The
Revheim Lurs
In July, 1894, people from the
Revheim farm, close to Hafrsfjord (a fiord - see map below) in
Rogaland, Norway, were
digging out a ditch at a large bog called Revheimsmyra. At the bottom
of the ditch, just above the layer of sand, they found two long
bronsetubes and two smaller pieces. This turned out to be a pair of
bronze lurs as can be seen on the picture above.
A. Grimnes, an
agriculture engineer who was in the vicinity at that time, took
measures and made drawings of the ditch (a profile) and of the find.
These drawings and the lurs are now kept at the Museum of Archaeology,
Stavanger, Norway .
The Revheim lurs are smaller than the lurs found at Brudevælte
- about 1 meter 50 cm long. The tuning is in F. At Ulvkær,
north on Jutland in Denmark two lurs were found in 1988 (this is the
latest known lur findings). The Ulvkær lurs are almost the same
size as the Revheim lurs.
2 - 300 meter from the bronze-lur find, at Fluberget, there are some
rocks where rock
carvings were discovered around 1870. These carvings are probably from
the same period as the pair of lurs ( 800 B.C.)
Map of Hafrsfjord and Revheimsmyra.
Revheimsmyra
Sound samples:
In 1958 the pair of
lurs were played
on by two hornplayers from Stavanger, Franz Dørr and Georg
Dørr (father and son).
3 years later in 1961, a trombone
player at the
Norwegian Broadcasting Orchestra,
Gunnar Rugstad, played on the Revheim lurs .
(all samples
in MP3 format)
Some
recent pictures from the museum (February 2008):
The Revheim pair
of lurs at the museum
The mouthpieces
- almost like a trombone mouthpiece in size
Rune and Olaf
outside the museum
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