Sir, Among the items on display in the current exhibition Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs is King Tut’s celebrated silver trumpet, one of the oldest surviving musical instruments in the world.

I thought it a pity that there were no recordings of it either to be heard at the exhibition or available in the gift shop. A recording was made for the BBC in 1939. I would have thought that it was an important adjunct to the actual physical object itself.

David Martin
Glasgow

Sir, In the 1939 broadcast (letter, Dec 11) a trumpeter from the British Army played one of the trumpets from the tomb of Tutankhamun, the one in B natural. The other trumpet from the tomb is about 3cm longer, which would make it in the key of A flat.

In 2001 the BBC broadcast a series of programmes about Verdi’s operas to mark the centenary of the composer’s death; in the programme about Aïda the conductor Edward Downes explained how two groups play on very long trumpets during the Grand March, one in A flat and the other in B natural, which is very unusual.

He commented on the amazing coincidence that Verdi chose these extraordinary keys for his trumpets, 50 years before the tomb was discovered and about 3,200 years after the two very long trumpets were buried with Tutankhamun.

Patricia Fletcher
Woking, Surrey

Sir, I read with great interest the letter from David Martin in Glasgow (Dec 11) about the playing of King Tutankhamun’s trumpet. It is quite correct that a recording was made by the BBC in 1939. The silver trumpet was played by a young Guardsman.

However, some six years earlier my uncle, the late Percival Kirby, Professor of Music at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, had himself been invited to play the trumpet by Dr Engelbach, Keeper of the Royal Egyptian Museum in Cairo. There were indeed two trumpets, one bronze and one silver (letter, Dec 13).

My uncle first removed the core of wood inside each trumpet — this was to prevent them being dented when not in use — and, in his own words, “Blew a resounding blast on both of them”.

He went on to say that his performance was the very first occasion on which the Tutankhamun trumpets were sounded, for it appears that the statement that Mr Howard Carter blew them when he discovered them in the tomb is untrue.

All this information is taken from my uncle’s autobiography, Wit’s End.

Muriel Draper
Bearsden, Dunbartonshire

Sir, In reply to David Martin’s letter (Dec 11) entitled King Tut’s Trumpet, it was my father, bandsman James Tappern of the 11th Hussars, who made this recording for the BBC, while he was stationed in Egypt.

I have in my possession several souvenir photographs presented to him at the time, and we did have a 78rpm acetate recording, which was broken during the 1970s. He sadly passed away at the age of 82 in 1997 but was musically active throughout his life.

As a professional trumpeter myself I appreciate the substantial technical challenge involved in playing these instruments and continue to be amazed at my father’s performance.

Peter Tappern
Reading

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