cambridge music-archaeological research <http://www.orfeo.co.uk>
Graeme Lawson 1980

Stringed musical instruments: artefacts
in the archaeology of Western Europe,
500 BC to AD 1200.

Doctoral thesis: Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, 1980.
Faculty of Archaeology & Anthropology, University of Cambridge.

Volume 1: text (299 pp). Volume 2: illustrations (313 pp).



Volume 1
Contents i
Acknowledgements ii
Glossary iii
Preface ix
1 Introduction 1-4
2 Nature of the evidence 5-26
3 Classification, typology & evolution 27-40
4 Non-operative elements in design 41-62
5 Construction technology & design 63-99
6 Stresses & structures in design evolution 100-137
7 Practical & musical elements in evolution 138-165
8 Conclusions 166-196
Appendices 197-240
A Catalogue of remains 197-228 (66 entries)
B Experimental archaeology 229-237
C Stereophotography 238-240
Notes 242-287
Bibliography 288-299



1. Introduction [1-4]

The history of European stringed-instrument finds is outlined, from
the first discovery at Oberflacht (Germany) in the 1840s to those of
the 20th century. They include sites of international importance
like Sutton Hoo (England) and Novgorod (Russia) and a range of
less well-known (but for music hardly less important) discoveries.
The contributions of such early musical commentators as Francis
Galpin, Hortense Panum, Kathleen Schlesinger and Otto
Andersson are acknowledged; but it is remarked that their
approaches are primarily historical or ethnographical, paying little
attention to finds. The finds have been neglected within
archaeology too, where it was not until around 1960 that music of
any sort began to attract serious attention*. Even then interest in
stringed instruments remained limited by the supposed fewness of
the finds. But by 1973 the writer was identifying an urgent need for
new, systematic archaeological surveys of unidentified material
from excavations. The discovery by Rupert and Myrtle
Bruce-Mitford of pieces of lyres amongst materials from
Anglo-Saxon graves at Taplow and Abingdon (England) showed
that fragments were being missed: partly because of their decayed
state but also because field archaeologists themselves were
unfamiliar with the original structures. In Stockholm Cajsa Lund,
Christian Reimers and the newly formed
Riksinventeringen were
already beginning a systematic search for musical finds of all
kinds amongst Swedish museums and excavations.

Abstract of Graeme Lawson's doctoral thesis: 1980
4.1 a
In addition to survey the chapter identifies the need for new,
archaeologically based agenda and the application of modern
archaeological methods, technical and theoretical, to create a true
archaeology of music, grounded in the material record. A holistic
approach is advocated, exploring the nature of instrument design,
manufacture and ownership, and details and principles of structural
engineering and craft production, before going on to consider the
musical functions which the instruments may or may not have
served. Instruments and their development through time are to be
subjected to functional and design analysis. They are to be seen
throughout as archaeological artefacts. The study will have a
strongly practical, experimental dimension too. In place of
traditional, 'interpretive' terminologies of type and structure (e.g.
kithara and rotta, 'yoke' and 'wrench') it will adopt a new objective
nomenclature based on observed structure.


* Amongst the first modern British archaeologists to take an interest in music
were John Coles, who later supervised this thesis, and Vincent Megaw and
Rupert Bruce-Mitford, who in due course examined it. Coles began making a
particular study of Bronze Age music technology, later (with graduate student
Peter Holmes) exploring it more broadly within the new field of experimental
archaeology. Megaw focussed initially on bone pipes whilst in a more
wide-ranging study beginning to define a new subdiscipline: palaeo-organology.
Bruce-Mitford was concerned primarily with early medieval stringed instruments
which might relate to the Sutton Hoo find, a study which, in musical collaboration
with his daughter Myrtle and with makers Dolmetsch & Co., he broadened to
include practical experiment.



2. Nature of the Evidence [5-26]

Hitherto ancient music studies have been based primarily in the
surviving documents. These undoubtedly offer a rich resource,
recording - or appearing to record - important details of ancient
instruments, how they were used and how they evolved. But there
are significant deficiencies and biasses inherent in such evidence,
not always acknowledged by their advocates. Some concern the
processes of representation through which images and written
texts come to be embodied. Others concern the processes
through which they have survived into modern times. Particular
difficulties are identified in literary and iconographical reference,
and in interpreting ancient nomenclature. The reliability of
documents as evidence is compared and contrasted with that of
music's now growing archaeological record. Artefacts are shown to
differ from documents in important respects, not only permitting but
demanding different kinds of treatment. However meagre their
record may seem at present, they are revealed as the primary
source for future studies, affording direct access to ancient musical
behaviours unmediated by artist or writer. The certainties they
afford, in both detail and context, also contrast with the
uncertainties which attend historic instruments surviving
'overground' - in collections of musical instruments. A new
'prehistoric', finds-based approach to ancient music is advocated,
in which theories of music are no longer derived from philology or
art history but grounded from the outset in the material evidence.
Comprehensive surveying of archaeological collections is identified
as the strategic key.
Contents and Chapters 1 - 2
4.1 b
CONTINUE
1
BACK TO INDEX