Darwin wrote of the “mysterious faculty” that makes music “essential” in all human civilizations. Useless, abstract, it nevertheless has “no adaptive value”: it does not allow us to eat, nor to warm ourselves, nor to survive. Going to discover it in the most ancient cultures, such is the purpose of Liza Fanjeaux’s documentary, Premières notes, awarded at the 2026 Amiens Archeology Festival.
The largest trumpet in the world for the Roman legions
A 2.5 meter long Roman trumpet discovered whole in the north of France and restored at the Louvre, the largest in the world, impresses from the first images. Ancient bas-reliefs show it as a weapon of war, chanting the assault of the legions to conquer the world and celebrating the power of Rome, long before being an entertainment.
The mousikê, “the art of the muses” of the Ancient Greeks, played on double flutes and sung in Delphi (Greece) during artists’ jousts, founded Western music. Written on papyrus with a music theory of 146 sound signs, it reaches us thanks to astonishing acoustic experiments. With a replica of an instrument shaped in 3D, a researcher becomes the transmitter of an enveloping sound, with ample resonance and a captivating melody, resurfacing from the past three millennia after its creation.
Flutes and lyres to listen to our ancestors
The ability to produce sounds and compose melodies is as old as man. Archaeologists explore it back to the oldest and wildest times. Sacred language to address the gods, soundtrack of rites, tool imitating bird song to hunt or celebrate it, music is listened to all over the world.
Different but familiar, it emerges from Paleolithic caves, is invented on lyres, comes out of the tombs of the deceased buried with their flutes. Under stalactite ceilings, it creates for the viewer the fascinating sensation of being connected to their ancestors, at the dawn of humanity.
