Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MIKE-AGM (MUSICAL IDENTITIES, KNOWLEDGE, AND EXCHANGE IN THE ARCHAIC GREEK MEDITERRANEAN (700-480 BCE))
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2022-04-01 al 2024-03-31
The MIKE-AGM project arose from the need to better understand the wider socio-cultural uses and developments of music in the period c. 700-480 BCE, focusing on the Greeks of the ancient Mediterranean and their wider cultural contacts, and in particular how musical knowledge was created and exchanged, and how it contributed to community identities. To achieve this, the project focused on three main strands of research. The first focused on better understanding the musical instruments that survive from this period. The second looked at collating and studying relevant musical iconography. The third looked at what contemporary texts can reveal about the wider contexts in which music of the period was conducted. In all three strands of research the focus was on seeing how music contributed to ancient identities and knowledge, and how musical customs and traditions were exchanged.
Since the Palaeolithic, humans have made musical instruments. Today, music is more easily accessible then ever; Spotify alone has over 600 million users. However, for most of human history, music has required the presence of musicians and audiences in the same space, making the performance of music a key cultural event, to say nothing of the people who made these instruments. How did the Greeks of the Archaic period go about organising music, what did music mean to them and why? To date, surviving lyrics from Greek poetry have been used as the main source to answer this question, this project looks to the material culture of music too.
Since the Palaeolithic, humans have made musical instruments. Today, music is more easily accessible then ever; Spotify alone has over 600 million users. However, for most of human history, music has required the presence of musicians and audiences in the same space, making the performance of music a key cultural event, to say nothing of the people who made these instruments. How did the Greeks of the Archaic period go about organising music, what did music mean to them and why? To date, surviving lyrics from Greek poetry have been used as the main source to answer this question, this project looks to the material culture of music too.
Work on musical instruments involved studying published finds and studying key examples across a range of museums (the British Museum, Athens National Archaeology Museum, Samos Vathy Museum, Istanbul Archaeology Museum, and the Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology). The main results from this include the detailed study of previously unknown or understudied manufacturing methods. New chemical analysis of metal instruments that will improve our understanding of alloy choices for ancient instrument makers and players was conducted in collaboration with Prof. Amy Smith and Dr. Peter Bray, both of the University of Reading. The project also included the comparative study of ancient Egyptian musical instruments, and the only ancient Greek lyre that survives with its wooden elements intact. In total over seventy different instruments or fragments of instruments were studied in person.
Work on iconography included compiling a catalogue of regional Greek black-figure vases that depict musical iconography, focusing on Clazomenian (North Ionian), Boeotian, Laconian, and Corinthian, but also Attic too. As the project developed, a series of Egyptianising faïence amulets and pendants were included in this study too, as well as Cypriot statuettes depicting musicians. Additional iconographic evidence was also recorded, including from non-Greek sources. This material was studied from publications, with examples from the British Museum and Samos examined in person. Of particular importance was looking at the distribution of pottery, since it allows us to see one way in which regional representations of music were more widely distributed, and the extent to which shared visual vocabularies existed.
Textual studies focused on surviving ancient Greek lyric and later texts that focused on musical topics. The key aspect of this work was to see how ancient Lyric networks correspond to surviving material and textual evidence. This involved compiling a spreadsheet of attested Archaic Greek musicians and recording their place of origin and the places to which they were attested to have travelled. Network Analysis was used to better understand the areas of influence and exchange that this data revealed, and to see how these corresponded to current historical interpretations of other networks (e.g. trade) in the Archaic period. Over one hundred Archaic musicians and / or poets were recorded.
Key results of the project have been presented at a number of conferences:
Work on musical instruments was presented at the International Society for the Study of Greek and Roman Music and its Cultural Heritage (MOISA) annual conference in Cremona, at the International Study Group on Music Archaeology conference in Würzburg, and at an event organised at the Austrian Archaeological Institute in Athens.
Work on the iconography of musicians was presented at the conference, “The Sense(s) of Athletics in the Ancient Mediterranean World” at the University of Warwick, and at a panel on the archaeology of Sparta at the Celtic Conference in Classics in Lyon.
Work on Archaic trade and exchange was published in the journal Archaeometry, providing wider background to the study of musical networks and exchange. A short piece on the archaeology of ancient Greek music was written for the archaeology blog of the Austrian newspaper, Der Standard.
Work on iconography included compiling a catalogue of regional Greek black-figure vases that depict musical iconography, focusing on Clazomenian (North Ionian), Boeotian, Laconian, and Corinthian, but also Attic too. As the project developed, a series of Egyptianising faïence amulets and pendants were included in this study too, as well as Cypriot statuettes depicting musicians. Additional iconographic evidence was also recorded, including from non-Greek sources. This material was studied from publications, with examples from the British Museum and Samos examined in person. Of particular importance was looking at the distribution of pottery, since it allows us to see one way in which regional representations of music were more widely distributed, and the extent to which shared visual vocabularies existed.
Textual studies focused on surviving ancient Greek lyric and later texts that focused on musical topics. The key aspect of this work was to see how ancient Lyric networks correspond to surviving material and textual evidence. This involved compiling a spreadsheet of attested Archaic Greek musicians and recording their place of origin and the places to which they were attested to have travelled. Network Analysis was used to better understand the areas of influence and exchange that this data revealed, and to see how these corresponded to current historical interpretations of other networks (e.g. trade) in the Archaic period. Over one hundred Archaic musicians and / or poets were recorded.
Key results of the project have been presented at a number of conferences:
Work on musical instruments was presented at the International Society for the Study of Greek and Roman Music and its Cultural Heritage (MOISA) annual conference in Cremona, at the International Study Group on Music Archaeology conference in Würzburg, and at an event organised at the Austrian Archaeological Institute in Athens.
Work on the iconography of musicians was presented at the conference, “The Sense(s) of Athletics in the Ancient Mediterranean World” at the University of Warwick, and at a panel on the archaeology of Sparta at the Celtic Conference in Classics in Lyon.
Work on Archaic trade and exchange was published in the journal Archaeometry, providing wider background to the study of musical networks and exchange. A short piece on the archaeology of ancient Greek music was written for the archaeology blog of the Austrian newspaper, Der Standard.
When musical pipes are well enough preserved, the pitch of the notes they played can be calculated. In ancient Greece, the main musical pipe was called the aulos, a type of double-reed instrument. The results from this part of the project will contribute new information to our understanding of how early Greek music sounded, moving beyond the state-of-the-art. It is hoped that the open access data related to these instruments will be used by amateur and professional instrument makers looking to make their own replicas, allowing for creative responses to Europe’s musical past.