389: The Bone Flute of the Hohle Fels Cave

The most complete of early flutes yet recovered was made from the wing bone of a vulture. It is estimated to be 40,000 years old or more. Five fingerholes (the fifth is not pictured) are carefully bored into it:

A man or woman once held up a bone

(they’d drunk all of the marrow from inside)

and thought that, not for food alone, this bone

would be for them—and drilled into its side.

Five fingerholes they burrowed into it

(the inside was already hollow so)

and round the end the mouth could neatly fit

so that a whistle could, right through it, go.

The first one: the first “woodwind” instrument

(though not of wood was it made, still, a start)

was turned and tuned from bone, by death fresh rent,

into a voice that could speak to a heart.

The flute. The bone flute. Evidence that man

will turn harsh fate into joy if it can.