Here's a short section of discourse on this subject which sites several easily obtainable ancient works and sources..
The Hindus depict the cosmic catastrophe at the end of a world age: "The whole world breaks into flames. So also a hundred thousand times ten million worlds. All the peaks of Mount Sineru, even those which are hundreds of leagues in height, crumble and disappear in the sky. The flames of fire rise up and envelop the heaven." 17 The sixth sun or sun age ended. Similarly, in the Jewish tradition, with the revelation at Sinai the sixth world age was terminated and the seventh began.18 Theophany Earthquakes are often accompanied by a roaring noise that comes from the bowels of the earth. This phenomenon was known to early geographers. Pliny * wrote that earthquakes are "preceded or accompanied by a terrible sound." Vaults supporting the ground give way and it seems as though the earth heaves deep sighs. The sound was attributed to the gods and called theophany. The eruptions of volcanoes are also accompanied by loud noises. The sound produced by Krakatoa in the East Indies, during the eruption of 1883, was so loud that it was heard as far as Japan, 3,000 miles away, the farthest distance traveled by sound recorded in modern annals. And all volcanoes vomited lava and all continents quaked, the earth groaned almost unceasingly. At an initial stage of the catastrophe, according to Hebrew tradition, Moses heard in the silence of the desert the sound which he interpreted to mean, "I am that I am." 3 "I am Yahweh," heard the people in the frightful night at the Mountain of the Lawgiving.4 "The whole mount quaked greatly" and "the voice of the trumpet sounded long." 5 "And all the people saw the roars, and the torches, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they trembled, and stood afar off."6 It was a perfect setting for hearing words in the voice of nature in an uproar. An inspired leader interpreted the voice he heard, ten long, trumpetlike blasts. The earth groaned: for weeks now all its strata had been disarranged, its orbit distorted, its world quarters displaced, its oceans thrown upon its continents, its seas turned into deserts, its mountains upheaved, its islands submerged, its rivers running upstream—a world flowing with lava, shattered by meteorites, with yawning chasms, burning naphtha, vomiting volcanoes, shaking ground, a world enshrouded in an atmosphere filled with smoke and vapor. Twisting of strata and building of mountains, earthquakes and rumbling of volcanoes joined in an infernal din. It was a voice not only in the desert of Sinai; the entire world must have heard it. "The sky and the earth resounded . . . mountains and hills were moved," says the Midrash. "Loud did the firmament roar, and earth with echo resounded," says the epic of Gilgamesh.7 In Hesiod "the huge earth groaned" when Zeus lashed Typhon with his bolts—"the earth resounded terribly, and the wide heaven above." 8
The approach of two charged globes toward each other could also produce trumpetlike sounds, varying as the distance between them increased or lessened.9 It appears that this phenomenon is described 3 Exodus 3 : 14. * Exodus 20 : 1. 5 Exodus 19 : 18-19. 6 Exodus 20 : 18; "the thunderings and the lightnings" of the King James Version is not an exact translation of Kolot and Lapidim. i Epic of Gilgamish (transl. Thompson). 8 Theogony, 11. 820 ff., 852 ff. 9
This phenomenon of sound between two charged bodies changing with distance is utilized for musical effect by Theremin. 98 by Philo as "testimony of the trumpets between the stars and their Lord."10 Here we can trace the origin of the Pythagorean notion of the "music of the spheres" and the idea that stars make music. In Babylonia the spheres of the planets were called "voices" and they were supposed to produce music.11 According to Midrashic literature, the trumpet sounding at Mount Sinai had seven different pitches (or notes), and the rabbinical literature speaks of "the heavenly music" heard at the revelation. "At the first sound the sky and the earth moved, the seas and the rivers turned to flight, mountains and hills were loosened in their foundations." 12 Homer depicts a similar occurrence in these words: "The wide earth rang, and round about great heaven pealed as with a trumpet." 13 "The world all burns at the blast of the horn," is said in the Voluspa.14 "'According to the Hebrew tradition, all the nations heard the roaring of the lawgiving. It appears that at Mount Sinai the sound that "sounded long" rose ten times; in this roaring the Hebrews heard the Decalogue.
