Solving PDEs Using Python Libraries to Virtually Reconstruct an Ancient Musical Instrument

Proposal:

Problem and Purpose:

Every culture around the world from the prehistoric age onward has been influenced by a musical tradition of one form or another. Yet, relatively little is known about the world of sound produced by ancient cultures across the world. In contrast to the ample amount of artifacts supporting our knowledge of other forms of art, few fragments have been uncovered that can aid us in bringing the musical past back to life. However, archaeomusicologists have been able to reconstruct ancient musical instruments from other sources, such as drawings and textual evidence.

Plan of Action:

This project will attempt to aid the restoration of ancient musical tradition by reconstructing an ancient Greek chordophone known as the chelys. After collecting data from pottery shards and texts, I will use the FEniCSx library within Python to solve partial differential equations that model my chosen instrument. From there, I hope to simulate a plausible reconstruction of the chelys. Finally, I will refine my model by making adjustments to its shape and length and then testing which acoustical outputs sound most harmonic. I hypothesize that through this method of adjusting and testing, the most likely dimensions of the chelys can be discovered.