Regarding one of the above linked sites, we find this image HERE, described thus:

The very earliest depiction of an object that might be a bagpipe is a terra cotta figure currently residing in Berlin's "Staatliche Museum." (See photo below) This much-discussed object is generally considered to be the earliest depiction of any sort of bagpipe. It is Hellenistic, probably (it is said) from Alexandria, and dates, supposedly, to the first century BC. It is controversial, and enigmatic. Is that a bellows under the "piper's" right foot or is it a time-keeping device? Is that a mouth-blown pan-pipe he's holding in his left hand, while, perhaps, the bag is providing air to a drone lying in his lap? Or is there a connection between the bag and the "pan-pipe" affair, which might operate like a Chinese Sheng (sounding a given pipe when a fingerhole is closed)? Might there be a bellows under the cloak on the figure's right side? All of these possibilities have been raised and argued.

This is very odd scholarship indeed, as the instrument depicted beneath the arm is unambiguously a friction drum latterly known as a rommelpot, and not any sort of bagpipe at all. Thus the ancient terracotta is a simple depiction of a one man band of pan-pipe and rommelpot.

We feel it is our public duty to point this sort of thing out, not just in the clarification of such wanton academic buffoonery (of which such examples are legion) but also with a view to getting back on thread, as they say. However, in respect of DVF's romantic angst, we can't resist another picture of Granma McAlatia relaxing at Formby Point in 1921. What a gal!