Originally published at: Listen to the musical notes of an ancient conch | Boing Boing
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I think perhaps they might have taken it away from the archeologists and given it to a musician to play. I’m reminded of the girl in my school who chose to play “Swan Lake” on the French Horn at our talent show and treated us to about two and a half minutes of farting noises.
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And even if they had, an 18,000 year old conch would sound no different than a 50 or 50,000 year old conch.
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Sounded like my neighbor blowing her nose.
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https://hawaiianceremonies.com/pu_conch_blowing.php
The gift shops sell a lot of these shells, and sometimes people even can get a tone out of them!
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“And that was before she even started playing!”
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They ought to have called Steve Turre.
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Just say no to ancient conchs, unless you have a wager.
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It’s a sound that I’ve at times of great embarrassment, made myself.
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I can hear the guy who made that thing’s dad saying these kids and their crazy music today
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They did
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You are an ancient human. You find one of these on a beach. It is clearly special. You take it home. Someone finds a bigger one, and they take that back too. The biggest and best one goes on display. If you don’t understand that, you have never been a child on a beach, and you have my pity.
So, was it an ‘instrument’ or a ‘loving cup’? It was a bleeding’ conch, mate, that’s what it was. The use, if it had one, may have come later. They may have said “hey, we can drink from this”, or “we can get notes out of it”, but it is still a conch. Would they have said “Why don’t we serve kava in the French Horn?”, or “Have you ever tried playing the Loving Cup?”. And what if they did? Naming found things after their apparent function seems a bit modern to me.
It could have been either. But it was definitely a conch, and the sort of thing you bring home and think hard about what a mantlepiece might be because that would be just the place. If you find a carrying case for it lined with red velvet with holes for the mouthpiece and the conch oil, I will willingly concede it is an instrument.
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They have given it to a musician. That’s who’s playing it in the article. And it’s been modified, so a modern one wouldn’t sound the same, unless modified the same way.
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The Tibetans have been playing conches for centuries, as have many other cultures.
These are heavily decorated, but there are simpler examples.
They are decorated in a wide variety of ways.
This one lives at the British Museum. Sexy dragon.
Coral, turquoise, silver. It’s $69.
TIbetan carved Citipati Conch Trumpet
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How? Tibet is about as far from the beach as it is possible to get. Lhasa is surrounded by mountains. The Brahmaputra makes it to the sea, but most of their rivers just end in the plains.
Apparently the term ‘conch’ is a bit elastic, and may include freshwater snails with a similar shape, but those don’t get big enough to play, methinks. I expect someone found it profitable to lug them all the way there, and probably fibbed about where they came from to protect his buisness. But it would be nice to know.
Yes, that’s the answer to your question.
I don’t understand that part. It’s trade. The value is created in the transport costs, not the exclusive information where to get things.
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The spice trade was famously secretive about the source of nutmeg and mace.
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A lot of Tibetan and Nepalese jewelry and decorations are coral. The Nepalese use conch trumpets, too.
Shellfish were eaten a lot by ancient Andean cultures.
Saltwater fish were eaten by Britons who lived far from the sea.
The Egyptians were using lapis lazuli earlier than 3000 BCE, before even developing writing. The Tibetans and Nepalese also anciently used lapis. Lapis at those times was mined only in Afghanistan.
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Yes, they did. The silk route supplied Rome. Roman glass is found in far Norway. I am guessing conches arrived with Buddhism, somehow. I bet there is a story behind all of these, if we could tease it out.
Not so impressive. Nowhere is Britain is more than 70 miles from the sea. Yet you can get fresher fish anywhere in France, which is much larger.
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