is now generally accepted that these Bronze Age horns were
played throughout the islands as entertainment and in cer-
emonies such as religious rituals and celebrations of the inau-
guration of kings.
Th e 39 bells or rattles found as part of the Dowris Hoard
are known as crotals. Th e name crotal is a Gaelic word derived
from the Latin crotalum meaning “rattle.” Each is roughly the
size and shape of an avocado, hollow, with a loose pebble in-
side and a ring fi tted at the top. Sounded by hand or perhaps
attached to a belt around the waist of a dancer, they can pro-
duce a light, tinkling rhythm. Oddly, with a single exception
(from County Antrim, in what is now Northern Ireland),
these 39 crotals found together are the only ones of their kind
known to exist. Perhaps a distinctive musical subculture was
thriving in the area of County Off aly in the Late Bronze Age.
Th e European Iron Age (ca. 500 b.c.e.–300 c.e.) saw the
emergence of long trumpets and horns made of sheet bronze
(bronze beaten or compressed into thin sheets that can then
be formed into tubular or other shapes). Th e most common
of these was the carnyx, a great war or ceremonial conical
trumpet presented vertically over the player’s head and hav-
ing a stylized bronze head of a boar, dragon, or snake at the
top. Fragments of these trumpets have been found across
northern Europe. Th e most important fi nd, near Bordeaux,
France, included fi ve complete instruments in company with
other plundered artifacts of war. A small number of more
conventional sheet-bronze horns survive from northwest-
ern Europe. Of these, the two most famous examples are
the Ard Brinn (ca. 200 b.c.e.) from a place of that name in
modern-day County Down, Northern Ireland, a two-part,
conical, S-shaped instrument almost 10 feet in length, and
the Loughnashade (“Lake of the Treasures”) from County
Armagh, Northern Ireland (ca. 100 b.c.e.). Accurate repro-
ductions have been made of each, and surprising discoveries
have come to light as to how they were made and to what uses
they may have been put.
Th e more notable is the Loughnashade, which was prob-
ably assembled in the S position. Today the two quarter-circle
parts of the trumpet are displayed assembled in the National
Museum of Ireland in a semicircular, or C, position. Studies
of the fi rst reconstruction have established, however, that the
circular tubes were probably originally connected in an op-
posing, or S, position and then played while being held up
vertically over the player’s head. Th e distinctive circular plate
is positioned at the end and faces forward. Th us, these war
trumpets would have functioned in a similar manner to the
carnyx.
Th ere is a tendency among scholars of ancient musical
instruments to ignore the achievements of prehistoric north-
ern Europe in favor of the great civilizations of Egypt, Greece,
and Rome. However, the great antiquity of the bone fl utes and
the very fi ne design, manufacturing, and musical qualities of
the metal horns and trumpets from the northern European
Bronze and Iron Ages clearly point to a rich and inclusive
musical tradition spanning many thousands of years. A re-
gion that the Romans labeled as savage or barbaric produced
some of the most beautiful instruments, both in appearance
and in sound, that have ever been made and played.GREECE
BY JEFFREY S. CARNES
Th e Greeks considered a life without music the grimmest sort
of existence. Music permeated ancient Greek culture at every
level, from offi cially sponsored public festivals to the daily
lives of working-class men and women. Already in the Ho-
meric era it was everywhere: In the Iliad Achilles strums his
lyre and sings heroic songs while sitting out from the fi ghting;
boys and girls sing harvest songs later in the poem; the Odys-
sey gives examples of singers at banquets and women singing
at the loom. In a real-life context the historian Th ucydides re-
ports that Athenian prisoners of war working in the quarries
of Syracuse were forced to entertain their captors by singing
choral odes of the tragic poet Euripides.
Greek instruments were surprisingly few in number.
Lyres of various descriptions and a pipe instrument called the
aulos were far and away the most common. Lyres have either
box-shaped or bowl-shaped sound boxes. Th e latter type was
called a lyra or sometimes a chelus—literally “tortoise,” since
a tortoiseshell typically formed the sound box. Th e face of
the instrument was composed of ox hide; this supported the
bridge, while curving arms made of horn or wood extended
above the sound box. A horizontal bar connected the arms,
and the strings (made of gut or sinew and usually seven in
number) were fastened to this. Th e lyra, like all Greek stringed
instruments, was plucked (the bow was a later invention); the
pick, or plectrum, usually made of bone or ivory, was consid-
erably larger than a modern guitar pick.
Th e lyra was small and not capable of producing much
volume; sources suggest that it was played mostly in home
and classroom settings. For public performances musicians
preferred various types of box lyres. Pictorial evidence for
these goes back as far as Mycenaean painting (ca. 1200 b.c.e.);
the instruments look to be heavily built. Th e most evolved
form was the kithara, in use from approximately 600 b.c.e.
Other stringed instruments, such as harps, were of second-
ary importance. On all of these it seems the strings were nor-
mally played open rather than stopped.
Th e most important wind instrument was the aulos, con-
sisting of two cylindrical tubes, each equipped with fi nger
holes, and sounded with a double reed, like the modern oboe.
It could produce not only strong volume but also moving dra-
matic eff ects. Th e aulos was the instrument of choice to accom-
pany choral poetry (including tragedy) and provided music at
large public events as well as smaller private gatherings. Other
wind instruments included panpipes (a wind instrument
composed of a series of pipes bound together), fl utes, and the
hydraulis, a water-powered organ invented in the third cen-
tury b.c.e., which was the world’s fi rst keyboard instrument.
Brass instruments served primarily to give signals in militarymusic and musical instruments: Greece 769