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LIVING AND DOCUMENTED CULTURE · 01

From the Bronze Age Aegean to the polis lyre

Images and objects allow knowledge of Aegean instruments, but not the assumption that music was always the same.

Museum documentation · free public access, no account required.

DECLARED VISUAL RECONSTRUCTION · AI-GENERATED IMAGE · TRACEKEEPERS

Generated reconstruction · Declared visual hypothesis

Declared visual reconstruction; not a photograph of the original nor documentary evidence.

Image of From the Bronze Age Aegean to the polis lyre
DECLARED VISUAL RECONSTRUCTION · AI-GENERATED IMAGE · TRACEKEEPERS

Generated reconstruction · Declared visual hypothesis

Declared visual reconstruction; not a photograph of the original nor documentary evidence.

History and context

Sonic continuity between a Minoan fresco, a Mycenaean palace and a classical theatre must never be taken for granted.

Evidence and interpretation

Synthesis based on Greek Ministry of Culture · Knossos; Greek Ministry of Culture · Mycenae; UNESCO · Minoan Palatial Centres. The comparison serves to formulate questions, not to fill record gaps with certainties.

Catalogue facts

Civilisation or trajectory
Greeks: from Minoan Crete to the Hellenic world
Scope
Music and sound
Main area
Knossos, Phaistos, Malia and Zakros in Crete; afterwards Mycenae, Pylos, Tiryns and other continental centres.

A closer look

About 1 min to read · 1 section. Further reading and sources · free access. Editorial review recorded: .

The two hands of the kithara player

On amphora 56.171.38 at the Met, attributed to the Berlin Painter, a musician tilts the head back and opens the mouth to sing while holding a kithara. The right hand manages the plectrum; the left, situated behind the strings, can damp those that should not sound. A strap helps secure the instrument, whose wooden soundbox was larger than that of a tortoise-shell lyre. This image of c. 490 BCE documents a specialised practice of public performance through posture, tool and gesture, although it does not preserve the melody performed.

Location and territory

Physical world map with routes of human evolutionPresent-day world coastline from Natural Earth in an equirectangular projection. The overlaid markers let you explore each milestone.Map base: Natural Earth 1:110m · public domain · present-day reference coastline

REGIONAL AREA

Crete, Aegean and mainland Greece; the museum begins in the Minoan phaseCrete, Aegean and mainland Greece; the museum begins in the Minoan phase. The footprint marks the orientative centre of the scope, not a boundary nor an exact point.

Sources and references

Consult the sources of this cultural synthesis

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