Orfeo

8. Conclusion [166-194]

Functional analysis enables reassessment of previous explanations
of the different instruments' origins and evolution, taking the
opportunity to extend music's boundaries back from the current
frontiers of 'early music'* into its late prehistory. Since the 19th
century many suggestions have been put forward concerning the
origins of the principal European instruments; but none has been
argued point-by-point in the modern manner of Bachmann's study.
Too many take images at face value. Many have taken a much too
romantic, even fanciful view of the cultures involved. Most have
merely hazarded guesses, without considering how they might be
tested. The most critical and thorough approach is found to be that
of Joan Rimmer (1969).

* In the 1970s the label 'early music' generally indicated anything from the 16th
century back to the 13th.

It is argued that the surviving evidence must be viewed as small
windows, affording glimpses, not panoramas, of ancient musics.
Gaps in current knowledge cannot therefore be assumed to
represent real absences, or their boundaries real music-cultural
boundaries. Moreover it is inappropriate to think of their evolution in
simple linear terms, in which, for example, early medieval West
European lyres might have evolved directly from those of ancient
Greece - or anywhere else. Each glimpse is to a greater or lesser
degree likely to represent, with variations, a much broader stock,
and a matrix of relationships.

Niche theory (Chapter 3) is applied. It is established from both finds
and images that lyres remain the dominant form of stringed
instrument in Western Europe until about AD 800, that between 800
and 1100 they increasingly yield niches to harps, and thereafter yield
others to bowed instruments. With these transitions the meaning of
Old English hearpe and its cognates in several other germanic
languages also shifts. Latin terms like cithara and lyra also vary. It is
shown, incidentally, that 'Roman' and 'early medieval' Jew's harps
(Crane 1972) are incorrectly attributed medieval finds. The triangular
harp itself figures strongly in Ireland and Wales in the later Middle
Ages but its origins in these islands are unlikely to be indigenous, or
'Celtic' or 'Viking' (Galpin 1910). It is felt (with Rimmer) that it most
likely emerged from contacts with the Byzantine Empire and the
Islamic world. A Carolingian account provides a useful model for
such musical and indeed instrumental contact circa AD 800. The
harp's acquisition during this process of a forepillar is not an
'improvement' (Galpin 1910) but merely an adaptation. The idea that
it could have evolved independently from a 'hunting bow with inserted
twig' or could have been imported directly into ancient Britain from
Egypt is dismissed as fanciful.

Previously important elements of the iconographical record are called
into question, from the 'quadrangular harps' identified in an earlier
study by Bruce-Mitford (1949, 1970) to the elaborate lyres of Roman
art and the strange box-like instruments of the Paris Psalter
tradition, recently questioned also by Rimmer (1969). It is argued
that, representing the evolution of motifs rather than survival of
material realities, the currency of all these forms may best be seen
as an expression of antiquarian taste during periods of the real
instruments' decline into eclipse. Whereas images of harps, lutes
and fiddles become increasingly accurate as the Middle Ages
progress, already in the early Middle Ages pictures of lyres begin to
exhibit drift, perhaps because of declining familiarity, acquiring
increasing breadth and extravagant superstructures not so far
confirmed in any of the remains.

Some remaining organological problems are rehearsed. What may
be the origins of asymmetry in Slavic lyres and zithers? Why are
there no finds from Eastern Europe to explain Ibn Fadlan's
reference to instruments among the Rus? What were the Irish
tiompán and all the other documented but so-far unattested
instruments? And what of the Iron Age and beyond? A two-point
strategy is proposed. We must embrace fully the need to survey
our growing archaeological resources, using archaeological
methods, and we must supply field- and museum-archaeologists
with the information they need to recognise this class of material -
and its special needs - as soon as it emerges from the ground.
Pre-Christian cemeteries are identified, across Europe, as
profitable targets for survey, up to the advent of Christianity.
Thereafter urban deposits offer the best opportunity. Through
systematic search and archaeological liaison even finds from dry
sites, individually modest, may accumulate a useful record.
Waterlogged and underwater sites such as wells, crannogs (lake
dwellings) and shipwrecks offer scope for enhanced preservation of
soft materials like wood.

If we persevere with these aims the quantum leap which Sutton
Hoo has brought to Anglo-Saxon studies can surely be repeated
for many other cultures.

Appendix A: The archaeological remains

The catalogue draws together previously identified finds, including
some of those lately catalogued by Crane (1972) and newly
surveyed material, previously unidentified. It contains 66 index
points, organised by period (Period I: 4th century AD and earlier
[index points 1-6]; Period II: 5th-10th century [7-21]; Period III: 11th
century onwards [22-43]). Included within Period III is a catalogue
of bone tuning pegs, mostly unidentified [44-66]. Some index
points contain more than one item, sometimes several. Besides
the many new tuning pegs, previously unseen finds include
important pieces of bone, wood and/or metal from Worlebury [5],
Wroxeter [6], Bergh Apton [8], Hedeby (Germany) [15], Morning
Thorpe [16], Mühlhausen (Germany) [17]; Hedeby (a second) [27],
Hereford [28] and Winchester [43].

Appendix B: Experimental archaeology

Read as a paper to the Prehistoric Society, London, on 30th March
1980 this discussion offers some thoughts about approaches to
experiment in music-related studies. It is argued that only through
replication can the sounds and technical properties of ancient
instruments be properly understood; but if such replication is to
succeed it requires proper experimental design.

Appendix C: Stereophotography

The benefits of stereoscopic imaging are identified and contrasted
with single images, and a simple, easy, practical method of
obtaining such images is described.