The discovery of the wind instrument took the breath of archaeologists.
Researchers from the Nord department were surprised to discover in April, on the excavation site which must precede the construction of the new large covered route of the ancient Forum of Bavay, three large suspicious slabs in the northwest corner of the Gallo cryptoporticus. -Roman.
Isolated, with a curious look and carefully wedged by small stones, these three blocks of limestone reused from the forum of the ancient
Bagacum
contained within them a curious votive deposit: that of several small copper alloy tubes.
Behind their appearance of metal rods, these vestiges of the 3rd-4th century AD.
AD, however, had nothing of the instrument of witchcraft and all of the musical instrument, since it was the dismantled remains of a Gallo-Roman trumpet.
Measuring nearly 2.70 m, this upright and decorated object is said to be one of the longest, most complete and best-preserved trumpets discovered to date.
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"We are fortunate to have an object very well preserved in addition to having an excavation context"
, rejoiced Patrice Herbin, the head of the archaeological service of the Department of the North at the head of the excavation site of the Ancient Forum. from Bavay. Arrived until our 21st century in excellent condition, from its mouthpiece to the pavilion, the Bavay instrument was made up of several connected and detachable tubes, the disassembly of which ensured the easy transport of this bulky musical paraphernalia. Of a genre well known by an abundance of iconographic sources, this trumpet dramatically increases a corpus as rare as it is uneven, as Patrice Herbin indicates:
"It's really very new since we only knew of two other specimens that had been found in the 19th century and restored, which means that we can't do much with it anymore
.
"
A consistent size
Better yet, the discovered instrument appears to be larger than the average Roman trumpet which is usually around 180 cm long, although the site manager prefers to remain cautious about this.
"It is possible that it looks bigger because we have all the elements, while the others are not complete," he
hastens to clarify.
"The other known trumpets were put back in the 19th century"
, abounds Véronique Beirnaert-Mary, director of the Ancient Forum of Bavay,
"it is therefore very difficult to know if pieces were not removed to make assemblies a little bit radical "
.
Despite its large proportions, the Gallo-Roman trumpet of Bavay still remains in an order of magnitude which could have been quite common, and which ultimately only swears with the few rare objects discovered.
“On Trajan's Column we also have large trumpets, very long, and which seem a little disproportionate,”
recalls Véronique Beirnaert-Mary.
1/3 - The slabs covering the votive deposit.
P. Herbin / North Department
2/3 - One of the tubes of the trumpet.
D. Lampla / Department of the North
3/3 - Detail of straight trumpets on Trajan's column (Rome).
Wikimedia Commons
Formerly stored in a leather case - or with a strap - of which archaeologists have only been able to find a few traces, the instrument differs little from the circular trumpets and horns found on the Italian site of Pompeii.
"There are no pistons, there are no holes, the instrument is really quite simple"
, observes Véronique Beirnaert-Mary. The object is nonetheless very skillfully produced.
"They are quite precious instruments"
, indicates Patrice Herbin, who expects a lot from the carbon 14 dating of the traces of leather.
Not content with dating the trumpet better, it could indeed highlight, by comparing the age of the trumpet with its archaeological context, a possible more or less long hoarding of the instrument, in the manner of statuettes. in bronzes from the Forum de Bavay or precious crockery, for example.
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A late votive deposit
Why was this trumpet dedicated and stored? Its stratigraphic situation and its burial under reused blocks clearly indicate a late votive deposit, at a time when the monumental Bavay forum was abandoned and served as an open-air quarry, in particular for the construction of a fortified 2.5 room. hectares during the Lower Empire and its two successive enclosures. Identification with the 3rd-4th century AD. AD corresponds to a difficult period for Roman Gaul and its cities, a time when the
Pax Romana
falters, where the urban fabrics retract and where new walls are erected.
"We have some elements which show for this time the probable presence of a military garrison
, notes Patrice Herbin, who discovered, on the site,
more and more elements relating to the army: traces of chain mail, armaments, military harnesses, barracks ”
.
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However, the trumpet was a flagship instrument in the musical panoply of the Roman armies, which gave it pride of place, along with the horn, to sound on the battlefield tunes corresponding to precise orders. The military thing was not, however, the only use of the trumpet.
"It was also used for funeral ceremonies, for all somewhat official ceremonies
,
"
recalls Patrice Herbin. By extension, the object of the votive deposit could be quite multiple:
"it could have celebrated an installation on the spot, a feat of arms, a religious ceremony, ..."
lists the archaeologist, who believes - according to the current state of excavations - that the cryptoporticus where the trumpet was found could have been a domestic space under the Late Empire.
“All the hypotheses are open; we are really at the very beginning of the investigation ”
.
Soon entrusted to the Parisian experts of the Center for Research and Restoration of the Museums of France, the ancient instrument should undergo meticulous cleaning and an archaeo-metallurgical and musicological study in the coming months. The trumpet will subsequently find, perhaps by 2023, the Ancient Forum of Bavay and its Roman collections, to the delight of its director.
“There isn't one in England, there isn't one in Belgium, there isn't one in Germany; we are really on to something rare ”
, rejoices Véronique Beirnaert-Mary. With the other objects exhumed during the preventive excavation of the forum, and its future covered route, the archaeological museum is already pleased with a discovery
"arrived at the right time"
, only a handful of years before the next great chapter in its history.
