Documentation and Interpretation of the Dion Organ

In 1992, archaeologists recovered, in the ruins of the ancient city of Dion in northern Greece, what was quickly recognised as the worlds oldest known organ fragments. Dating from about the first century CE, the remains hail from about the same period from which we also have texts describing how a water organ (hydraulis) worked, including accounts of the pistons, the hydrau- lic pressure buffer, the windchest and the keys for individual notes but not of the sound- producing pipes themselves. Though the Dion organ has been famous in the music- archaeological community, it was never published in any detail, and most aspects of its original mechanism remain shrouded in mystery. Our project aims at fully documenting this tantalising find, including analyses of the materials used in its construction. On this basis, we will consider possible interpretations concerning the function of the instrument, the type(s) of pipes used, and the kind of music it may have been able to play. One of the most important questions here regards the air pressure with which it was operated, which affects both the possible type of wind supply and the usable kinds of organ pipes. Here we will need to experiment, testing configurations that go beyond those known from typical modern organs. Finally, we hope to build a fully functional reconstruction. At pre- sent, we expect that on the Dion organ the air was supplied by a system of bellows instead of a hydraulic mechanism. If this is confirmed, it will for the first time offer the opportunity to repro- duce a bellow system as known from ancient images. In stark contrast to the steady air flow sought in the construction of mediaeval and modern organs, these ancient bellow organs appear designed to incorporate rhythmical accents generated by the blowers bodily movements, who would therefore take part in the performative aspects of organ playing instead of being mere back staff in a kind of audible dance. Such a reconstruction would therefore take us headlong into uncharted music-archaeological territory.