Orfeo

66. 2008. Conserving the future of music’s distant
past: some thoughts on the development of
music-archaeological conservation

[389-400 in A. A. Both, R. Eichmann, E. Hickmann & L.-C. Koch (Hrsg.) Studien
zur Musikarchäologie VI: Herausforderung und Ziele der Musikarchäologie.]

The way in which instrument finds are processed during and
immediately after excavation has often been a source of frustration
to palaeo-organologists. Poor treatment can severely compromise
the data which such artefacts embody, whether in ephemeral
surface traces or in fragile details of their construction. This paper
describes one new initiative in music-archaeological conservation
science, based on a supportive approach which affords
conservators a musically informed start-point for their procedures.

Conservation of excavated finds is in many ways analogous to the
excavation of archaeological sites. Although in former times
treatment of both was simply a matter of ‘cleaning’ and ‘preserving’
discoveries for display to the public, today we understand that they
offer us tremendous opportunities to recover information, often of a
very detailed kind, through technical analysis. This detail adds
greatly to the value of artefacts and monuments alike, both for
research and for educational purposes. But for music-archaeology
the full benefits of such an approach can only be enjoyed if
conservators (like excavators) appreciate the special character of
the subjects in their care. Perhaps the most vital asset is an
awareness of the latest Research Questions current in the study of
each artefact-type. Another key element is Informed Prediction.

Recent experience has highlighted the rewards which may accrue
from engagement of this kind. Its advantages have been most
vividly illustrated in the successful identification and investigation,
since 1975, of a sequence of severely fragmented stringed
instruments from sites in south-east England, culminating in the
‘ghost’ lyre from Prittlewell.

65. 2008. Representation and reality in the Late
Roman world: some conflicts between excavated
finds and popular images of Pan-pipes, lyres and
lutes

[179-196 in A. A. Both, R. Eichmann, E. Hickmann & L.-C. Koch (Hrsg.) Studien
zur Musikarchäologie VI: Herausforderung und Ziele der Musikarchäologie.]

Images and written accounts of music-making are often employed
as it were photographically or literally, to explore and illustrate
'realities' of ancient musics. Often the competence of their
execution, or the detail of their description, invites us to place
confidence in their authenticity. Yet at other times they may
conflict with archaeological evidence in some surprising ways. This
is especially true in the case of Roman popular song and its
instrumental accompaniment, whose documentary record so far
possesses only slender corroboration from actual finds and could
be partly fantasy.

An important grave-find of the third or fourth century CE, from the
Pontic region, offers a useful insight into real musical practices.
The remains of a stringed-instrument resonator of thin metal sheet
wrought in the form of a tortoise shell, together with sixteen ivory
tuning-pegs, has hitherto attracted identification (and display) as a
lyre of 'horned' type, familiar from Hellenistic painting. However,
close inspection reveals that the missing superstructure was of a
straight, parallel-sided form, rather than the diverging arms of a

lyre. In this it may recall a type of lute which is occasionally to be
found in Late Roman sculptures and mosaics. Although
uncommon such images are widely distributed and may represent
a real and important class. Strangely, lyre finds are nowhere to be
found.

Comparable discrepancies may be seen amongst excavated finds
and depictions of Roman Pan-pipes. These are usually depicted as
bundles of cane reeds, which was no doubt their original, traditional
form; yet all archaeological examples seem to be made from wood
or clay. In the face of such archaeological contradiction, can we
continue to rely on these bucolic illustrations and descriptions as
representative of contemporary musical truths? Such questions of
representativeness are ever-present in dealing with
music-archaeological materials of all kinds.

64. 2006. Sites, Landscapes and "Portable
Antiquities": the nature and value of context in the
music-archaeological record.

[3-14 in E. Hickmann, A. A. Both & R. Eichmann (Hrsg.) Studien zur
Musikarchäologie V: Musik-archäologie im Kontext. Archäologische Befunde,
historische Zusammenhänge, soziokulturelle Beziehungen.]

This paper offers a synthesis of what is meant by ‘archaeological
context’ and explains why we need to view organological finds
(musical instruments and sound-tools) as inseparable from both
their find-location and the objects and materials amongst which
they are discovered. Terms such as ‘association’ and ‘assemblage’
have specific archaeological meanings and definitions. These are
illustrated by means of selected examples: instruments from
pagan graves, instruments from ship-wrecks, scatters of fragments
from medieval towns, and ‘stray’ finds from the open countryside.

Knowledge of a find’s context adds greatly to the meaning we can
attach to it. Conversely, looted finds (such as finds from
metal-detecting) lose much of their meaning when they are
stripped of their context. The tragedy of looting lies not only in the
damage the looters do to archaeological sites: it robs the very
treasures the looters seek of cultural value. Musical instruments
are amongst those items most at risk from such activities.
Music-archaeologists therefore have an interest in raising
awareness of these issues, worldwide, and in pressing wherever
necessary for more enlightened acquisitions policy by museums.
Tighter controls need not alienate the public. In Great Britain and
other countries the development of systematic ‘Sites and
Monuments Records’ (SMR), region-by-region, shows how
surface-finds by amateur archaeologists and ‘treasure-seekers’
can, if their contexts are documented, still play a valuable role in
understanding our human - and musical - past.