Sounds of the blue daemon: A new aural study of the Etruscan Tomba dei Demoni Azzurri, 450–420 BCE

Abstract

The archaeological record of ancient Etruria suggests that different sounds were significant across sacred and secular settings. This is represented in everything from surviving musical instruments to vibrant images of musical performance and religious ritual involving natural phenomena. Nowhere is this more acute than the painted tomb where hundreds of images of musicians and dancers crowd tomb walls with their visually compelling yet silent sounds. Although multiple painted tombs survive intact, we know very little regarding their aural nature.This article presents data from a recent acoustic study in Tarquinia, Italy. The study constitutes the first archaeoacoustic study developed to study the Etruscan archaeological record. Drawing from the resulting acoustic data, the Tomba dei Demoni Azzurri is shown to exhibit similar levels of reverberation documented inside St. Paul's Cathedral in London, particularly in areas of the tomb where funerary rituals were conducted. Aural perception inside the tomb space is of focus, particularly with respect to the transactional nature of sound and vision. The methodology, which was developed to investigate the painted tomb, emphasises the importance of investigating the Etruscan funerary record from an aural perspective, thereby forging a new path forward in assessing the funerary record in pre-Roman Italy and the broader ancient Mediterranean.