Sound-Making Objects

Abstract

The chapter investigates a specific functional category of objects of everyday life: sound-producing objects, with a focus on ordinary, simple items such as bells, clappers, and rattles, and their social function and contribution to everyday experience. After an initial overview of the types of artefacts studied and their dating, evidence from a close examination of the objects themselves is set alongside wider knowledge of their use and social context available from visual and textual sources, and historical and anthropological studies that shed light on the social function of sound-making objects. An innovative aspect of this chapter is the use of evidence from artefact replicas regarding likely notes played, and the volume of the sound produced. This directly inform understanding of the possible roles played by particular types of instruments within everyday social experience in Roman and late antique Egypt, for instance whether they were suited to public performance, more individual entertainment and play, or wider social functions such as the production of alarm sounds, and their audibility to different social groups with discrepant hearing capacity, such as young children, or elderly people. Drawing on experimental recording data including the recreation of the acoustic environment within a Romano-Egyptian house, the final section examines how the sounds produced by the objects may have contributed more widely to the creation of ambient environments and collective experiences.