Euterpe - the muse of flute playing.
(part of an ancient roman mosaic found in Vichten, Luxembourg)
I’m trying to figure out what the rod-like objects are that she’s holding: seeming wind instruments flared at both ends with, in a row on each body, long pointy spines alternating with what appear to be conical cups. Scary. The Flutes of Penance?
Clearly a keyed flute that needs to be re-sprung. 
djm
Combination Flute, Mace, and Hash Pipe, that’s what it is. Came out a few centuries before the Patent Head. I thought everyone knew this…
Loren
yes, history evolves in circles.
Its a double flute or aulos. I think the hash pipe bits are just decoration.
Hi Claudine,
Euterpe sent me off on a net-search about her.
Roman tibiae player:
From a page called The Muses
Euterpe > Rejoicing Well or Pleasure Giver
The Muse of lyric poetry and music. But not ONLY that, she was also the cheerful muse (you know, there’s always a cute one, a hard core one, a cheerful overly chipper one, well that would be Euterpe). She was in charge of joy and pleasure and . . . are you ready? FLUTE playing! Oh yes. How pleasureful. Her attribute was the double flute, that some say she invented (though I prefer the version that gave it’s copyright to Athena.
Euterpe also meaning “delight” and is known as the muse of music, not just the flute, even she is depicted often with these flute-looking instruments.
I am not a music historian, but I believe the instruments are in fact two tibiae, in greece known as aulos. There are many images with a player playing two of these at once. Some describe it as a Greek flute, but in truth they are predecessors to the oboe, reed instruments, possibly with a double reed like the oboe. They were already known in Egypt.
From a page about Instruments of Antiquity (good pictures there!):
auloi / tibiae > (greek/latein)
Singular: aulos / tibia ;
but more in use is the plural word, as these instruments are always depicted being played in pairs.Unfortunately still often addressed and “reconstructed” as “double flutes” by mistake, according to latest research they must rather be called “double oboes”, using double reeds to produce the tone. Not a single excavation find has a labium which would point to a flute. Moreover, in antique literature sources its sound was described as “shrill”, “squealing” or “roaring” which would hardly apply to delicate sounds of flutes.
Here is an interesting german page about how the aulos tradition has lived on in Europe:
Das Nachleben der antiken Aulosmusik…
And here is a french page about the double oboe Les chalumeaux
Instruments à anches doubles, which has great pictures too about historical instruments (sadly I can’t read it).
~Hans
Hans, thanks for the pictures and links, very interesting. Now if we had a time-machine we could travel back in time and know the truth: how did they really play this awkward instrument?