Bone flute found at Troy, the site's first musical instrument

A rare instrument in the city of Troy

The flute fragment, carved from bone, dates to the late Iron Age, around 800 BCE. According to Turkey's Minister of Culture and Tourism, Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, this object is the very first musical instrument unearthed at Hisarlık. The finding is all the more striking given that the site has been excavated for more than a century and a half.

The discovery carries particular significance. Flutes made of bone or reed are among the oldest known instruments in human history, but their preservation in the ground is exceptional: organic materials decay quickly, especially in damp environments. Finding such a fragment in an urban context as well studied as Troy is therefore rare, and every trace of the past's sounds becomes valuable to researchers.

A Bronze Age idol near a city gate

In an earlier phase of occupation, archaeologists also discovered, near the location of a city gate, a human idol head dating to the Early Bronze Age, roughly 4,500 years old. Idols of this type, often shaped from terracotta or stone, are attested at many sites in Anatolia and the Aegean islands, where they shed light on the beliefs and ritual practices of early communities.

Placed near a gate, this figure is a reminder that fortified entrances were also places of passage, exchange and sometimes religious gestures. The minister said both objects would be evaluated. This assessment will notably cover their dating, material and exact context of discovery, elements essential for linking them to a specific layer of occupation.

Troy, a site at the heart of world archaeology

Hisarlık is traditionally identified with the Troy celebrated by Homer in the Iliad. Excavations carried out there since the 19th century have revealed a superimposition of several major settlement layers, from prehistory to the Roman period. Each new campaign refines the chronology of these levels and our understanding of this strategic city that controlled access to the Dardanelles.

Discoveries of this kind, whether objects of everyday life or of the religious sphere, help reconstruct social practices well beyond great monuments and epic narratives. A musical instrument tells us as much about a population's festivals, ceremonies and leisure as its ramparts tell us about its defense.

The objects under study and next steps

The next phase of work rests on laboratory study of the flute fragment and the idol head. Specialists will seek to establish whether the flute could produce several notes, which would give an idea of the music played at the end of the Iron Age in western Anatolia. Such an analysis remains delicate on an isolated fragment, but it can provide concrete evidence about how the instrument was used.

Excavations are expected to continue in the coming campaigns, with the aim of confirming the stratigraphic contexts of the two finds, that is, the geological and archaeological layers in which they were discovered. This precision is decisive for dating the objects reliably.

Visiting Troy and Anatolian collections

The Hisarlık site is open to visitors in Çanakkale, with an archaeological park and remains of ramparts and monumental gates. Objects from the excavations are in principle housed in regional museums and in the Çanakkale Archaeology Museum, where collections linked to the city can be viewed. For those interested in the earliest instruments, Anatolian collections offer many points of comparison.

To explore music in antiquity further, Archaeology magazine recently published a feature on the subject, titled "The Music of Time", about how archaeologists attempt to recreate the sounds of the ancient world.