Posted on 09/03/2015 11:35:31 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
An archaeologist has 3D-printed a replica of an iron-age artefact to revive a rich musical culture in ancient Ireland.
Billy Ó Foghlú, from ANU College of Asia-Pacific, has found evidence that the artefact may have been a mouthpiece from an iron-age horn and not a spearbutt as previously thought.
When Mr Ó Foghlú used the replica artefact as a mouthpiece, the ancient Irish horn had a richer, more velvety tone.
"Suddenly the instrument came to life," said PhD student Mr Ó Foghlú.
"These horns were not just hunting horns or noisemakers. They were very carefully constructed and repaired, they were played for hours. Music clearly had a very significant role in the culture."
Complex bronze-age and iron-age horns have been found throughout Europe, especially in Scandinavia. However, the lack of mouthpieces in Ireland suggested the Irish music scene had drifted into a musical dark age.
Mr Ó Foghlú was convinced mouthpieces had existed in Ireland, and was intrigued by the so-called Conical Spearbutt of Navan...
(Excerpt) Read more at anu.edu.au ...
To bad they didn’t have sheet music back then. I often wonder what Ancient Roman and Greek music sounded like.
Check on Amazon-they have CD’s for both. I think there are recordings on YouTube as well.
On the page your link goes to is a YouTube link for ‘oldest known melody’. Pretty haunting lyre melody.
How do the musicians who play on the CDs know what ancient Greek and Roman music sounded like? Are they really, really old?
Yup.
“Are they really, really old?”
LOL! Good question! I don’t know if we will ever match how ancient musicians played, but the body of research and the instruments themselves give us a ‘reasonable’ conjecture.
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