In spite of the paucity of our information, however, we are able to form a general idea of the state of musical culture among the ancient Hebrews. Except for inevitable local differences, Hebrew music must have resembled closely that of the Assyrians and Egyptians--probably more the former than the latter, if indeed there was any radical dissimilarity between them. The Hebrew and Assyro-Babylonian people sprang from the same Semitic stock. Abraham, we learn, 'came out of Ur of the Chaldees,’ and up to the time of the exile to Egypt it is probable that Hebrew and Babylonian culture were almost identical. The long sojourn of the Jews in Egypt, however, must have had a profound influence upon them. It is important to remember that they were not really captives in Egypt; they were not restricted in their activities; they were not socially ostracised. The daughter of a Pharaoh married a Hebrew, and it is reasonable to suppose that such intermarriage was common. At the period of the Exodus, therefore, there must have been little to distinguish the culture of the Hebrews from that of the other people of Egypt. Moses, we know, 'was learned in the wisdom of the Egyptians,’ and in that respect he probably differed little from his followers. Later we shall advert to the complementary influence of Hebrew culture on the Egyptians as well as to the probability of Babylonian influence on the latter. Consequently the culture which the Jews brought out of Egypt must still have remained Babylonian in essence. Subsequently we see a renascence of Babylonian influence which becomes particularly noticeable after the captivity in Babylon. All the names of musical instruments given in Daniel are Chaldean. Max Müller observes that several of the apocryphal books were written originally in Chaldee, not in Hebrew, and points out that Ezra contains fragments of Chaldee contemporaneous with the cuneiform inscriptions of Darius and Xerxes.