Miriam Kolar, "Tuned to the Senses: An Archaeoacoustic Perspective on Ancient Chavín"

Ancient Studies Articles

I have been interested in sensory history for a long time now, so the chance to read aloud this article by Miriam Kolar on the archaeoacoustics of Chavin de Huantar, a UNESCO site in the Peruvian Andes, is exciting. In the article, the interplay between ritual, musical instruments, and architecture is explored in order to reconstruct the experience of the oracle. Not only does the article present a rich analysis of the site, it introduces readers (er, listeners) to the methodology behind archaeoacoustics and the ways in which archaeologists reconstuct ephemeral evidence in order to understand individual and communal experiences. Although we travel away from the Mediterranean for this article, the methods, theory, and hypotheses that underpin it are important for every archaeologist, historian, or philologist.

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