Horn (instrument) a mixture of the two, is called a horn section in these contexts. Variations include: As the name indicates, people originally used to blow on the actual horns of animals before starting to emulate them in metal or other materials. This original usage survives in the shofar (), a ram's horn, which plays an important role in Jewish religious rituals. The genus of animal-horn instruments to which the shofar belongs is called ("keren") in Hebrew, "qarnu" in Akkadian, and ("keras") in Greek. The "olifant" or "oliphant" (an abbreviation of the French "cor d'olifant"/"oliphant", "elephant horn") was the name applied in
Horn (instrument) horn, Vienna horn, mellophone, marching horn, and Wagner tuba. Animal horns adapted as signalling instruments were used from prehistoric times. Archaeologists have discovered cow horns with fingerholes drilled in the side (providing a more complete musical scale) dating from the Iron Age. This type of rustic instrument is found down to the present day all over the Baltic region of Europe, and in some parts of Africa. In Scandinavia it is known by many names: "björnhorn", "bukkehorn", "fingerhorn", "lekhorn", "låthorn", "prillarhorn", "soittotorvi", "spelhorn", "tjuthorn", "tuthorn", "vallhorn", and many others. In Estonia it is called "sokusarv" and by the Bongo people