A musical percussion instrument; usually consists of a hollow cylinder with a membrane stretched across each end.
1Preparing the tympan, regulating the impression, underlaying and overlaying, setting gauges, and other details explained.
2The composition, which fills the tympan of the scarcely-pointed arch, represents Christ surrounded by the twelve Apostles.
3Over the cylinder is supported a diaphragm or tympan T, provided with a conical mouthpiece M for speaking into.
4It consisted of a table, along which the forme of type, furnished with a tympan and frisket, was pushed by hand.
5The tympan of the duplicating machine is sometimes made uneven so that the impression of a typewriter is still further carried out.
6The tympan employed for receiving is made of gold-beater's skin, having a stud at its centre and a springy stylus of steel wire.
7The ornament is nearly confined to the tympan over the portal, the capitals of columns, and to the choir with its seven absidal chapels.