Orfeo

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.

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

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