© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2013 DOI: 10.1163/22129758-12341239
Greek and Roman Musical Studies 1 (2013) 93-121 brill.com/grms
The Daphnē Aulos
Stelios Psaroudakēs
Department of Music Studies, Section of Historical & Systematic Musicology
School of Philosophy, University of Athens
157 84 Zōgraphou, Athens, Hellas
spsaroud@music.uoa.gr
Abstract
The present paper concentrates on one of the musical instruments retrieved from Grave II at
Daphnē, the wooden aulos. Only one pipe of the instrument, together with its bulbous mouthpiece,
was found. In the organological account which follows, the pipe is described and assessed, and an
attempt is made to reconstruct it and discover its scale.
Il presente lavoro si concentra su uno degli strumenti musicali recuperati dalla Tomba II a Dafni,
l’aulos ligneo. Solo una canna dello strumento, assieme alla sua grossa imboccatura, è stata
rinvenuta. Nella descrizione organologica che segue, la canna è descritta e interpretata, ed è fatto
un tentativo di ricostruirla e di scoprire la scala da essa prodotta.
Keywords
organology, Classical Greece, aulos
1. Introduction
In his London Times article of May 25th 1981 on the Daphnē excavation, Mario
Modiano made no mention of the wooden aulos found in Grave IΙ together
with all other artifacts contained in it.1 A year later, Gilles Touchais does men-
tion the aulos, describing it as a “wooden instrument resembling a flute”.2 The
aulos fragments (together with the other wooden items from Grave II) were
strengthened by a special solution, made up of one part movilit, half part ace-
tone, and toluole.3 The application of this solution is, presumably, responsible
1 Modiano 1981.
2 Touchais 1982: un instrument en bois qui ressemble à une flute.
3 Peiraias Museum Restoration Diary.