engaged solely in the care of sheep. By these it was used as a signal 

 of alarm. 



SIMILAR INSTRUMENTS. 



Various ancient and modern nations have used the horns of animals 

 for wind instruments. The following specimens are preserved in the 

 collection of musical instruments in the U. S. National Museum. 



At the time of the Festival of the Prophet the Berbers use a horn 

 which consists of two rams' horns joined at the ends and provided with 

 metal mouthpieces. This instrument is now called zamr. The speci- 

 men belongs to the National Museum and was collected by Mr. Talcott 

 Williams. 



The Shringa, "an ancient outdoor wind instrument of the horn 

 species. It is commonly known as the Indian horn. It was the favor- 

 ite instrument of the Hindu god Siva." It is a common ox or buffalo 

 horn of dark color, scraped and polished, the tip cut off and the em- 

 bouchure enlarged and shaped with a hot iron. It is 12h inches in 

 length and the diameter varies from five-eighths to 2h inches. In form 

 it differs in nowise from the shofar. (PI. xcvn, Fig. 4.) 



The Embuchi, also known as the Ponza, Apunza,a,nd Ouhpwe, an Afri- 

 can trumpet or war horn made of an elephant's tusk, the natural cavity 



* Baron von Kuril', in the discussion of \\ etlzstein's paper, asserted that the goat 

 horn was still used for making shofars by the Jews of Poland. If this statement be 

 correct it would point to a tradition more ancient than that contained in the Jewish 

 liturgy. 



