From Cacophony to Music: The Perception of Sound in Ancient Societies.

Did the men and women of Antiquity hear like we do? Were they sensitive to certain sounds rather than others? These simple questions remind us that sounds and their interpretations are inscribed in cultural constructs, to the point that the very definition of cacophony and music, of noise and silence, changes according to the times and contexts. The historicity of these notions is at the heart of the work, which sets out, for Egypt, the Orient, the ancient Greek and Roman worlds, to decipher the acoustic perceptions of the Ancients by seeking to understand how sounds, or their absence, become meaningful. Behind the breadth of the chronological arc lies a common object, the study of the vocabulary and expressions that fall within the semantic field of sound. The lexicon is analyzed here in a historical approach informed by the issues developed by the anthropology of sound.
Throughout the various contributions in this volume, the reader is invited to listen to the words of the Ancients. This close approach to ancient speeches has the merit of revealing to us the full complexity of the social, political and religious values that these sounds carry.