MDX team produced ancient sounds for Hollywood smash hit Gladiator II

Music archaeology design experts from MDX have also worked on the upcoming vampire movie Nosferatu and the new Dungeons and Dragons album

Middlesex University music archaeologists don’t like to blow their own trumpets but their historical instruments were used to add authentic sounds from around 2,000 years ago to the new Hollywood blockbuster Gladiator II.

Members of MDX’s Music Archaeology Design Engineering Team made a Roman Cornu and provided Conch shell trumpets which provided sounds during several dramatic scenes in the Gladiator sequel.

With design techniques including 3-D printing, the group recreates musical instruments that produce sounds from thousands of years ago. Ancient sounds from their instruments will also feature in the upcoming vampire movie Nosferatu and on a new Dungeons and Dragons album. Both Gladiator II and Nosferatu have been nominated for an Oscar for music and original scores.

Directed by acclaimed British filmmaker Ridley Scott, the epic Gladiator II has an all-star cast including Denzel Washington and the Irish actor Paul Mescal, who portrays the main character Lucius.

Musician Letty Stott, who works closely with the group, played a large metal Roman Cornu for the film, created by Dr Peter Holmes, an MDX music archaeologist and design/engineer. The Cornu (one is pictured below held by Letty) was based on an earlier 3-D prototype after a close study of the instruments discovered in Pompeii, the Roman city destroyed by a volcanic eruption in 79 AD.

Letty, who recorded the Gladiator II sound effects with the design sound company Phaze UK, said: “It was fantastic to see the film because I didn’t know how much of my music would be used and to be named on the Gladiator II credits is amazing.

“The first fifteen to twenty minutes of the film features a lot of the material that I recorded, starting with a scene where Lucius is at home surrounded by fields of barley and the sounds of the Conch shells are almost calling him to his destiny and then later when Lucius is leading his troops against the Roman army, there are a lot of very audible Cornu blasts.”

The Roman Cornu, a brass instrument measuring nearly 10ft, in the shape of a G, was originally developed by the Etruscans from modern day Italy who were conquered by Rome in the 3^rd century BC. The instruments became a symbol of the Roman army and were also performed in the gladiatorial arena and during chariot racing spectacles.

“The Cornu I play could never have been recreated without 3D-printing, which is incredible, because it is a unique instrument in the key of F, which determines its size and demands a really long tube. This horn is based on one of five Cornua from Pompeii that were found many years ago. These instruments point to much more complex brass music being played in Roman times, because the number of notes you can get is amazing and if we can play them as modern performers there’s absolutely no reason why the Romans couldn’t have.”

Musician Letty Stott

Dr Holmes also converted the Conch shells into shell trumpets that date as far back as Neolithic contexts from 10,000 BC. “Shell trumpets are still in use all over the world and are probably some of the earliest musical instruments around today,” he said. “Conches are created by a sea snail which eats the crown of thorns starfish that destroy coral reefs so they are good for marine conservation as well.”

Remarkably, Dr Holmes and another team member Neil (Spike) Melton can produce ancient musical instruments using 3-D printing within three days.

For the Northman, recorded at top studios AIR Lyndhurst in North London, Dr Holmes and fellow member of the MDX team, Martin Sims created a Viking Lur, a birch-bark blowing horn without finger holes, for authentic sound effects. During several graphic scenes their sounds can be heard and Dr Holmes jokes ‘generally we do all the gory bits!’

The Middlesex crew have teamed up again with Northman director Robert Eggers for the upcoming vampire film Nosferatu, set for release in January 2025, in which Letty performed on an extremely long Tibetan Dung Chen horn, from Nepal, which lent a low and sinister bass tone to the score.

Their instruments also feature in the new Dungeons and Dragons album Bardic Inspiration: A Musical Journey through the Forgotten Realms which was recorded at the prestigious Abbey Road studios, where the Beatles often produced albums. Letty played the shell trumpets as well as an Iron-Age Karynx designed and built by Dr Holmes, a wind brass instrument first used by native Europeans such as the Celtic Britons and Gauls (in modern day France).

“These instruments all have different sound worlds and so when we have worked on the Northman, Nosferatu and Dungeons and Dragons, they are looking for sounds that you don’t get in a normal orchestra,” said Dr Holmes. “It’s fascinating to listen to the sounds in the film and fortunately we have a great musician in Letty.”

As part of the European Music Archaeology Project with the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the German Archaeological Institute, the team designed and created ancient brass and woodwind instruments for exhibitions, performances and workshops across Europe.

Dr Holmes also has a book coming out about the history of trumpets which ancient Greeks and Romans used in their Olympic-style games. Find out more about Design Engineering at Middlesex University.

Watch the Official Trailer for Gladiator II on YouTube.