In its broadest sense, music archaeology is the study of the phenomenon of past musical behaviours and sound. This cross-disciplinary discipline comprises a series of approaches, including archaeological and musicological perspectives. The basis of research is music-related material finds, such as excavated and otherwise conserved sound artefacts (or ancient tools for sound and music production), as well as depictions of instrumentalists, singers, and dancers showing musical instruments and performance postures, sometimes including views of the original settings. As various archaeological cultures left such finds, many of the sociocultural contexts and meanings of past music can be studied. Today it is widely accepted that finds and depictions of ancient musical instruments are not only markers of musical traditions in space and time—especially when the archaeological contexts are well documented—but also a valuable means for experimentally testing ancient playing techniques. In the case of original sound artefacts (or their replicas), their acoustic function and the basic acoustic characteristics of a once performed music can also be reproduced and analysed. Additionally, acoustic spaces, such as architectural structures, caves, and other natural places, are the subject of music archaeological studies. The information obtained from the archaeological record can be deepened considerably when ancient scripts, historical treaties, and other written sources concerning music are related. Such documents offer notes on performance practices and their sociocultural contexts. For some cultures, hints concerning ancient music theory and musical aesthetics may also be found and, if ancient notations are related, even clues to aspects of musical structures are provided. Finally, the study of contemporary music cultures in which past musical traditions are preserved is valuable for comparative studies. In this paper the virtues of studying these sources are defined, but the limits of music archaeological research are also considered.

The ancient cultures of Iraq, Syria, and Turkey are distinguished by the existence of extensive documentation in cuneiform script, amongst which are texts concerning music and musicians. Along with a common script, a common corpus of terms (with local variants) for instruments, musicians, theory, and performance, were transmitted in various languages and dialects in the third and second millennia BCE. Apart from later sources from ancient Greece, only ancient Egypt can compare in terms of the extent of textual information in the region. In contrast, the musical cultures of ancient Iran are known mostly through iconography and remains of musical instruments (Lawergren 2009). The same is true for Israel/Palestine, where the sources are essentially material, apart from the Old Testament and a handful of other texts (Braun 2002).

In the past three decades, the study of music in ancient China has expanded significantly with the discovery of numerous tombs containing musical instruments. These finds have revealed substantial information about ancient music theory and organology. One issue that has remained on the periphery, however, is the study of the musicians themselves. From the Eastern Zhou (770–221 BCE) to Tang (618–907 CE) periods, musicians fell broadly into three groups: (1) formal musicians who performed for important ritual occasions and state sacrifices; (2) informal musicians who provided entertainment for banquets and other less formal occasions; and (3) military musicians who performed in processions. Formal musicians generally specialized in yayue (refined music), the official music of the royal Zhou court. Yayue continued to be played in formal ritual settings at court long after the Zhou period. Informal and military musicians specialized in less traditional forms of music, such as suyue (“popular” or “folk” music) and foreign music. Formal and informal musicians appear in the archaeological record as early as Eastern Zhou, while military musicians appear slightly later in the Han. Of these three groups, informal musicians appear to have been most popular among elite audiences, especially between the Han (206 BCE–229 CE) and Tang periods. These musicians were often paired with lively dancers, acrobats, sword-swallowers, and jesters, indicating the entertainment—rather than formal—nature of the music they performed. As demonstrated by sculptural works and mural paintings excavated from Han through Tang tombs, the most common types of musicians outside the more formal music sectors at court were foreigners, dwarfs, idealized women, and scholarly recluses. This paper will focus on archaeological and textual evidence for the existence of these informal musicians as early as Shang (c. 1570–1070 BCE) and Eastern Zhou, and the rising popularity of such performers in the period from Han to Tang. I hope to show that the very social marginality of informal musicians is exactly what enhanced their exoticism and popular appeal among their elite audiences.

In 1999 archaeologists excavated a section of the Hellweg, a medieval road near the present city of Paderborn in northern Germany. In the rubble of the road, which was an important east–west trade route, the excavators found a Jew's harp, deposited in an archaeological context dating it to the late thirteenth century. The iron instrument was well preserved, except for the broken and partly missing lamella (figure 1). It had a distinct mark punched into its forged frame. Where did this musical instrument originate and how did it arrive at this site? Was it brought here by someone who played the Jew's harp or by a pedlar carrying this instrument among other goods for sale? Who had made it and where?

The growth and expansion of maritime trade in the first millennium CE altered the musical landscape of Asia, from earlier Austronesian and Austroasiatic migrations, to the early contacts with India, China, Arabia, and the continuing navigation towards the Pacific and Oceania. Much later in the tenth century, Chinese chronicles describe that peoples from the south called Luzoes (Luzon, Philippines) had invaded its southern shores, while Indian histories record the voyages of sailors from western Indonesia. By the eighth century, Austronesian languages from Borneo had spread towards Madagascar. A trade centred on beads, tin, copper, pottery, ceramics, natural products, and food also carried musical instruments and musicians bearing new ideas in music making and ritual life.

Music archaeology is an inherently collaborative endeavour, bringing together experts from an array of fields to draw inferences about the physical and social aspects of music in ancient societies. As several authors have noted (Hickmann 2002; D. Olsen 2007), music archaeology requires both data and expertise from scholars in fields as disparate as musicology, ethnography, archaeology, art history, epigraphy, and history. In this paper, we demonstrate the efficacy of an interdisciplinary approach to music archaeology by presenting the case study of a bone flute from Oaxaca, Mexico. Employing perspectives from anthropological archaeology, iconography, ethnomusicology, and materials conservation, we describe the entire research process: from the discovery of an ancient musical instrument to interpretations about the social context of ancient music itself.

A musical competition is a social event as well as a musical one, raising great interest in the community. Its particularly exciting atmosphere, the enthusiasm of both participants and observers, and the social honour bestowed upon the winners encourage the musicians to polish and elaborate their competence and performance styles, and sometimes to create new performance tactics. Previous studies of musical competitions suggest that rivalry and competition in the performing arts—which are deeply rooted in their social settings and carry the creative impulse to transform performing styles—can be found around the world, although their cultural, social, and historical contexts, as well as the changes that result from the competitions, are widely divergent (see Gunderson and Barz 2000; Gunderson 2003). Competitions have also had a significant impact on the development of music in Indonesia, especially in conjunction with official cultural policy. In President Suharto's New Order (Orde Baru) Indonesia, various levels of government held competitions to preserve (melestarikan) and develop (perkembangkan) the traditional performing arts, in accordance with the national cultural policy (Sutton 1991, 1995; Lindsay 1995; Yampolsky 1995; Bakan 1999; Tenzer 2000; Williams 1999,2003; Harnish 2007). This focus on the arts has continued into the period of political reformation (reformasi) since 1998. Competition has been an effective vehicle of cultural ideology through its potential to transform performing style and to change aesthetic value. However, the results of the competition do not always conform to the intentions of the government. A competition involves people with a wide range of purposes and viewpoints, who interpret the event and react to it differently according to their positions, whether as participants, teachers, judges, organizers, or audience members. As R. Anderson Sutton reported regarding the Pekan Kebudayaan Sulawesi Selatan (South Sulawesi Cultural Week) in 1993, festivals or competitions “have contrasting, even conflicting meanings for the different people involved” (Sutton 1995:687). In reality, these various interpretations of the event intertwine to create a tense but influential context for the performing arts.

In Argentina, aboriginal music and dance—as part of what UNESCO has called “intangible cultural heritage“—has been overlooked for a long time. During the construction of Argentina as a nation, especially in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, European-derived societies and cultures were the privileged models in our country. In that period, the national government sponsored the wave of European immigration and, at the same time, the military persecution of aboriginal peoples and their forced assimilation to “Western Christian civilization.” One of the consequences of this history, mostly in the cultural imagination of the urban middle classes, was the pervasive thought that “Argentinians are descendants of the ships”—a popular saying referring to the ships that brought “our grandparents from Europe,” mainly from Spain and Italy.

Dealing with the issue of identity—irrespective of any theoretical orientation—means dealing with the issue of difference in relation to the “other” and the social boundaries that define the “cultural stuff” within and between communities (Barth 1969:13; Gefou-Madianou 1999:192). “Cultural stuff can be described as referring, inter alia, to the collective memory, history, and origin of cultural groups (Smith 1991:32). However, social boundaries tend not to be hard and fast or specifically delineated idioms of identity, but flexible and negotiable, according to different socio-political environments and personal interests (Barth 1969; Jenkins 2002:122). Thus, identity is perceived as an open-ended and never-finalized process, always constituted within cultural representations and not irrespective of them (Avdikos 2003:333). Moreover, taking into consideration that

Gorakhnāth is a tantric figure revered by a number of Hindu Shaivite sects. These sects exist particularly in Nepal, but are also found elsewhere in, or near, the Himalayas in parts of northern India and Bengal. In addition, others in the Himalayas see Gorakhnāth as particularly influential for their religious lives. For instance, Maskarinec (1995:7) mentions that shamans in Nepal regard Gorakhnāth as the “highest” spiritual authority. The suffix -nāth literally means “lord” or “master,” and thus is used in many contexts. Most broadly this suffix is used in association with the names of specific temples and their principal deities, such as Kedārnāth, Tungnāth, or Bodināth, highlighting the reverence people hold for these places of worship and their deities. In addition many people more generally refer to “Nāths” as those who follow the teachings of Gorakhnāth. They are also referred to as Gorakhpaṅth—meaning the sect(s) (paṅth) of Gorakhnāth.

This bibliographical survey covers books dealing with the music of Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyz Republic—two neighbouring countries with strong common historical roots and closely related musical traditions. In addition to reviewing books published in Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyz Republic, this article includes some relevant works by Russian authors. However, the extensive body of works authored by Central Asian scholars abroad was excluded from this survey. It contains references only in Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and Russian languages.