12th Symposium of the International Study Group on Music Archaeology

Drawing inspiration from the conference location in Würzburg, with its long academic tradition in diverse fields of research into music history, the 12th Symposium of the International Study Group on Music Archaeology will focus on the multiple interdependencies between archaeology, philology, and historical musicology in both thematic and methodological terms. The foundations of music-archaeological research consist of the analysis and reconstruction of archaeological artefacts. This work provides a basis for narratives about the meaning and influence of sounds within their overall historical settings. Furthermore, the results of music-archeological research make a crucial contribution to multisensory approaches to ancient cultures. The investigation and evaluation of past music cultures relies equally on insights derived from archaeological as well as philological research focused on questions such as:

• What stories or histories can be uncovered through the analysis and reconstruction of past musical instruments?
• In what ways can interdisciplinary music-archaeological methods and theories break down the traditional boundaries between archaeology, philology, music history, and other disciplines involved in the field of reconstructing music-archeological artefacts?
• How do the materials, the building, playing and tuning of instruments, and the reception of sounds contribute to an advanced narrative of the ancient world’s music histories?
• In what ways can music and sound archeology be practiced as part of a culture of the senses?

Program of the symposium