Italy’s Oldest Instrument Hints at Sounds of Prehistoric Rome

ROME — When archaeologist Giovanni Carboni first came upon the oddly shaped ceramic object during an excavation in a Roman suburb in 2006, he was baffled.

“I said — please don’t write this, though, because I said a swear word — I said: ‘What the heck is this thing,'” Carboni recalled recently.

The object resembled half an oversize walnut shell, the rim perforated evenly with holes. It had been found in a tomb, placed next to the body of an adult man (identified only by his teeth after centuries lying in acidic earth).

“I had no idea what it was,” Carboni said.

Twelve years later, the enigma appears to have been solved: Carboni says he believes the ceramic object, an artifact of the Gaudo culture, a Neolithic society primarily from the region of Campania, is a musical instrument.

“It dates to around 3000 B.C., so, for Italy, it’s the oldest ever found,” he said.

The ceramic shell at first appeared to be one of a kind. One hypothesis was that it might have been a cheese strainer. Then, similarities were found with two other objects, found near Naples, that had been convincingly identified as sound boxes for musical instruments.

When Martina Nicole Cerri, an archaeology student at Sapienza University in Rome, began to analyze the object for her doctoral thesis in 2014, she sought to determine whether it had been decorative or meant to be played.

That investigation involved crafting two hypothetical versions of the instrument — one a kind of lute, the other a sort of lyre — using the materials that would have been available 5,000 years ago, she said during an interview last month.

The result, was “kind of ugly to look at,” she conceded, “but it was extremely difficult to recreate.”

Cerri asked Alessio Pellegrini, a musically-minded student in the archaeology department, to help her determine whether the two instruments could actually be played. “Yes, they could,” she said happily.

This year, Pellegrini and his brothers, Danilo and Gianluca, performed a concert at the Museum of Origins at Sapienza University using both the lyre and lute versions of the instrument, along with a replica of a prehistoric drum.

Pellegrini said the music that he and his brothers had come up with was “just an interpretation, a hypothesis,” because there was no score to work from. “We can’t know who played, how they played, what type of melodies, what rhythms, what kind of tempo,” he said.

This year, the artifact was showcased in an exhibition at the university museum titled “Lost Sounds.”

Alessandra Celant, a biologist at Sapienza University who also teaches in the archaeology department, said the object and exhibition offered a rare opportunity to explore Rome’s prehistoric past, which “has always been oppressed by the grandeur” of classical antiquity.

Archaeologists who specialize in Italy’s prehistory often grumble that, when wonders like the Pantheon and the Colosseum are a constant reminder of what was to come, it can be hard to stir up excitement about chipped spearheads or undecorated clay pots, even if they date back millenniums. That disadvantage can also affect the competition for research grants, they say.

“Rome’s history is mostly considered from Romulus onward,” Carboni said, referring to the legendary first king of Rome, who is said to have founded the city in the 8th century B.C. Minimal attention was paid to the preceding centuries, he added.

Walter Maioli has been tinkering with the sounds of ancient instruments for the better part of half a century. Studying the music of far-flung populations, and making many dozens of instruments, he calls himself a composer and performer of ancient music.

Maioli has recorded several albums featuring his take on ancient music with his group Synaulia. He has also composed for and consulted on television and film productions set in ancient Rome, including the Russell Crowe movie “Gladiator.”

More recently, Maioli has been holding daily workshops in antique music at the archaeological site at Paestum, near Naples in southern Italy, which is home to three ancient Greek temples.

“Have you ever heard the sound of stones?” Maioli asked during one recent workshop, while a group of children sat evidently entranced by his ability to draw intricate sounds from a variety of objects, including shells, bones and horns, feathers and seeds.

Many everyday objects were used in prehistoric times to make music, he explained, a fact that archaeologists often forget.

Picking through a chest of musical contraptions, he chose a small wooden bullroarer, an ancient ritual instrument consisting of a slat attached to a thong. After a few spins, a deep whooshing sound filled the hall. “The voice of the big spirit,” said Maioli, who has made bullroarers from various materials.

Maioli’s work fits into the vision of Gabriel Zuchtriegel, who became director of the Paestum archaeological site in 2015. Zuchtriegel has been attempting to imbue a sense of the daily life that once would have taken place in the ancient city.

Maioli’s inventions, even if hypothetical, give a sense of a dynamic civilization, Zuchtriegel said.

“Every day, there is an experience for all visitors, included in the ticket, to make this site live, to let people look at the site and the museum differently, through music,” he said. “Music is ideal because it is something understood across the board.”