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Current Location Athens, National Museum, Inv. No. 2184

Date of Illustration: 490 BCE

Description: A piece of Greek pottery, from the sixth century BCE, may also carry a reference to the sound of the instrument. It shows an Amazon blowing a salpinx and around the figure are the Greek letters: TO TO TE TO (T)H.

These letters are used when annotating music in ancient Greece to refer to the notes C, C, G, C, E which are all among the first five harmonics of a conical instrument, this being recognised by Annie Bélis in 1999.

It seems most unlikely that the artist is setting out with the musicological aim of reporting on the harmonic series of the instrument, as on instruments like that shown and with mouthpieces much like the Etruscan or Pompeii examples, the lowest harmonic - the fundamental - is either not attainable or can be sounded only with great difficulty. It seems much more likely that the artist is representing a salpinx call.

Citations: Haspels 1936: p.104, Plate 34, 1b; Landels 2001: p.80; Bélis 1999, 99-109

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