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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Handcrafting in archaeomusicological research

subject

description

There were no conference proceedings but you may find video recordings of some of the talks by following the link above; International audience; Archaeological flutes, as sound artefacts, both stand in material and immaterial culture. They are made of tremendous subtleties that archaeologists have a hard time to understand while these are craftsmen's everyday life. These subtleties are the link between material (rough material, tools, gestures) and immaterial (sounds, music, timber, uses) issues. They are the reason why archaeology cannot study ancient sound instruments on its own. A one-year insight experience of apprenticeship alongside a traditional-flute-maker (Jean-Daniel Talma, ElBock workshop) in 2014-2015 was a way to demonstrate that archaeomusicological research has everything to gain when merged with handcrafting. As a new way to practice archaeological studies, " crafting archaeology " is offering new epistemological and methodological questions, revealing shortcomings or weaknesses in past and actual sound interpretations, giving clues to improve studying methods, and bringing us to consider a " sound-archaeology " rather than a " music-archaeology ". When crafting sounds out of a flute becomes clear and almost natural, changes appear in our way to look, apprehend and understand those instruments. These changes result from the transformation from a quantitative to a qualitative approach. More than raising new questions, handcrafting is also offering new perspectives in sound archaeology research: it questions our way to think, the consciousness we have of our subjects and even our scholar process. Following craftsmen's know-how's teachings in a new qualitative approach, we could even find a new field of application by using recent technological breakthroughs in the 3D industry through a 3D scanningreconstructing-and-printing protocol.