Sound vessel

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Sound vessels (English: acoustic jars ; French: vases acoustiques ) are called, based on Vitruvius (around 20 BC), vessels made of bronze or clay of various sizes and shapes that are supposed to amplify the sound and improve intelligibility. Vitruvius mentions in his work De architectura libri decem (“Ten Books on Architecture ”) so-called Echeia , which in ancient theaters should be embedded with their tiered rows of seats under the seats in order to improve the acoustics. From today's point of view, these vessels act like Helmholtz resonators and prolong the reverberation , an effect that was very desirable in ancient open-air theaters with their extremely short reverberation times.

Archaeological investigations by Robert G. Arns and Bret E. Crawford from the 1990s found evidence of the existence of sound vessels in some ancient theaters of the Greco-Roman cultural area, but they were not proven.

Reconstructed arrangement of Carolingian sound vessels in the Neues Museum, Berlin

Application in the Middle Ages

In many medieval churches all over Europe one can find sound vessels built into the walls of the choir or the nave with the opening to the church interior. There the effect of the vessels is different, since the churches are rooms with a relatively long reverberation time. The vessels reduce the reverberation time in these rooms, which is also a desirable effect. Similar sound bodies have also been discovered in Ottoman mosques.

The builders of medieval churches knew Vitruvius' script from the monastery libraries. Without recognizing the precise acoustic function of these vessels in the Middle Ages - the science of acoustics did not yet exist in its present form - their use in churches by the builders was primarily an architectural legacy of antiquity.

literature

  • Paul Thielscher : The sound vessels of the ancient theater. In: Horst Kusch (Ed.): Festschrift Franz Dornseiff for his 65th birthday. Leipzig 1953, pp. 334-371.
  • Victor Desarnaulds and Yves Loerincik: Vases acoustiques dans les églises du Moyen Age. Middle Ages. Journal of the Swiss Castle Association 6 (2001) issue 3, pp. 65–72.
  • Robert G. Arns and Bret E. Crawford: Resonant Cavities in the History of Architectural Acoustics. In: Technology and Culture, V ol 36, No. 1, 1995.
  • Bernhard Floch: Microphones and Megaphones in the Roman World. In: The Classical Weekly, V ol. 37, no. 5, 1943, pp. 51-53.
  • Mutbul Kayili, Acoustic Solutions in Classic Ottoman Architecture, Manchester 2005.
  • JGLandels: Assisted Resonance in Ancient Theaters. In: Greece & Rome, Second Series, V ol. 14, No. 1, 1967, pages 80-94.
  • Richard Stillwell : Volume II, The Theater. In: The American School Of Classical Studies At Athens (Ed.): Corinth, Results Of Excavations, New Jersey 1952.
  • Paul Thielscher: Vitruvius and the doctrine of the propagation of sound, Das Altertum 4, 1958. Pages 222–228.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Vitruvius, De architectura libri decem 5.5; Translation by August von Rode : The Marcus Vitruvius Pollio architecture. Volume 1. Göschen, Leipzig 1796, p. 231 ff. ( Digitized version ).
  2. ^ Robert G. Arns and Bret E. Crawford: Resonant Cavities in the History of Architectural Acoustics. In: Technology and Culture. Volume 36, No. 1, 1995, pp. 104-135.

Web links

Commons : Sound vessels  - collection of images, videos, and audio files