Is it a musical instrument? Is it an instrument? Is it a carrier of ritual? The Jiahu bone flute is not only a musical instrument, but also has multiple identities.

A seven-hole bone flute, about 20 cm long, brings together 8,000 years of time and plays a piece of Chinese ritual music spanning thousands of years on the shore of Jiahu Lake.

The Jiahu bone flute unearthed at the Jiahu site in Wuyang County, Luohe City, Henan Province, overturned the "Western Theory" of the seven-tone scale in China, and also pushed back the origin of Chinese music civilization to the early Neolithic period. Recently, the reporter visited the Jiahu Site Museum, stepped onto the place where the ancestors once lived, and traced back 8,000 years to find the source of Chinese ritual music.

Visit a bone flute and a museum

Strolling through the Jiahu ruins in Wuyang County, Luohe City, you will see a museum built by the water where lakes and fields meet.

At the entrance of the museum, a wall is in sight, showing the "world's best" of the Jiahu site - the world's earliest wind instrument that can play seven-tone scales, the world's earliest carved symbols that are the prototypes of writing... Chen Xingcan, chairman of the Chinese Archaeological Society and member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said: "Jiahu culture is the first peak of Chinese prehistoric culture, and the spark of Chinese civilization was ignited here."

Digital light and shadow technology is integrated with the three-dimensional sculptures in the exhibition hall, vividly displaying the production and living scenes of the Jiahu ancestors, such as building houses, cultivating rice, and firing pottery.

In the "Bone Flute" exhibition hall of the Jiahu Site Museum, visitors can see a more comprehensive display of unearthed bone flutes.

It is summer vacation, and the reporter found that many parents held their children's hands and explained to them the contents of the exhibition boards. Some older children clicked on the screen in front of the booth and watched attentively the images of performers using unearthed bone flutes to play "Spring River Moon Night", "Yimeng Mountain Tune", "Butterfly Lovers" and other pieces.

The immersive experience and the superposition of bone flutes and ancient flutes allow thousands of years of fragments to rest here. The melodious sound of the flute has traveled through thousands of years.

A groundbreaking excavation found a bone flute

In May 1986, during an archaeological excavation, the Jiahu bone flute, which had been dormant for thousands of years, appeared before the world.

Zhang Juzhong, who was then deputy director of the Prehistoric Research Office of the Henan Institute of Archaeology, still remembers the archaeological excavation site of the Jiahu bone flute vividly.

"Our archaeologists, technicians and migrant workers speculated that this was a flute or a Xiao," Zhang Juzhong said. "But it has neither a blowing hole nor a membrane hole. Based on preliminary observations, I think it is better to name it a 'perforated bone tube' in accordance with the archaeological naming convention."

Are these instruments musical instruments? How to play them? What kind of sound can they make? How to name them? With doubts, Zhang Juzhong invited music experts and institutions to conduct professional appraisals in August 1986, August 1987, and November 1987.

Huang Xiangpeng, director of the Institute of Music at the Chinese Academy of Arts, Xiao Xinghua, assistant director, and Tong Zhongliang, president of the Wuhan Conservatory of Music, and other top domestic music experts jointly conducted a sound measurement study on the "perforated bone tubes" unearthed from the Jiahu site and found that its scale structure is at least a hexaphonic scale.

This preliminary research result, together with other important archaeological discoveries such as the oracle bone inscriptions with primitive writing characteristics at the Jiahu site, was announced to the public at the "Henan Archaeological New Discoveries Press Conference" in early December 1987, which generated a great response.

It is a musical instrument, but it is more than just a musical instrument.

"Everyone may think it is just a musical instrument, but in fact it is more than just a musical instrument." Zhang Juzhong told reporters that based on the function of the "Jiahu Ancient Flute", being a musical instrument is only its relatively simple function.

"It is the carrier of rituals and an integral part of China's ritual and music civilization." Zhang Juzhong cited the example of an archaeological excavation of a tomb numbered M282 where two bone flutes were unearthed.

"At the same time, the Jiahu ancient flute is also an instrument for understanding climate change. Our ancestors who lived in nature would also understand climate change by playing this kind of flute," said Zhang Juzhong. The Book of History, Shun Dian, records: "Coordinate the time, month, and day, and unify the musical scales and weights." In the ancient people's understanding, "time, month, and day" and weights and weights are closely related. The "Lüli Zhi" in the history book puts musical scales and calendars together. From this perspective, the "Jiahu ancient flute" may also be an instrument for understanding climate change and a standard for establishing weights and weights.

Zhang Juzhong said that if classified by musical instruments, they can be divided into two functions. The first function is to communicate with ancestors, gods, heaven and earth, and to convey human will to ancestors and gods; the second is the self-entertainment function, which is that modern people use musical instruments to express their emotions.

"The Jiahu ancient flute is multi-purpose and multifunctional for the ancestors of Jiahu and is much more important than ordinary musical instruments," said Zhang Juzhong.