Talking musical symbols

Iberian funeral monument from Osuna. Ensemble B

In this relief, a musician is playing a large wind instrument that functioned like a horn. The greater the size of the instrument, the lower the pitch. The tube widened around its resonating chamber in order to produce a louder sound. Given the instrument´s weight, a perpendicular bar was added which the musician held in his left hand. Similar instruments have appeared in Iberian, Celt Iberian and Roman archeological sites. This figure belongs to a group of scenes from a funerary monument aimed at exalting the status of the deceased person. In this case, the instrument is used as a symbolic attribute to represent sound, a basic ingredient in all such public ceremonies. Once again, we find ourselves before an instrument that is not musical, strictly speaking, but rather evocative of sound itself, similar to the others we´ve already discussed.