A Short History of Musical Life in Hungary

The oldest musical relic in Hungarian territory was found by archeologists and dates from a period in which we cannot speak either of Hungarians or Hungary yet. During excavations carried on in Northern Hungary, a tiny, three-holed pipe made of a bear’s bone was found among the finds of the Istallosko cave. Radiocarbonic examinations have proved that this pipe was made 30,900 years ago! From the 1st to the 5th centuries A.D., the Pannonian borderland of the Roman Empire has preserved many a valuable musical relic, among them the oldest organ in the world found in what was formerly Aquincum (fragment).