{"id":5927,"date":"2012-04-04T20:22:07","date_gmt":"2012-04-04T19:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.heritageandhistory.com\/contents1a\/?p=5927"},"modified":"2012-04-04T20:22:07","modified_gmt":"2012-04-04T19:22:07","slug":"skye-dig-reveals-early-string-instrument","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heritageandhistory.com\/contents1a\/2012\/04\/skye-dig-reveals-early-string-instrument\/","title":{"rendered":"Skye dig reveals early string instrument"},"content":{"rendered":"

Archeologists excavating on the Island of Skye<\/a>, northwest Scotland, think they may have discovered part of the oldest stringed instrument found in western Europe.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The find is only a few centimetres long. Pic Historic Scotland<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dating to more than 2,300 years ago\u00a0the small burnt wooden fragment is believed to be from a lyre.<\/p>\n

Although broken\u00a0the notches where strings would have been placed are easy to distinguish on the artefact.<\/p>\n

Music archaeologist Dr Graeme Lawson studied the fragment which was discovered at High Pasture Cave<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He believes the discovery is a “step change” in the history of music.<\/p>\n

“It pushes the history of complex music back more than a thousand years, into our darkest pre-history.<\/p>\n

“And not only the history of music but more specifically of song and poetry, because that\u2019s what such instruments were very often used for,” he added.<\/p>\n

The earliest known lyres date from about 5,000 years ago, in what is now Iraq.<\/p>\n

Cabinet secretary for culture and external affairs Fiona Hyslop said:\u00a0\u201cThis is an incredible find and it clearly demonstrates how our ancestors were using music and ritual in their lives.<\/p>\n

“The evidence shows that Skye was a gathering place over generations and that it obviously had an important role to play in the celebration and ritual of life more than 2,000 years ago.”<\/p>\n

When fieldwork was completed in 2010 the artefacts were transferred to AOC Archaeology in Loanhead, Edinburgh, for conservation.<\/p>\n

The full results of research will be will be presented at the Highland Archaeology Festival seminar in October.<\/p>\n

The project was supported by Highland Council, Historic Scotland and the National Museums of Scotland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Archeologists excavating on the Island of Skye, northwest Scotland, think they may have discovered the oldest stringed instrument found in western Europe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":5969,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[427,14],"tags":[3222,8231,1209,12959,1790,12965,9505,8908,12975,1826,12953,2482,12961,12954,12969,12966,12981,12982,12970,12967,12968,12960,12962,10853],"class_list":["post-5927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-featured","category-technology","tag-ancestors","tag-archaeology","tag-artefacts","tag-cabinet-secretary","tag-edinburgh","tag-external-affairs","tag-fieldwork","tag-fragment","tag-gathering-place","tag-generations","tag-high-pasture","tag-historic-scotland","tag-history-of-music","tag-island-of-skye","tag-lawson","tag-lyre","tag-museums-of-scotland","tag-national-museums","tag-northwest-scotland","tag-notches","tag-string-instrument","tag-stringed-instrument","tag-using-music","tag-western-europe","entry"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/www.heritageandhistory.com\/contents1a\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/FH-HPCBridge-1-600x400.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/www.heritageandhistory.com\/contents1a\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/FH-HPCBridge-1-600x600.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"https:\/\/www.heritageandhistory.com\/contents1a\/author\/admin-2\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heritageandhistory.com\/contents1a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heritageandhistory.com\/contents1a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heritageandhistory.com\/contents1a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heritageandhistory.com\/contents1a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heritageandhistory.com\/contents1a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5927"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.heritageandhistory.com\/contents1a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5970,"href":"https:\/\/www.heritageandhistory.com\/contents1a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5927\/revisions\/5970"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heritageandhistory.com\/contents1a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heritageandhistory.com\/contents1a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heritageandhistory.com\/contents1a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heritageandhistory.com\/contents1a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}