Limbe (instrument)
The continuous playing of the flute to accompany "long songs" (urtin duu) lasting up to 25 minutes was added to the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists in urgent need of preservation in 2011.
Two bamboo flutes, probably corresponding to the chi, with five finger holes, a blowing opening offset by 90 degrees and about 30 centimeters long were discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng (after 433 BC).
After all, they refute the popular view that the transverse flute was only brought from Central Asia to China during the Han dynasty (207 BC - 220 AD).
[3] Together with the Chang (konghou in China), the barbat (pipa) and the sorna (suona), the transverse flute was mentioned in Chinese sources of the 1st millennium as a musical instrument imported from the West.
The historical work Sanguozhi, written by the Chinese historian Chen Shou (233–297) around 285 AD, shows that the transverse flute was a foreign musical instrument and was used in the 2nd century BC, and it was introduced from the "Western Country".
Like the longitudinal flute, it was a typical shepherd's instrument, was used as a call for hunting and for cultic purposes, such as the Egyptian Isis cult, but was of little importance for musical life overall.
[7] According to this hypothesis, the transverse flute made its way from India to China and further to Japan, where it was documented in the 8th century at the latest and is now available in several variants (such as ryūteki, komabue, yokobue, shinobue and nōkan).
[9] During excavations in Afrasiyab near Samarkand, fragments of preserved terracotta figures of women playing music from the middle of the 1st millennium came to light.
The Sogdian musicians, standing upright, grasp a long, thin wind instrument with both hands, which they hold vertically downwards and which is apparently intended to represent a rim-blown longitudinal flute.
On several terracotta depictions from Afrasiyab, what can be seen is a blowing tube attached to the side at a right angle on the transverse flutes, as was also typical of the Greco-Roman plagiaulos.
[4] A gilded silver bowl from Bactria dated to the 7th century shows mythological figures from Greek-Buddhist culture in relief, including a bearded Heracles.
Further north, in East Turkestan, numerous musical monkeys and, above all, important wall paintings have also been preserved from the Buddhist art of Central Asia.
Bischgüür, in Classical Mongolian biskigür or bisigür, is possibly derived from Persian bīscha or pīscha for a shepherd's flute made of plant cane.
[13] Other flutes called lingbu are used in the Tibetan ritual dance ling dro (also gling-bro), performed by laypeople, together with the secular cone oboe sona (practically identical in construction to the sacred gyaling).
The transverse flute has a special meaning when it is used as an alternative to the morin khuur in a ritual that is intended to get a mother camel to accept her own rejected or another's young.
[21] The successful ritual ensures the survival of the foal and provides camel milk during the nursing period, which nomads living in the Gobi Desert need for their nutrition.
