Bardic echoes: reconstructing ancient Celtic music, towards an ethnomusicology; or, an interdisciplinary study of Celtic musical identity

This paper aims to begin a reconstruction of the music played in the ancient Celtic cultural horizon, from its inception in the Bronze Age to its zenith in the Iron Age, until its amalgamation into the Roman Empire, drawing from sources both earlier and later. The question is considered from a musician’s gaze and informed from empirical experimental archaeological experience from: Castro el Cincho, Galicia, and Salamanca, Spain; Helsingør, Denmark; Tintignac, Corrèze, France; Iron age site of Castell Henllys, West Wales and research conducted at the Universities of Bristol and Aberystwyth. This summative study is intended to act as a theoretical guide for the process of reconstructing Celtic music, as a starting point from which further research and experimentation may be undertaken at a later time. An assertation is made of the characteristic of musical instruments with interpretations of their usage, and it is ultimately found that archaeomusicology can demonstrate aspects of shared cultural features with a parity of continuity in technologies and traditions indicating a common Celtic musical identity. An ethnos describes a nation, or people, as defined by cultural lines, while ethnomusicology, for the sake of this paper, is the study of music particular to an ethnic group. Archaeology and ethnography remain the two main sources of evidence for understanding an ancient cultural identity, and they correspond respectively to the ‘material culture’ of the group in question and to written attestations of their defining features. Due to the speculative nature of artistic reconstruction, this investigation begins with what is physically extant in the archaeological record, describes what is known from literary sources, and draws an interpretation based on the physical evidence. The intention is to avoid affecting the discussion with a priori assumptions, looking for physical evidence to justify preconceptions about the Celts, and instead to compare a given set of artefacts with other forms of information. Due to differing levels of evidence scarcity, this is presented relevant to the burden of proof and likelihood rather than along a chronological axis.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

ma

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

masters

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Wales Trinity Saint David

Year dc:date.issued

2022

Author dc:creator

• Black, Morgan

• DA Prydain Fawr
• M Cerddoriaeth

Dc Identifier Grantnumber

UWTSD

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.uwtsd.ac.uk:3203