Even in Persian there is another wind instrument whose name appears to be a cognate of both "Sorna" and "Horn", called "Karnā(y)" (کرنای/کرنا); this may stem from a re-borrowing from another language.

The instrument's history dates back to the Achaemenid Dynasty (550–330 BCE), and was used to play at the end of the day from the city gate or from the local administration building.

The instrument was mainly played in outdoors in regional music of Iran in the festive ceremonies (the Persian poet Molana Rumi mentioned the sorna and dohol in his poems).

[3] Except the literary evidences, there are also number of artefacts from Sasanian dynasty (224–651 CE), depicting Sorna, such a silver dish, currently in Hermitage Museum.

Since dohol is a double-faced drum sometimes it is called do-rūyeh in Persian language, in contrast to ghaval and daf, which are yek-rūyeh (one-faced).