We may conclude from this that they at any rate learnt the invention from Asia; and in their decided preference of the double over the single pipe we may not improbably have a trace of the influence which Assyria exercised over Asiatic, and thus even over Greek, music.

[PLATE CXXVIII., Fig.

1.] The Assyrian double pipe was short, probably not exceeding ten or twelve inches in length.

It is uncertain whether it was really a single instrument consisting of two tubes united by a common mouthpiece, or whether it was not composed of two quite separate pipes, as was the case with the double pipes of the Greeks and Romans.
The two pipes constituting a pair seem in Assyria to have been always of the same length, not, like the Roman "right" and "left pipes," of unequal length, and so of different pitches.

They were held and played, like the classical one, with either hand of the performer.