Red Sea Simsimiya vs. Suez Canal: How One Instrument Tells Two Egyptian Stories

For three thousand years, a wooden lyre has travelled the Red Sea, first strung with animal intestines, later with fishing line, then telegraph wire, finally bicycle brake cables. Each adaptation tells the story of the people who played it: enslaved Africans, pearl divers, fishermen on months-long voyages, and eventually, Egyptian resistance fighters. But when these two traditions met at a festival last October, they discovered they were playing the same instrument in completely different languages.