Ancient musical instruments

[Tintin]

An opportunity here to perhaps document articles and/or images of interest that relate to ancient musical instruments.

Here's a fascinating recent discovery along with a lovely musical piece that attempts to replicate how this may have sounded in antiquity.

Here’s the world’s oldest instrument – the 50,000 year old Neanderthal Flute

Source: ClassicFM (https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/instruments/flute/worlds-oldest-instrument-neanderthal-flute/)

https://imgs.classicfm.com/images/186634?crop=16_9&width=660&relax=1&signature=wUFjme2v3FZaa5h7CEgLQbU_XA8=

It’s carved from the bone of a cave bear – and it sounds hauntingly beautiful.

Archaeologists have found a pre-historic instrument carved from cave bear bones, and it can still be played today.

The Neanderthal Flute, found in the cave of Divje Babe in Slovenia, is thought to date back at least 50,000 years, making it the oldest known musical instrument in the world.

It was discovered by archaeologists in a cave near the Idrijca River in 1995. Ivan Turk, who led the excavation, discovered the ‘bone flute’ laid beside a hearth once used by Neanderthals.

While only a fragment remains intact, the ancient instrument can teach us a lot about how Homo sapiens, or our now extinct cousins Homo neanderthalensis, once made music.

In the video above, Slovenian musician Ljuben Dimkaroski plays Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMbvcp480Y4&feature=youtu.be) on a clay replica of the flute, made by the Slovenian National Museum. Despite dating back thousands of millennia, the instrument does a remarkably good job of playing music that follows our modern use of the musical scale.

In 2015, Musicologist Bob Fink explained that the flute has four finger holes with four different pitches. These pitches match four notes of the traditional scale we use in music today, the diatonic scale.

Fink added that the notes of the flute “are inescapably diatonic and will sound like a near-perfect fit within ANY kind of standard diatonic scale, modern or antique.”

This 3D-image of the flute (see below) gives a clearer picture of its origins – a cave bear’s femur bone – and what remains of the instrument today.

Long after word of this ancient instrument had spread, a study dismissed the artefact as nothing more than a bone that had been chewed on by hyenas – a view some scientists still share. But after hearing the Albinoni played on it so tunefully, it’s rather hard to believe...

https://imgs.classicfm.com/images/186621?crop=16_9&width=660&relax=1&signature=MTCQi9ybW5Bvs47Gv0KdTBK3PDA=

The flute’s forever-home is now The Slovenia National Museum, where its official description reads:

“The oldest flute in the world. It is pierced by two well-preserved and three damaged holes. The flute from Divje babe is the oldest of Palaeolithic flutes known to the present throughout the world and at the same time the first reliably proven to be made by a Neanderthal.

“As far as we now know, Neanderthals were the first among the closest human relatives that made musical instruments.

“The flute from Divje babe testifies to the fact that Neanderthals were capable of such an abstract and uniquely human activity as creating music.”

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And as an MP3 here (http://avalonlibrary.net/Neanderthal_Bone_Flute_Music.mp3) in the library

[aoibhghaire]

That bone whistle brought back some memories for me of hearing other ancient musical instruments some years ago in a cave.

Bone whistles and flutes have been found inside some caves in Europe. It’s possible that the paintings and music were connected. The cave paintings were part of a ritual system — like early religious beliefs — practiced by Palaeolithic humans that likely also included singing and music.

Interestingly enough, the vast majority of paintings in caves, up to 90 percent in some cases, were located directly at, or very near, the spots where the acoustics were the absolute best.

Experiencing live ancient music in a cave:

In County Roscommon, Ireland, I had the unique and privileged experience of listening to live ancient megalithic music in an ancient cave where rituals of that period were annually practiced.

RATHCROGHAN, OR CRUACHAN AÍ, is an archaeologist’s dream place. Found in the centre of County Roscommon, it contains about 240 identified archaeological sites packed within an area of about 2.5 square miles.

The mythological gateway into the Irish Otherworld: the cave of Oweynagat. Uaimh na gCat (Gaelic for “Cave of the Cats”) is the origin place of the pre-Christian seasonal celebration of Samhain, the Celtic precursor to modern Halloween.

Caves have always been places for religious and magic rituals. Because they offer protection. But also due to their acoustics, which transforms the sound of voices. ... or gaining abstract knowledge, through the sensing-knowing-understanding part of the brain, through listening to sound and its resonance in matter.

This cave provided a special experience at that time for a few of us to hear the ancient music by trumpets and horns that were excavated nearby in recent times.

I found it surreal and incredibly haunting having the music as surround sound within this large cavity.
The thoughts of bronze/iron age ancestors re in acting there rituals to these amazing sounds.

There are musicians that play live megalithic instrument to audiences around Europe. In particularly one band playing 4000 year old instruments.

Here are some other ancient music renditions from over 2000 years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouiW8fPDG1A

more information on ancient music:
http://www.ancientmusicireland.com/