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A newly discovered Aulos

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

J. G. Landels
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Extract

An ancient reed-blown pipe (αὐλός) has recently been acquired by the Museum of Greek Archaeology in Reading University. This article contains a full descriptive account of the instrument, and a brief discussion of its relationship to other surviving auloi.

The instrument is designed to be played with one hand, and must therefore have been one of a pair; its especial value as evidence for ancient auloi lies in the fact that it is more nearly complete than almost any other surviving ancient instrument. Two losses, however, are particularly to be regretted; as with all other ancient instruments, the reed has been lost, and (so far as I know) the other pipe of the pair does not survive. So we cannot gain any new information on two of the most vexed questions regarding the aulos—the size and structure of the reed, and the method of playing two pipes together.

For convenience of description, this instrument may be divided into seven sections (see Plate 55). Some of these have been put together, not very expertly, in modern times; in particular, the joins at each end of the sixth section (F and G) are badly out of alignment. These divisions have been chosen because they are externally visible; the method of construction will be examined more closely later.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 63 , November 1968 , pp. 231 - 238
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1968

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References

1 Sotheby's Sale Catalogue of 11 July 1967, 76, lot no. 300. The purchase was made with the help of a grant from the Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum. I wish to express my gratitude to Messrs. Sotheby's, and in particular to Miss F. Nicholson, for their kindness in allowing me to examine the aulos and have it photographed.

2 The Brauron aulos (see my article in BSA lviii (1963) 116–9) has no bulb (ὅλμος) or mouthpiece; neither the Elgin auloi nor the ‘Maenad Pipes’ in the British Museum have complete mouthpiece sections. The most complete examples are the Pompeian auloi (in the Naples Museum), which are of considerably later date.

3 It is hoped that the sections may be dismantled and properly re-assembled before the aulos goes on display in the Museum. See Addendum.

4 The next section (B–C) is similarly constructed: this shows up clearly in one of the X-ray plates (not reproduced here).

5 The auloi and reeds were carried and stored in separate containers, the aulos in an αὐλοθήκη and the reeds in a γλωττοκομεῐον.

6 This measurement has to be estimated, because the bronze casing does not extend to the widest part of the wooden bulb, and has sprung away from the wood lower down.

7 Cf. the hollowing-out of the holes on the Brauron aulos, loc. cit. (n. 2) 117.

8 And with III and IV as the instrument is at present assembled.

9 Cf. the Brauron aulos, loc. cit. (n. 2) 118; see also my article in Hesperia xxxiii (1964) 397.

10 Contrast Fragment Fin my Hesperia article (n. 9 above).

11 See Howard, A. A., The Aulos or Tibia (Harvard Studies in Classical Philology iv (1893)Google Scholar, plate ii, facing p. 49.

12 Ancient Greek Musical Instruments of the Wood-wind Family, thesis submitted for the degree of Ph.D. in the University of Hull by J. G. Landels, October 1960. See pp. 35–8.

13 Cf. my article n. 9 above, 394.

14 e.g. CVA Italy VI. iv Dr pl. 24, 2; CVA Denmark VI. iv E pl. 245, 1a (cat. 3757).

15 See my thesis (n. 12 above) 27–33.

16 The X-ray photographs were taken by Dr. R. Walker Wilkinson. I am grateful to him for accepting the aulos as a ‘private patient’, and for valuable advice on interpreting the plates.

17 One particularly misleading one is visible in Plate 55, about 1 cm. below the joint at E. It is a neat circle, of about the right size; but this is apparently quite fortuitous.

18 This means that Horace's phrase orichalco vincta (AP 202) does not necessarily imply keywork, unless one insists that simplex foramine pauco in the next line means ‘with only a few fingerholes’. I have grave doubts about that; the v.l. parvo suggests that it meant ‘with small bore’.

19 i.e. the total length (6·7 cm.) less 3 mm., the approximate amount of ‘interlock’ at B.

20 This, however, would make the πυκνόν rather smaller in compass than any given (in the form of a ratio) by ancient theorists, who prescribe either a major or a minor tone. But Aristoxenus ii. 51 (Macran 141) gives a χρῶμα which he calls ἡμιόλιον and describes, in his misleading terms, as ‘⅜ tone, ⅜ tone, 1¾ tones’. This, expressed in cents, would be 77 + 77 + 344, giving a λίχανος very close indeed to the theoretical note from Hole III.

21 Cf. my article, n. 9 above, 396 n. 13.

22 Cf. Ol. vii. 12: Pyth. x. 37–9.

23 But see Quincey, J. H., ‘The metaphorical sense of ΛΗΚΥ⊖ΟΣ and AMPULLA’, CQ xliii (1949) 32–44 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; he discusses this fragment on p. 41. His remarks on the tibia are misleading, as he translates it as ‘flute’, and clearly imagines it as such. Horace's orichalco vincta cannot apply to the mouthpiece of a reed-blown instrument. Nor did the φορβειά have anything which could be called a στόμα; this clearly refers to the player's lips. Λήκυθος may (‘for all we know’) have been an alternative term for the ὅλμος, but there is no evidence for this; nor are there any Greek illustrations of the classical period (so far as I know) showing an aulos with a horn bell. The last suggestion, however, I find attractive—that λήκυθος here alludes to puffing of the cheeks; especially if we read ἐπίχαλκον τὸ στόμ᾿ ἀλήκυθόν τ᾿ ἔχων: ‘keeping his mouth brass-bound and uninflated’.

24 Nat. Mus., Cat. 668 (Carapanos Collection).

25 See Bodley, N. B., ‘The Auloi of Meroe’, in AJA 1 (1946) 217–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar