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Flute history at a glance
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The flute is one of the oldest musical instruments and has been in use at least since the Stone Age. Ancient Sumerians, Egyptians, Greeks, Indians, Chinese, and Japanese all used early versions of today's flutes. In prehistoric times flute instruments were made of hollow bones with finger-holes, which enabled them to produce several notes.
The Hohle Fels flute (ca. 35000 BC)
In 2009, the oldest flute in the world was found in southern Germany. This flute was created approximately 35,000 years ago, it is named the «Hohle Fels flute». The instrument was about eight-and-a-half inches long and less than a half of an inch wide. It was made of the bone of a vulture. At one end of the flute is a notch, which was used to blow into the instrument to make the sound. Five holes are used to produce different tones.
Indian Flute player
(Rock Art, New Mexico, 16th/10th century BC)
Femal Egyptian double flute player, ca. 1400 BC
(The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
Sumerian double flute player, fragment of a relief
(8th century BC, Pergamon Museum, Berlin)
Double flute player
(Black-figure lekythos, Selinunt, 6th century BC)
Etruscan double flute player and dancers
(fresco, Tarquinia, Italy, 5th century BC).
Xiao flute player (ca. 200 AC). The oldest Chinese flute is dating back to approximately 900 BC and called «Ch'ie».
Chinese women playing flutes
(A painted scroll «Night Revels of Han Xizai»
by Gu Hongzhong, 10th century AC)
Pere Serra, Angel playing a flute
(ca. 1380, Museu Nacional d'Art
de Catalunya, Barcelona)
The Hindu deity Krishna playing the flute
(15th Century AC, Asian Art Museum San Francisco)
Hendrick ter Brugghen, Flute player
(1621, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Kassel)
Frederick the Great Playing the Flute at Sanssouci, ca. 1760
(Adolph Menzel, 1852, Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin)
Utagawa Toyokuni, Flute player
(Japanese woodblock print, ca. 1800)
Édouard Manet, Young Flutist, or The Fifer
(1866, Musée d'Orsay, Paris)
Max Beckmann, Flute player
(1944, Minneapolis Institute of Arts)
Flute player
(Aerophone, 2019)
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