MUSIC IN ROCK ART – HORNS:

 There are a number of ways that rock art and music can go together or interact. I have written a number of previous columns on this which can be references through the cloud index at the very bottom of the blog. Music might accompany rites or ceremonies being enacted at rock art sites. Alternatively, the making of music can be the subject of the rock art itself. This column is going to be about representations of the playing of a type of aerophone – the horn. According to Wikipedia “an aerophone is a musical instrument that produces sound by causing a body of air to vibrate.” This includes variations of flutes, whistles and horns.

Field drawing of horn players, Guruve, Zimbabwe. Image from Kumbani and Diaz-Andreu.

A recent report on the rock art of Zimbabwe (Kumbani and Diaz-Andreu 2024) looks at the subject of musicians in rock art. They have designated a panel at Guruve as three men playing what they identify as trumpets. They point to three types of aerophones: trumpets, flutes and bullroarers. “These were probably made of bamboo.” They report that more than ten sites have been recorded displaying trumpet players. The trumpets are distinguished from flutes “primarily based on size or length of the pipes. Trumpets are typically longer than flutes. Flutes generally do not extend beyond thye player’s abdomen. In contrast, images of potential trumpets in rock art show that these instruments often extend past the abdomen and reach close to the knees.” (Kumbani and Diaz-Andreu 2024:15-16) These rock art images are attributed to the San people.

Scandinavian Lurs. Internet image, public domain.

Ancient Scandinavian war bands had a distinctive type of trumpet known as a Lur. Wikipedia describes a Lur as “a long natural horn without finger holes that is play with a brass-type embouchure. Lurs can be straight or curved in various shapes. The purpose of the curve was to make long instruments easier to carry (e.g. for marching, like the modern sousaphone) and to avoid directing the noise at nearby people.” (Wikipedia) There are some examples of Scandinavian rock art that show Lurs being played.

Panel from Kivik burial cairn, and isolated figure of Lur player. Image from The Kivik King's Grave.

One great example can be found in the Kivik burial cairn. “Few burial monuments in Scandinavia have been as well studied as Bredarör on Kivik, a  Bronze Age cairn, located half a mile north of Simrishamn on the southeastern coast of Skåne. Dated to roughly 1600 BC, and perhaps earlier, the site measures 75 meters in diameter. It is the largest mound of its type in Sweden. Systematically plundered for building materials in centuries past, a central stone chamber was uncovered in 1748, containing a central stone-cist, measuring 3.8 meters long by 1 meter wide, formed of upright stone slabs, the size of a human grave.” (The Kivik King’s Grave) On one of the stone slabs a pair of Lur players can clearly be seen, perhaps indicating it had a role in a funeral ceremony. This monument has undergone considerable excavation and reconstruction/restoration since its discovery in 1748. Such efforts, from that long ago, did not measure up to modern standards of archeology so we cannot be sure that what we see today is accurate to its original condition. I am assuming, however, that the petroglyphs of the Lur players are fairly accurate although, as we can see, it has been treated to the Scandinavian practice of paint in petroglyphs.

Lur players from Tanum Petroglyph Site, Bohuslan, Sweden. Internet image, public domain.

A major rock art site, the Tanum Petroglyphs, also includes an illustration of Lur players. “The Rock Carvings in Tanum (Swedish: Hallristningsomradet Tanum) are a collection of petroglyphs near Tanumshede, Bohuslan, Sweden, which were declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1944 because of their concentration. In total, there are thousands of images called the Tanum Petroglyphs on about 600 panels within the World Heritage Area. These are concentrated in distinct areas along a 25 km stretch, and cover an area of about 51 hectares (126 acres or 0.5 km square). While the region was on the coastline when the drawings were made, it is now at an elevation of 25 m.” (Wikipedia)

Moqhith Wilderness, Utah. Photograph by Michael Lau.

Flute player, Mesa Prieta, New Mexico. Photograph by Katelyn Bird.

In the prehistoric New World trumpet-like aerophones were often conch shells pierced at one end and often with a mouthpiece of resin built up. Many of these have been found in the ruins of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, where they may have been used for signaling or for ceremonial purposes. That said, I know of no imagery that might illustrate these. If any reader has examples of Southwestern American rock art of conch players I will be grateful to see such examples. I am struck, however, by the resemblance of the Zimbabwe musicians above to flute-player representations from the Southwest.

NOTE: Some images in this column were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

 

REFERENCES:

The Kivik King’s Grave, https://www.germanicmythology.com/MISCELLANEOUS/KivikGrave.html. Accessed online 20 October 2025.

Kumbani, Joshua and Margarita Diaz-Andreu, 2024, The art of music. The representation of musical instruments in the rock art of Zimbabwe, October 2024, Azania Archaeological Research in Africa (online in ResearchGate). Accessed online 18 October 2025.