The Auloi

This group of auloi, the principal musical wind instrument of antiquity, was excavated in 1921 by the Harvard University–Museum of Fine Arts Expedition in the burial of Queen Amanishakheto at Meroë. Amanishakheto, who reigned from 10–1 B.C., was a powerful ruler, and after a period of conflict between Meroë and the Roman Empire, she signed a treaty with the emperor Augustus that set the stage for a new era of trade and communication between the two powers. This cache is by far the largest group of such reedpipes ever found together. Called an aulos by the Greeks, the instrument consists of two divergent pipes, each with its own double reed and held separately in each hand, but played together simultaneously.

Auloi are attested from possibly the sixth century B.C. (certainly by the third century B.C.) until the end of the ancient world, and there are many varieties. The second century Greek scholar Julius Pollux, for example, lists 20 types by name, based on the context in which they were played or by the nations that used them.

Learn about the iconography of auloi in the MFA collection

Early auloi were made of sections of bone joined together by socket and tenon. Although no complete pipes survive among some hundreds of extant sections, their structure can still be understood. Construction of auloi evolved over time, and by the Hellenistic period (332–30 B.C.), mechanically sophisticated systems, made of bronze, bone, and wood were in use. Pipes of this type have unfortunately suffered from the fragility of wood and the liability of bronze to corrode, and so are more difficult to comprehend and interpret.

Although Meroë is located hundreds of miles south of the Mediterranean Sea, trade routes along the Nile and the Red Sea provided paths by which influence—cultural and commercial—was exchanged with the north, as well as with western and central Asia. The metropolitan quality and sophistication of the city is reflected in surviving art and artifacts, and is likewise evident in the craftsmanship of these musical instruments. This collection of auloi is believed to be the complete equipment of a professional musician, who may have been involved in the funerary rites for the queen.

Excavation History

The Harvard University–Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition was established in 1905, when George Andrew Reisner became the Museum’s curator of Egyptian Art as well as Harvard’s professor of Egyptology. Reisner was one of the leading archaeologists of his day, introducing new techniques, in particular the extensive use of photographic records, which revolutionized the field of Egyptology. In 1913, Reisner and his team turned their attention southward to Nubia, the region that today encompasses southern Egypt and northern Sudan. There, over the next two decades, the Expedition excavated a variety of sites, including royal cemeteries of the second millennium B.C. at Kerma and of the first millennium B.C. at el-Kurru, Nuri, and Meroë.

Queen Amanishakheto’s pyramid was discovered in the northern cemetery at Meroë in 1921. It had been previously found and emptied of its rich treasure of jewelry years earlier by Italian physician and explorer Giuseppi Ferlini. The auloi were among the few objects that remained in the tomb.

Conservation Strategy

The Meroë pipes were unearthed in a cluster. Approximately 7 meters (23 feet) of tubing, plus enumerable fragments, were recovered. They appear to correspond to at least 16 different pipes, representing at least 4 different types.

Due to the thin-walled nature of the objects, exposure to long-term burial, as well as handling and shipping post-excavation, the pipes are now extremely fragmented and are in too fragile a state to be handled and studied safely. Most are still stored in the wooden trays in which they were shipped from the Sudan some 90 years ago. Embedded between some of the fragments are small pieces of paper with notes from the excavators, some written in Arabic. Due to movement and repeated handling over the years, the original groupings (if each pipe was indeed salvaged as one, even if fragmented) have been disturbed, although it remains unknown to what extent.

Stabilization and rehousing in state-of-the-art customized storage units are required to allow further analysis, documentation, and interpretation of these fragments. The initial phase of rehousing and removal from the shipping containers must be recorded in detail and can be compared to a miniature excavation, as all information, such as location and associated notes, may lead to further understanding of the fragments. Scientific analysis of all materials will provide further insights into the manufacture and use of the raw materials. It is possible that carbon-14 dating will help establish a more accurate date of when these items were created.

There are enough differences between the pipes (diameters, wall thicknesses, finger-hole distributions and shapes, closure mechanisms, external profiles, materials, etc.) to ascribe fragments to different pipes and to join or associate extended sections together. It will also be necessary to compare the restored sections with other finds (from Pompeii, Greece, Turkey, Slovenia, London, etc.), in order to accurately interpret the entire set of pipes.

Copies could then be fabricated, and as enough is now known about the reeds used on auloi, such copies could be played. With the completion of reasonably accurate copies, the musical potential of such instruments could be rediscovered, adding immeasurably to the knowledge of music in the Roman period.

Presentations

2nd Meeting of the Auloi/Tibiae Revival Project:
Tarquinia, Italy, October 13, 2014
Jayme Kurland: "The Conservation of the Auloi of Meroë at the Museum of Fine Arts-Boston"

44th Annual American Musical Instrument Society:
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, June 3–7, 2015
Susanne Gänsicke and Jayme Kurland: "The Auloi of Meroë: Preserving and Interpreting an Ancient Musical Treasure"
Olga Sutkowska: "Key Mechanisms of the Ancient Double Pipes"
Peter Holmes: "Re-awakening the Roman Tibia: Overcoming the Problems, Puzzles and Paradoxes for a Modern Maker"
Stefan Hagel: "Pitching Fragments: Can We Establish the Tonality of Aulos Finds?"

32nd CIPEG Annual Meeting:
Staatliches Museum Ägyptischer Kunst, Munich, Germany, September 1–4, 2015
Rita Freed: "Trash to Treasure: Auloi from Meroë"

XIX International Congress on Ancient Bronzes:
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA, October 13–17, 2015
Susanne Gänsicke: "The Auloi from Meroë: Conservation, technical examination, and interpretation of a cache of ancient musical instruments"

Sound Making: Handcraft of Musical Instruments in Antiquity:
Institut français d’archéologie orientale, Paris, France, January 14–16, 2016
Susanne Gänsicke: "The Auloi from Meroë: Conservation, technical examination, and resurrection"
Stefan Hagel: "The Meroë Pipes: A musical jigsaw puzzle"

12th International Conference for Meroitic Studies:
National Museum – Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures, Prague, Czech Republic, September 5–9, 2016
Denise Doxey: "Amanishakheto’s Auloi and Meroë’s Mediterranean Connections"
Susanne Gänsicke: "The Auloi from Meroë: Conservation, technical examination and resurrection"

Lecture hosted by New England (Boston) Chapter of The American Research Center in Egypt:
Boston Public Library, Boston, MA, March 13, 2017
Susanne Gänsicke, Denise Doxey, Stefan Hagel: “Amanishakheto’s Auloi: Discovering and Conserving a Unique Set of Ancient Musical Instruments”

Seminar hosted by Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard University:
Barker Center, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, March 20, 2017
Susanne Gänsicke and Stefan Hagel: “Hellenistic Music in Africa, 10 BCE: Reconstructing the Instruments from Queen Amanishakheto’s Pyramid”

Workshop entitled “Conservation and Conservation Science in Museums and the Field” at the Annual Meeting of the American Institute of Archaeology:
Boston, MA, January 4–7, 2018
Susanne Gänsicke: “Queen Amanishaketo’s auloi: A multi-disciplinary approach in reconstructing a cache of ancient musical instruments”

70th Annual Meeting of the American Research Center in Egypt:
Washington, DC, April 12-14, 2019
Denise Doxey and Susanne Gänsicke: “The auloi from Meroë: Reconstructing the instruments from Queen Amanishakheto’s Pyramid”

Origins and Afterlives of Kush: A Conference in Nubian Studies:
University of California at Santa Barbara, CA, July 25-27, 2019
Denise Doxey and Susanne Gänsicke: “The auloi from Meroë: Reconstructing the Instruments from Queen Amanishakheto’s Pyramid”

Publications

Gänsicke, Susanne and Stefan Hagel. 'The Auloi from Meroë: Preliminary notes on the conservation, technical examination, and interpretation of a cache of ancient musical instruments.' In Artistry in Bronze: The Greeks and Their Legacy (XIXth International Congress on Ancient Bronzes), edited by J.M. Daehner, K. Lapatin, A. Spinelli. Getty Publications, 2017.

Hagel, S. 'Leading notes’ in ancient Near Eastern and Greek music and their relation to instrument design.' In Studien zur Musikarchäologie X, Orient-Archäologie 37, edited by R. Eichmann, J. J. Fang, L.-C. Koch, 133–150. Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Orient-Abteilung, 2016.

Authors

Written by Denise Doxey, Susanne Gänsicke, Stefan Hagel, Jayme Kurland, Darcy Kuronen, and Joel Thompson.
Photographs taken by Timothy Chung, Susanne Gänsicke, Jayme Kurland, and Joel Thompson.

Acknowledgments

Project partners: Austrian Academy of Sciences, J. Paul Getty Museum, and Middlesex University London.

The authors would also like to acknowledge several individuals who gave generously of their time, expertise, and in sharing their ideas, including Michele Derrick, Rita Freed, Raj Gupta (director of the Ultra-High Resolution Volume CT Lab, Massachusetts General Hospital), Pamela Hatchfield, Richard Newman, and Matthew Siegal.

This project is funded by generous donations from members of the Visiting Committees of the Departments of Musical Instruments, Art of the Ancient World, and Conservation and Collections Management.