The Deep Roots of Aesthetics

I got a new pen the other day, a Visconti, designed and made in Florence. It is quite beautiful and the body is fluted, meaning it has shallow channels along the length:

Now the idea of fluting goes way, way back. As the Wikipedia article shows, it was common for Greek columns to be fluted:

But the idea didn't originate with them. They borrowed ideas about column design from the Egyptians who had quite a variety of designs:

They borrowed ideas from nature, specifically bundles of papyrus stalks, lotus buds and palms. Originally there were probably columns made from actual papyrus bound together in bundles and a fluted column just echoes that. The Greeks didn't have these plants, so they just copied the Egyptian columns, making them more simple and, to our eyes, classic. This idea has never really gone away even four or more thousand years later. Here is the facade of the US Supreme Court:

So, architecture has some very, very deep roots! What about music? Unfortunately, we don't have records in stone going back millennia as there are in architecture. The few examples of Greek notation, carved in stone, give us mere hints as to the melodic content and less of the rhythmic and harmonic content. That doesn't stop people from re-creating versions of ancient Greek music, but we can't be sure how authentic they are. Still, the idea of an open fifth drone must be ancient. Whether or not you believe Pythagoras actually existed, the school associated with him was very aware of the basic musical intervals and the idea that they would have been combined for an accompaniment to melody is likely.

I'm not sure if there is much research on this, but I have a feeling that there are a lot of musical ideas that are really ancient. Here is some of the oldest European polyphony, from the St. Martial manuscript:

UPDATE: I thought of another deep root of aesthetics with some musical connection: the poetic "foot" that comes down to us from ancient times. A related concept is that of arsis and thesis or upbeat and downbeat. Just how old these patterns are is suggested by the names: dactyl, anapest, bacchius and cretic. And being basic rhythmic patterns they are still in use today. In fact, in my analyses of Shostakovich string quartets I found a number of occasions where he uses a pattern like the dactyl to unify a whole movement.

An important early source is Aristoxenus of Tarentum, a pupil of Aristotle, who wrote many volumes on harmony, rhythm and music.