Employing Psychoacoustics in Sensory Archaeology: Developments at the Ancient Sanctuary of Zeus on Mount Lykaion

Abstract Psychoacoustics offers a promising, subject-centred approach in unlocking the sonic experience of past built spaces. Its tools and metrics offer tempting responses to an essential challenge of sensory archaeology practice: the rendition of individual experience as data. How can one person’s experiences be compared with another’s towards generalized observations? Moreover, what can be said about past experience as a result? These questions are central to the ongoing acoustic consideration of the ancient sanctuary of Zeus on Mount Lykaion. Here the landscape that binds the sanctuary ruins offers noteworthy moments of sonic connectivity and isolation. Building on existing scholarship based on researcher perception, a sensory approach was developed to explore the site’s sonic relationships and ultimately determine what roles they could have played in original site usage, information beyond what the architecture and written record offers. Extensive site research uses first-hand sonic observation to frame a machine-based psychoacoustic analysis of binaural field recordings. Findings map out a sacred terrain of shared and singular experience orchestrated by sonic connectivity made available for further interpretation. They also underscore the necessity of caution in interpreting psychoacoustic findings themselves as an empathetic understanding of past people.