“Lyrical Lessons for Modern Ancients” is an interdisciplinary project that seeks to build an ancient Roman lyre to reconstruct the sounds of the ancient world. Although Roman music is lost to modern audiences, in the Classical world it represented an integral part of social experiences at the theatre, dinner parties, and funerals, to name a few. The project will combine experimental archaeology with Roman historical research to construct the instrument. At the conclusion of the project, the researcher will play the lyre in a demonstration and will be able to teach others in the Brown and neighboring Rhode Island community about this ancient instrument.

Advisor: Joseph Michael Pucci (Classics)