Troy's music finally has physical proof: archaeologists unearth a 2,800-year-old bone flute

At Troy, the city made famous by Homer's epics, archaeologists have recovered the first direct evidence of its musical life: a flute carved from bone some 2,800 years ago. In more than 160 years of digging, not a single musical instrument had turned up at the site until now.

The flute came from a settlement layer of the Archaic period (c. 750–480 BC). Its mouthpiece is still joined to the body, which helps researchers understand how it was built and played. Because bone and reed decay quickly in the ground, finds like this are extremely rare.

In that era music was woven into religious rites as well as everyday public life. Among the wind instruments of the time was the syrinx, or pan flute, made by binding together pipes of different lengths.

This season also produced a much older object: a small idol in the shape of a human head, dated to around 2500 BC and found near the city gate of Troy II. The Early Bronze Age piece adds new evidence on cultural ties between western Anatolia and the Aegean world.

Ten main settlement layers have been identified at Troy, spanning from the early 3rd millennium BC to the 13th century AD. The excavations run under Türkiye's Ministry of Culture and Tourism “Heritage for the Future” project; Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy announced the new finds on 22 October.