A large drum or kettledrum, especially one used in military or ceremonial contexts in Middle Eastern or North African cultures.
From Arabic الطَّبْل (at-tabl) or Spanish atabal, borrowed from Arabic. European languages acquired this term through medieval contact with Islamic military traditions and musical practices.
The attabal is the ancestor of many modern military drums—when European crusaders and traders heard these powerful drums in Muslim armies, they adopted both the instrument and the word, which then spread across Europe, showing how conquest and trade shaped everything from warfare to music.
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