h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm learning Music History. I found out something that really interests me. I think it may have something to do with why Ancient Egyptians were so advanced. Dunno...

from Music In Europe and the United States: A History

page 5 "Written records are comparatively late; they show that the use of musical instruments was already venerable when writing was invented. Mythology reveals attitudes and beliefs that may be as old as civilization. Egyptian texts tell of the god Thoth ("three times very, very great") who had created the world by the power of his voice and of the four gods and four goddesses who sang hymns morning and evening to keep the sun on course. Through song, Thoth invented the Egyptian sciences, which included arithmetic, geometry and surveying, astronomy, medicine, surgery, magic, wind and string music, drawing, and writing. (The voice and percussion instruments had long since been properties of the gods.) The sistrum, a metal rattle, was the symbol of protection and was sacred to the goddesses Hathor (associated with the Greek Aphrodite and the Hebrew Astarte) and Bast (associated with Demeter.) Bast's festival was one of the greatest of the Egyptian calendar. As late as the fifth century B.C., the Greek historian Herodotus, in describing the festival, noted that 100,000 people arrived to the sound of flutes and finger cymbals and took part in a magnificent procession.
"The works of Herodotus represent another form of literature, the descriptive social history. Homer's epics were also histories but were couched in poetic terms, separated in time and suffused with myth and legend. Several books of the Old Testament were histories as well. All these works mentioned musical instruments, songs, and hymns."