An orchestra of lost instruments
OCT 08, 2009
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.023744
The Guardian : An orchestra of ancient instruments, many of which exist only in paintings and yellowing manuscripts, will perform its first concert at the end of the year.Many of the instruments have not been heard since the times of Socrates in the fifth century BC, though some of the instruments date back even further, to the bronze age a thousand years earlier.Scientists are reconstructing the sounds of the instruments, including the earliest predecessors of the bass guitar, harp, and oboe, by building mathematical models of them on computers and using descriptions in ancient texts and paintings on artifacts recovered from archaeological sites in Greece.
© 2009 American Institute of Physics
