Originally published at: Archaeologists find 2,000-year-old musical instrument | Boing Boing
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“No other explanation for its use makes sense.”
Said every archeologist ever until the other thing they hadn’t considered comes to light. Le sigh. I so want to believe.
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I wonder what it sounded like. These kinds of archaeological finds really fire up the imagination, but ultimately we’ll never be able to collect enough information to know. It’s humbling to think of how 99.9(etc)% of human culture is just completely lost to us now.
Are you saying it actually had a “ritual use”? 
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We are positive they’re instruments?
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In this case, the assessment was bolstered by a sign found nearby:
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Well, in some hands it might be said that a dildo is a ‘musical’ instrument.
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Of course, they’ve been wrong before…
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Glad somebody caught that.
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Stairway… denied!?
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These instruments look very similar to berimbaus, an integral part of Brazilian capoeira, which came to Brazil with the enslaved people from Africa. Such musical bows were probably invented independently in different regions.
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And this is what it sounded like when I played this instrument:
That does seem to be the inspiration for the reconstruction. Even if it was similar, we don’t know how many strings it had, how it was played, what the tuning was like…
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As a maker of many single stringed instruments, you might be surprised how many notes a one string can produce.
In the US we call them diddley bows.
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