Scottish – Adharc

Bronze Age Scottish side-blown adharc – key of B, made in 2008.

The only surviving part of a Bronze Age horn from outside Ireland is a small mouthpiece fragment of a side-blown instrument discovered in Wicktonshire, Western Scotland. It is in the keeping of the National Museum of Scotland. A detailed examination of it was made by O’Dwyer and Dr. John Purser in 2002. Considering that it most resembled examples from Northern Ireland, a complete new horn was reconstructed by O’Dwyer and cast by the Dublin Art Foundry in2008. The tuning of this horn is high B, a tone higher than the smallest complete original called the ‘Drunkendult’ horn which is in A.