So where exactly was the gong invented?

 

Some people say China, but here's what's confused me about it.

 

I've seen gongs depicted in works of fiction as being used by not just in China or Japan, but also in Polynesian cultures, South American cultures, India, the Middle East and North Africa.

 

Most of those cultures are further away from China, yet the gong seems perfectly at home in them.

Edited October 9, 201213 yr by TransformerRobot

Banging a large resonant object is something that will have cropped up in virtually every civilization. Chimps and Bonobos using hollow trees and those planar tree roots to the same sort of effect. I think it is less a question of which culture invented them - more which cultures kept and developed them

Banging a large resonant object is something that will have cropped up in virtually every civilization. Chimps and Bonobos using hollow trees and those planar tree roots to the same sort of effect. I think it is less a question of which culture invented them - more which cultures kept and developed them

 

But how many of said objects were metal disks?