The primitive man learned to slap, which is the basic method of generating rhythm. It was further discovered that pairs of stones, sticks or slats could be used to touch each other, and then various bump instruments including cymbals were developed, which is an extension of replacing slaps with utensils. Both the Cairo Museum and the British Museum have several pairs of ancient Egyptian palm-shaped and arm-shaped clapper boards from about 2,000 BC, which replaced the clapping with the hands. In India, the cymbal is called tāla, which is synonymous with slap. The origin of many musical instruments comes from living or working instruments, and cymbals may also originate from utensils such as funnels or bowls.
West Asia is located in Mesopotamia in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates. It is a region where human civilization originated and entered the Bronze Age earlier, and it is also the place where cymbals first appeared. According to research, the cymbal first originated in the ancient kingdoms of Babylon, Assyria and Hebrew (that is, modern Israel, which was later moved to Palestine) in Mesopotamia (where most of Iraq is today). There are still records and images of cymbals on many monuments in the birthplace. Around 1100 BC, there are many records in the scriptures of Western Asia, saying that during the 1st millennium BC, many portraits and sculptures showed that cymbals had been used for music. For example, on the Babylonian wall decorations from about 700 to 600 BC, there is an image of a woman holding a cymbal to accompany a male drummer. A Babylonian statue from about 300 BC to 100 BC shows a cymbal bearer accompanying a harp player. The cymbal shown is in the shape of a funnel, and the thin column under the funnel serves as the handle for playing. According to research, such cymbals and other primitive cymbals were used for temple worship at that time. The play of the funnel-shaped cymbal moves up and down, and the mouths of the two cymbals are slightly staggered to touch each other, so as not to affect the resonance and make the sound dull. A sculpture from the ancient Assyrian kingdom about 680 BC shows that the cymbal was held up and down and hit vertically. The way of holding the cymbal up and down like this also appears in ancient Greek statues and Roman literature records. The ancient cymbals were generally small, with a diameter of about 6.35 cm (2.5 inches), according to several Assyrian cymbals unearthed from Nimrud (an ancient site in what is now Syria); the same is true for ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman cymbals. The larger, circa 850 BC cymbal, was found on a mummy and was a hammer-forged bronze cymbal measuring 6.75 inches (17.14 cm) in the British Museum. There is also a pair of small cymbals mounted on a fork stick, called crotals, which also appeared very early.

Circulation of cymbals. As early as more than 2000 BC, cymbals were popular in Mesopotamia, Persia, Syria, and central Asia Minor (Turkey) in West Asia. After about the 8th century BC, cymbals spread to Egypt and other places in North Africa, and soon from Egypt. To Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Around the beginning of AD, cymbals were introduced to India from Persia or Turkey. Since then, it has gradually spread from India to Burma, Thailand and Southeast Asian countries influenced by its culture. Cymbals were introduced to China from India during the Eastern Jin Dynasty (317-420 AD). During the mid-Tang Dynasty, cymbals were introduced to Korea and Japan along with many other musical instruments. So far, cymbals have been widely valued in East, South and Southeast Asian countries. In the middle of the Middle Ages (about 395-1500), cymbals spread to all parts of Europe from Turkey, Greece and Rome. So far, the distribution of cymbals in the world is as follows: they are more popular in many areas of Asia, Europe and North Africa, and there are no cymbals in the Americas and Oceania (later brought by Asians and Europeans). Cymbals are relatively rare in sub-Saharan Africa (Black Africa), only the Ashanti Palace in Ghana is known to have a cymbal; Nigeria has a single-sided cymbal with two small cymbals connected to each other, and the two cymbals are tied to the hand. The grip belt, each hand holds a pair of cymbals and touches each other, even if the cymbals on all sides collide at the same time, this special cymbal comes from the Berbers, the aborigines in North Africa.