Professor Ellen Swift brings ancient and modern together through recreating Roman sounds and music.
Ellen Swift, professor of Roman archaeology at the University of Kent loves to engage in a bit of ancient detective work. That’s exactly what she and her team did for a recent project to assist the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology in London. Their research looked at hundreds of artefacts in the museum’s collection with the aim of gaining more accurate dates (many of the objects were found to be from a later period than originally thought), origin locations and archaeological context for the objects. The project yielded approximately 700 updated entries for the museum’s catalogue, including identifying artefacts that were previously unidentified and connecting objects found in Egypt to their likely origins hundreds or even thousands of miles away in Iran and Sri Lanka.
The public-facing aspect of their research included not only social media posts and a project blog, but also an Egypt-themed short story competition for students and the development of interactive content for a temporary exhibition at the museum. Professor Swift and her team maximized the impact of their project by using 3D scanning and printing to create playable replicas of ancient musical instruments housed at the Petrie. They then recorded the sounds of some sixty instruments to bring ancient Roman-Egyptian music to life in the 21st century. But their impact didn’t stop there. In addition to museum goers getting the opportunity to play these authentic replicas, the team worked with the music department at the university’s Medway campus to recreate the sound within the environment in which the instruments were likely played. For example, Professor Swift and her team provided data gathered on a Roman-Egyptian courtyard, including dimensions and information on the material used for wall surfaces so the music team could replicate the acoustics of a young boy learning to play the panpipes in a courtyard. The exhibition also included a tutorial for users to test their musical abilities on the panpipes by attempting to play Beethoven’s Ode to Joy.
To assess the impact of their research, the team gathered information from those who interacted with the exhibition. The team ascertained that 56 percent of respondents learned something new about music, sounds or instruments. Many users also commented that the hands-on nature of the experience brought ancient Roman-Egypt to life in ways they never would have imagined, with one user saying they now viewed Egypt in terms of living people rather than tombs and mummies. In changing the perception of the people of this period, Professor Swift and her team brought modern and ancient people closer together through the universal medium of music. [RG]
3D modeling used to make the replicas