After picking up a number of different instruments over the years, I recently discovered the ancient aulos, and after some hesitation - do I really want to start a new instrument now? - I've become caught up in the current aulos revival. The ancestor of the oboe and bassoon, it's a double pipe with double reeds, and was arguably the most popular instrument of antiquity throughout the Mesopotamian region. Fragments and a few complete instruments have been found in Ur, Egypt, and throughout the Greco-Roman world - representations of auletes are ubiquitous on Greco-Roman ceramic, often mistakenly identified as flutes. It then vanished from the Western tradition for about 1500 years, and has only been reconstructed and played again within the last 20 years or so.
The photo below shows my current instruments. On the left is a copy of a 2nd-1st c. BCE Greco-Roman aulos (now housed in the Louvre); on the right a copy of the 15th c. BCE Egyptian "Lady Maket" aulos (now in the Berlin museum). Both of these are rare instances of complete original instruments. The "Louvre" aulos was made by Max Brumberg, the "Lady Maket" by me, with guidance from Barnaby Brown and Marco Sciascia. More to come...
