The European Music Archaeology Project (EMAP) ranked first out of the 80 projects entered for the EU’s most prestigious cultural competition in 2012, Strand 1.1 of Education, Audiovisual and Cultural Executive Agency (EACEA). Project’s aim was to highlight Europe’s ancient cultural roots from an unusual perspective: musical, scientific and “sensorial”. Music can sometimes reveal little known facts about ancient civilizations. It created a network of relationships and points of contact among Europeans long before we became aware of this common identity, before the Old Continent became known as such and the “history of music” began.

The project was a journey between archaeology and art, science and creativity. EMAP travelled in time from the Upper Paleolithic period (ca 40,000 B.C.), the era some ancient findings date back to, to the great classical civilizations. Experts examined the survival and resilience of ancient music making, as witnessed in the traditional music that is still alive in Europe and in the Mediterranean basin.

The European Music Archaeology Project’s (EMAP) activities spanned a period of five years, from 2013 to 2018, with the collaboration of seven countries and ten European institutions. The Science and Technology in Archaeology and Culture Research Center of the Cyprus Institute has been part of EMAP’s team with the digitization of ancient musical instruments as well as ancient artefacts from various museums around the world. The Cyprus Institute also mounted the pocket edition of the exhibition ARCHAEOMUSUCA, which was one of the most prestigious outcomes of the project that travelled around Europe.

EMAP has come to the end after a long period full of hard work and dedication. Along with Orpheus who is represented playing his lyre in Pafos’ mosaics, EMAP’s epilogue will be celebrated in Cyprus with a concert. Two distinguished musicians, Stef Conner and Barnaby Brown, investigate the world’s oldest instruments and notation with breath-taking results. Their musicianship brings Deep History, Mesopotamia, ancient Greece, Anglo Saxon England and medieval Scotland to life. Highlights include a vulture radius bone 40,000 years old and a hymn to Apollo from Delphi, 127 BC – the oldest, lengthiest and best-preserved notation of a Greek song.

Schedule

19:00 - 19:15    |    Brief presentation of EMAP
Dr Sorin Hermon, The Cyprus Institute

19:15 - 19:30      |      EMAP Results and Activities
Emiliano Li Castro, EMAP - Artistic Director

19:30 - 20:10      |      Concert | 40 000 years in 40 minutes
Barnaby Brown (Paleolithic, Sumerian & ancient Greek pipes, Anglo Saxon lyre)
Stef Conner (vocals, ancient Greek lyre)

Organizers

                    

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