Sounds of copper and bronze : metonymies of copper and bronze as sound objects in the Ancient World

Abstract

This article studies excerpts from different textual traditions in the Ancient World (Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome besides some remarks about China) where the name of a musical instrument is substituted by a word for ‘copper’ and/or ‘bronze’, that is, metonymies connecting musical instruments with their elaboration materials. For each case, the possible instrument mentioned under the metonymy is identified, considering the context of the excerpt and supplementary references. As for the conclusions, while ancient people agreed in seeing some natural properties for these materials, the musical instruments mentioned as ‘copper’/‘bronze’ are, however, very different in each cultural area. That speaks in favour of not considering materials elaborating musical instruments as something ‘objective’. Far from that, those materials should be holistically studied, including here cultural or socio-economic reasons explaining their election for creating a musical instrument.