Archaeomusicologists · The music of ancient worlds
“Music is so naturally united with us that we could not be free of it even if we wished to be.”
GLOBETROTTERS OF ARCHAEOMUSICOLOGY
Audrey Lecorgne and Julian Cuvilliez spend much of their time on missions. In the storerooms of museums and major international institutions, they study, digitise and reconstruct musical instruments thousands of years old. They also spend time living alongside Indigenous communities, to understand, from those who are their direct heirs, musical practices handed down from the dawn of time.
A human, artistic and scientific adventure that they live as a family. The rest of the time, they are on tour, with concerts, lectures and exhibitions, to share as widely as possible these adventures carried out in the colours of the music of first peoples, which, from one continent to another, beat as a single heart.
Audrey Lecorgne chairs, and Julian Cuvilliez directs, the Pôle de Recherche, d’Interprétation et d’Archéologie Expérimentale (PRIAE), whose teams work from Mexico City to Heraklion, from Cologne to Edinburgh. Their work includes the 3D digitisation of the bust of the Bard with the lyre (GALATÉE 202 mission), one of the oldest depictions of a chordophone found in France; the LEIA project, devoted to the Concevreux lyre bridge held at the Cologne museum, whose permanent galleries they helped to redesign; and the SPEAR mission, centred on burial 195 of the Avicenne necropolis, which held the remains of the oldest known musician of the Celtic world. In 2025, the ITZAMNA mission took them to the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City, to study and reconstruct a collection of Maya instruments listed as a national treasure.
An instrument maker at the Atelier Skald and founder of the Lyre Academy, Audrey Lecorgne brought the Celtic lyre back into music teaching programmes, where she teaches experimental archaeology applied to instrument making. A songwriter, composer and multi-instrumentalist, Julian Cuvilliez founded Ar Bard Production. He conducts international ensembles bringing together musicians from the Royal Academy of Music in London and from the conservatoires of Scotland and Jerusalem (Antika Arkana, The Dragon and the Dove), and writes original scores for historical films and documentaries (Odysséa, Le Pacte Gaulois), awarded in Cannes, London and Los Angeles.
FROM RESEARCH TO THE PUBLIC
LOGBOOK
TESTIMONIALS
“The Itzamna Mission is a remarkable success and an inspiring example of methodology and international cooperation. Through a cross-disciplinary approach combining new technologies with experimental archaeology, this project has cast new light on a range of pre-Hispanic instrumental artefacts.”
“I would like to acknowledge all the groundwork that was done beforehand, which allowed you to present the range, and above all the method and the means, that archaeology offers to research on ancient musical instruments.”
“Drawing on his expertise, Julian Cuvilliez offered the audience a truly unique sensory experience, carrying listeners into another imaginary world, that of an early Christian Middle Ages still marked by pagan survivals.”
“From the operations led in the storerooms of the National Museum of Anthropology to the field surveys in the jungle of Quintana Roo, I came to appreciate not only their rigour and commitment, but also the human warmth they brought to the work. They led, in exemplary fashion, one of the three bodies behind this mission, representing France brilliantly.”
“A new generation of researchers is taking up this work in the field of experimental archaeology, such as Julian Cuvilliez and Audrey Lecorgne, who have been deeply involved in this work of study, outreach and promotion. Trying to bring these very ancient instruments back to life will help us better understand how they may have been made and what they were used for.”
“I am delighted to hear one of their distant ancestors resound once more. The musical possibilities of the various lyres offered by the Atelier Skald are rich and pleasing: enough for any piper to add new strings to his bow!”
“We can only welcome the ways of sharing and promoting the work and research carried out by Audrey Lecorgne and Julian Cuvilliez: on the one hand publication, intended above all for their peers and for researchers, and on the other the lectures and exhibitions offered to the general public.”
“Julian and Audrey’s approach has all the qualities of exemplary archaeomusicological work. They have carefully reconstructed the lyre in its material, its form and its proportions, to give us a living instrument that sings and brings back to us the seven notes of a lost ancient music.”
“No one can remain unmoved by this daring blend of roots and modernity.”
WHAT AUDIENCES SAY
“Both learned and able to meet his audience where they are, the speaker shared his knowledge, his humour and his virtuosity as a musician. Bravo!”
“A first-rate talk, rich, illustrated and accessible to all thanks to the speaker, who makes archaeology and the world of research fascinating.”
“A fine presentation of the archaeologist’s work, of the discoveries and of the thinking about the artefacts that evoke the music of the Celts. Fascinating. Many thanks.”
“A beautiful and fascinating talk, by a speaker who knew how to adapt to his audience, adults and children aged 6 to 13.”
“Much more than the story of the lyre, it is a journey into the world of the Celts, their view of the world and their relationship with music.”
“You could spend hours and hours listening to him.”
Reviews left by participants on Explore Paris, the outings platform created by the public tourism agencies of Greater Paris.
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IN THE FIELD
Every lecture, every concert, every exhibition is born of a field mission. These are the ones we have led.
National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City, and Quintana Roo, 2025
Study, digitisation and reconstruction of twelve 7th-century Maya instruments, fieldwork in five Mexican states and acoustic experiments at the site of Kohunlich, with INAH and the Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero.
See the lectureMusée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon, 2023
Inventory of a hoard of Baiocasses gold coins and study of a half-stater depicting the god Lugus.
See the lectureAvicenne necropolis, Bobigny, 2021
Non-destructive study of a spear-shaped idiophone and of the grave goods of a Gaulish musician’s burial, with ITEMM.
See the lectureBrittany, 2019
3D digitisation and medical scanning of the Telenn Gentañ, Alan Stivell’s first harp.
See the lectureArchaeological museum, Cologne
Study of the Merovingian lyre bridge from Concevreux and reconstruction of the Cologne lyre, with some forty specialists from four countries.
See the lecturePaule, Brittany, 2018
3D digitisation of the bust of the Bard with the lyre, with the Regional Archaeology Service of Brittany.
See the lectureSaint-Antonin chapel, Toulouse
Inventory and study of the Apocalypse paintings and of the instruments held by the musician angels.
See the lectureChâteau de Puivert, 2014 to 2016
Digitisation of the Musicians’ Hall, out to the outer walls of the keep, and reconstruction of the shield-shaped psaltery.
See the lecture