Archaeologist finds ancient Irish horn in India

If you think ancient civilizations existed in their own bubbles, you may want to reconsider—especially as an archaeologist from the Australian National University College of Asia-Pacific claims he has discovered that ancient Irish musical traditions and instruments are currently being used in south India.

The man who made the discovery, PhD student Billy Ó Foghlú, says this realization reveals a long, lively history of cultural exchanges between iron-age Europe and India, dating 2,000 years. He believes the two cultures shared their independently-developed musical technologies and styles, including horns, which are nearly identical when comparing modern Indian horns and iron-age Irish horns.

“Archaeology is usually silent. I was astonished to find what I thought to be dead soundscapes alive and living in Kerala today,” said Ó Foghlú in an ANU statement. “The musical traditions of south India, with horns such as the kompu, are a great insight into musical cultures in Europe’s prehistory.

“And, because Indian instruments are usually recycled and not laid down as offerings, the artefacts in Europe are also an important insight into the soundscapes of India’s past.”

Pointing to connections between cultures

The paper, which is published in the Journal of Indian Ocean Archaeology, includes the example of a carving from Sanchi, India dating to 300 BCE, which depicts a group of musicians playing European instruments known as carnyces—a type of bronze trumpet with an animal’s head for the bell.

Linking ancient Irish and Indian musical traditions can also help explain some of the mysteries surrounding Celtic iron-age horns unearthed in excavations—especially considering that viewing discoveries through the musical soundscape of modern Western Europe makes it somewhat difficult to predict what an entirely different musical tradition of an ancient population may have sounded like.

“Some almost identical instruments have been unearthed together, but they are slightly out of tune with each other to western ears,” Ó Foghlú said. “This was previously assumed to be evidence of shoddy workmanship. But in Indian music this kind of dissonance is deliberate and beautiful.

“Horns are used more as a rhythm instrument, not for melody or harmony in a western sense.”

Incidentally, this is not Ó Foghlú’s first large discovery concerning ancient Irish music—in September, he also made headlines after he proposed a famous ancient spear butt was actually the mouthpiece of a horn—and to prove his point, he made a 3D print of the “spear butt” and played it with a recreated horn.

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Image credit: Australian National University

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