A drawing of the tablet bearing Hurrian Hymn No.
Among those to create and play music were the ancient residents of Mesopotamia.
Within this cradle of civilization, history, laws, and religious texts were recorded incuneiformon tablets.
A drawing of the tablet bearing Hurrian Hymn No. 6. (Photo:Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)
Many have survived, including an exceptional tablet: the earliest extant sheet music in the world.
Known as Hurrian Hymn No.
6, the 3,400-year-old tablet records a tune in praise of the ancient goddess Nikkal.
The ancientHurrianswere a Bronze Age people of the Near East.
They had a rich culture, although much of their history and origins remain shrouded in mystery.
On the tablet are four lines of text in the Ugarit dialect.
While the language is difficult to interpret, the Hurrian Hymn No.
6is clearly the world’s earliest extant melody or song.
The words of the song lie in the upper quadrant, while the lower contains the notes.
Scholars believe that sections of repeated lyrics indicate a refrain.
The Akkadian cuneiform below is a heptatonic diatonic scale for a nine-stringed lyre.
They are known as musical intervals.
The Hurrian Hymn No.
6 tablet is one of 29 musical texts discovered in the palace of Ugarit dating to around 1,400 B.C.E.
as Hurrian civilization was waning.
These musical relics are not the oldest ever discovered, although the oldest full song.
