Culture China Tour丨Eight thousand years of inheritance, the sound of "bone" still echoes today

CCTV.com2025-05-07

CCTV News: Jiahu bone flute is the earliest and most complete wind instrument discovered in China so far, and is known as the "No. 1 flute in China". Its unearth rewrites the time and history of the origin of Chinese music and can be regarded as a miracle in the history of ancient Chinese music civilization.

The Cultural China Tour on March 16 allows us to know Jiahu Bone Di and travel through thousands of years to witness the perception and creative ability of the Chinese ancestors to music.

A Chinese ancient music performance is being held at the Henan Museum. The orchestra copied nearly 20 kinds of musical instruments including earth drums and pottery in the collection and were orchestrated into music, making people feel like they were traveling to the Central Plains in ancient times. The most eye-catching instrument among them is the Jiahu Bone Flute.

In the 1980s, a batch of bone flutes were unearthed at the Jiahu site in Wuyang County, Henan Province, most of which were seven holes. It was the earliest blowing instrument unearthed in China. Jiahu Bone Flute advanced the history of the seven-sounding scale music of my country more than 8,000 years ago and was known as the source of Chinese music civilization. This seven-hole bone flute treasure treasured in the Henan Museum is complete in shape, and a one-to-one replica based on it, can play pleasant music.

Perhaps it was to imitate the cranes and attract prey, or perhaps it was to pray to heaven and express the voice of the heart, more than 8,000 years ago, the ancestors of Jiahu saw the ulnar bones on the wings of the red-crowned cranes and drilled holes into tools. The sound hole of the bone flute has the smallest diameter of only 1 mm. Each opening is a very regular circle, and no interval exceeds 5 tone difference. As early as more than 8,000 years ago, they were able to find reasonable pitch arrangements on irregular shaped tubes, with quite high rhythm and calculation levels.

As the continuous deepening of the excavation of the Jiahu site, archaeologists have also discovered that the Jiahu bone flute has more functions besides musical instruments.

Now, the story of Jiahu Bone Di still continues. It has gone abroad with the Chinese Ancient Orchestra and shines in cultural exchange performances in many countries. In Luohe City, Henan Province, some schools have also integrated bone flute learning into club activities and created repertoires suitable for children to play, allowing children to feel the sound of bone flutes up close, profound and melodious, and experience the musical wisdom of ancient Chinese ancestors.

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