A team from the Meroë Excavation Project has unearthed a set of falcon-headed flutes made of polished bone and silver. Found within a hidden temple gallery, these musical instruments are dated to the 2nd century BC and appear to have been central to the 'Festival of the High-Nile', which celebrated the annual peak of the floodwaters. The flutes are uniquely tuned to mimic the call of the desert falcon, a bird associated with the sky-god Horus.
Analysis of the surrounding site suggests the flutes were played during high-altitude ritual processions held on the temple's upper terraces to signal the start of the agricultural new year. This find confirms the existence of a sophisticated system of sound-based ritual communication used by the Kushite elite to coordinate multi-day festivities across the Nile Valley.