TWO MEDIEVAL WHISTLES FROM GLOUCESTER

Saxon and medieval buildings on the street frontage, as well as burials from the former church of St Owen. Among the many objects found during the excavation was a medieval whistle made of bird bone. The whistle was made using the hollow shaft from the ulna of a goose, but is missing the block or fipple. On the outer surface it has a sub-oval opening with a ledge forming the voicing lip some 11mm from the top of the shaft. At the opposite end are three roughly circular finger holes approximately 6mm in diameter and 12mm apart. The whistle measures 139mm in length with an average width of 9mm. Following the example of previous work (Megaw 1975) a new fipple was made using Plasticine. It was decided not to test the possible extended range of the whistle by over blowing, as this could have put a strain on the instrument and caused irreparable damage. The sequence of notes below was produced while successively opening each of the three fingerholes-e''', f#''', a''', c#'''' Following the notational system where Middle C = c' and a ' = 440 Hertz (cycles per second)