The salpinx is the sacred trumpet of Dionysos:
For they fasten skins of fawns about themselves, and carry Bacchic wands and indulge in shoutings and movements exactly as do those who are under the spell of the Dionysiac ecstasies. For the same reason many of the Greeks make statues of Dionysos in the form of a bull; and the women of Elis invoke him, praying that the God may come with the hoof of a bull; and the epithet applied to Dionysos among the Argives is “Son of the Bull.” They call him up out of the water by the sound of trumpets, at the same time casting into the depths a lamb as an offering to the Keeper of the Gate. The trumpets they conceal in Bacchic wands, as Sokrates has stated in his treatise On The Holy Ones. Furthermore, the tales regarding the Titans and the Nyktelia agree with the accounts of the dismemberment of Osiris and his revivification and regenesis. (Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris 35)
For at the Choes there was a contest about drinking a chous first, and the winner was crowned with a leafy crown and got a sack of wine. They drink at the sound of a trumpet. An inflated sack was set as a prize in the festival of Choes, on which those drinking for the contest stood, and the one drinking first as victor got the winesack. They drank a quantity like a chous. (Scholium on Aristophanes’ Acharnians 1002)
Even as he spoke, the son of Echion thrust him away. His words proved true; his forecast was fulfilled. Liber is there. The revelers’ wild shrieks ring through the fields. The crowds come rushing out; men, women, nobles, commons, old and young stream to the unknown rites. ‘What lunacy has stolen your wits away, you Race of Mars, you Children of the Serpent?’ Pentheus cried. ‘Can clashing bronze, can pipes of curving horn, can conjuror’s magic have such power that men who, undismayed, have faced the swords of war, the trumpet and the ranks of naked steel, quail before women’s wailing, frenzy fired by wine, a bestial rabble. Futile drums? You elders, you who sailed the distant seas and founded here a second Tyros, made here your home in exile–shame on you, if you surrender them without a fight! You too, young men of sharper years, nearer my own, graced by your martial arms, not Bacchic wands, with helmets on your heads, not loops of leaves! Recall your lineage, brace your courage with the spirit of that Snake who killed, alone, so many. For his pool and spring he died. You, for your honour, you must fight and win! He did brave men to death. Now you must rout weaklings and save your country’s name! If fate refuses Thebes long life, I’d wish her walls might fall to brave men and their batteries, and fire and sword resound. (Ovid, Metamorphoses Book 3)
One of the arguments for the identification of Yahweh and Dionysos that Plutarch makes is the similarity of the shofar and salpinx.
