How old is the oldest surviving drum?
Akan Drum
The Akan Drum is a drum that was made in West Africa and was later found in the Colony of Virginia in North America. It is now the oldest African-American object in the British Museum and possibly the oldest surviving anywhere.[2] The drum is a reminder of all three continents' involvement in the estimated twelve million people transported across the Atlantic as part of the slave trade.[1] The drum is normally displayed in room 26.[2][3]
Layne Redmond
The February 2000 issue of "Drum!" listed Redmond as one of the 53 Heavyweight Drummers Who Made A Difference in the 1990s, where she is ranked among such musicians as Tony Williams, Roy Haynes, Zakir Hussain, Elvin Jones and Mickey Hart. She is the only woman on this list, and she is the only drummer on the list whose work focuses on the spiritual and healing dimensions of drumming and rhythm. Redmond's path focuses on the hand-held frame drum, the world's oldest known drum. For fifteen years, she researched the history of this drum in religious and healing rites in the ancient Mediterranean world culminating in her 1997 book, "When the Drummers Were Women". The book details a lost history of a time when women were the primary percussionists in the ancient world and also explains why they are not today.