Here is an object which places the Hebrides, and by association the neighbouring mainlands, in a musical relationship not only with the rest of the Barbarian world but also with famous civilisations. “But it’s the location of the find that keeps amazing – and delighting - us. But here in Europe even Roman traces proved hard to locate. “The earliest known lyres date from about 5,000 years ago, in what is now Iraq: and these were already complicated and finely-made structures.
And not only the history of music but more specifically of song and poetry, because that’s what such instruments were very often used for. It pushes the history of complex music back more than a thousand years, into our darkest pre-history. Music archaeologists Dr Graeme Lawson and Dr John Purser studied the fragment which was discovered at High Pasture Cave.ĭr Lawson, of Cambridge Music-archaeological Research, said: “For Scotland – and indeed all of us in these islands – this is very much a step change. It has been burnt and broken, but the notches where strings would have been placed are easy to distinguish on the artefact. Experts believe they have found the remains of the earliest stringed instrument ever found in Western Europe - dating to more than 2,300 years ago - at an excavation on the Island of Skye.Ĭabinet Secretary for Culture Fiona Hyslop today revealed the small wooden fragment that it is believed comes from a lyre.
0 kommentar(er)
