Get smart curated videos delivered to your inbox.   SUBSCRIBE
The Kid Should See This

A Carnyx and a Cornu de Pompeii: Ancient horns played by Abraham Cupeiro

Watch more with these video collections:

A multi-instrumentalist and instrument builder, musician Abraham Cupeiro is “mostly known for bringing back instruments lost long ago.” In the video above, he demonstrates a serpent-headed instrument that he built, a reproduction of a carnyx. The tall trumpet and its haunting sounds originate from “the Iron Age Celts, used between c. 200 BC and c. AD 200.” From Wikipedia:

It was a type of bronze trumpet with an elongated S shape, held so that the long straight central portion was vertical and the short mouthpiece end section and the much wider bell were horizontal in opposed directions. The bell was styled in the shape of an open-mouthed boar’s, or other animal’s, head.

It was used in warfare, probably to incite troops to battle and intimidate opponents, as Polybius recounts. The instrument’s significant height allowed it to be heard over the heads of the participants in battles or ceremonies.

View the carnyx instruments found in Tintignac, France.

Carnyx demonstration
In the video below, he demonstrates another horn: The Cornu de Pompeii. The instrument is a reproduction, created with María Ruíz, of the ancient Roman brass instrument found in the ruins of Pompeii, Italy.

There are other reproductions of the Cornu de Pompeii at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and The Museum of Fine Arts Boston.

Cornu de Pompeii

Abraham Cupeiro is active on Facebook and YouTube.

Watch these videos of related instruments next:
• What does ‘Beethoven’s Contrabassoon’ sound like?
• This may be The World’s Largest Tuba
• How to make homemade slide whistles
• Boomwhacker Bach: Prélude n°1 aux tubes musicaux
• Morske Orgulje, the Sea Organ in Zadar, Croatia

This Webby award-winning video collection exists to help teachers, librarians, and families spark kid wonder and curiosity. TKSST features smarter, more meaningful content than what's usually served up by YouTube's algorithms, and amplifies the creators who make that content.

Curated, kid-friendly, independently-published. Support this mission by becoming a sustaining member today.

🌈 Watch these videos next...

What does ‘Beethoven’s Contrabassoon’ sound like?

Rion Nakaya

Tiger Rag on a homemade Emphatic Chromatic Callioforte

Rion Nakaya

Three performances with A Música Portuguesa A Gostar Dela Própria

Rion Nakaya

This may be The World’s Largest Tuba

Rion Nakaya

This festive robotic glockenspiel plays Christmas songs on demand

Rion Nakaya

The Wintergatan Marble Machine, music made from 2,000 marbles

Rion Nakaya

The Waterphone, an inharmonic, otherworldly instrument

Rion Nakaya

The Wanamaker Organ, the world’s largest musical instrument

Rion Nakaya

The Singing, Ringing Tree of Lancashire, England

Rion Nakaya