Antler ‘forgotten’ in museum storage was rare 2,000-year-old instrument, experts say

Two antlers sat tucked away in museum storage for decades before researchers realized they had their hands on something rare.

The antlers were, in fact, ancient string instruments, and are likely among the oldest animal bone instruments ever discovered in Southeast Asia, according to a new study published on Feb. 21 in the journal Antiquity.

“Personally I think these artifacts are one of the coolest finds in archaeology,” Fredeliza Campos, one of study’s authors, told McClatchy News in an email. “Musical artifacts are very rare and evidence for stringed instruments are even rarer. Most ‘good’ finds are bone flutes from Europe and China.”

The ancient antlers were initially unearthed during an archaeological excavation in Vietnam in the 1990s, Campos said. However, no archaeologists specializing in music were present, so the artifacts were overlooked and other discoveries were prioritized.

“So the deer antlers were sort of forgotten and were in the museum’s storage for a very long time,” Campos said.

Years later, while at the Long An Museum, which is located near the Mekong River in southern Vietnam, Campos rediscovered the artifacts, and they were analyzed between 2012 and 2016, according to the study.

The first artifact, a foot-long piece of antler likely sourced from Sambar deer or Hog deer, species native to Southeast Asia, appears to have been scraped and smoothed to produce a polished form, researchers wrote.

The presence of a “perfectly round hole” and various grooves indicate a taut string would likely have been attached at one time.

The second antler, though smaller and broken, is very similar to the first, exhibiting similar grooves and evidence of wear and tear, researchers wrote.

Both of the antlers would have been single-stringed instruments, and tuning could have been performed by tightening or loosening the string.

Ancient musicians living in modern-day Vietnam likely played the chordophones by sitting on the floor and rubbing a bow against the tightened string, according to researchers. A resonator may have also been used to amplify the instrument’s age-old melodies.

The findings bear similarities to contemporary Vietnamese instruments, including the dan nhi, a two-stringed fiddle, suggesting a continuity of musical tradition across the millennia, researchers wrote.

“How they survived for 2,000 years and in such good condition is pretty amazing,” Campos said.

This story was originally published February 22, 2023 at 1:23 PM with the headline "Antler ‘forgotten’ in museum storage was rare 2,000-year-old instrument, experts say."