LEXICAL LIST OF 9 TYPES OF MUSICAL STRINGS,
23 TYPES OF MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS AND MUSIC,
INCLUDING DIFFERENT TYPES OF STRINGED INSTRUMENTS
SUCH AS HARP AND LYRE,
AS WELL AS HITHERTO UNKNOWN INSTRUMENTS;
FURTHER LAPIS LAZULI, BEDS, COPPER UTENSILS, TEXTILES,
DOMESTIC ANIMALS AND SINEWS, JEWELLERY, WEAPONS,
LEATHER PARTS OF YOKE, STRAPS, SACKS, TYPES OF SHEEP,
KNIVES, AROMATICS AND PERFUMES, REED OBJECTS,
GRAINS AND FLOURS, ETC.
MS in Sumerian on clay, Sumer, 26th c. BC, upper half of a huge tablet + fragment of lower part, 20x30x5 cm + 9x18x5 cm, originally ca. 40x30x5 cm, 16+9 and 7+7 columns, 437+ ca. 100 lines remaining in cuneiform script, circular depressions introducing each new entry.
Binding: Barking, Essex, 1996, green quarter morocco gilt folding case by Aquarius.
Context: Similar, smaller tablets are known from Fara or Tell Abu Salabikh. 3 compilations all from 26th c. BC have music instruments. The present tablet is almost a duplicate of a relatively well-known lexical list, discussed by Miguel Civil in Cagni, Ebla 1975-1985, pp. 133 ff. The obverse is an abbreviated recension with minor changes in the sequence of the entries. The reverse is the continuation of the unfinished Fara recension.
Commentary: The earliest known record of music and musical instruments in history. The name of one of the stringed instruments is a Semitic word, ki-na-ru, the later kinnaru known from the Mari letters and Ras Shamra texts (13th c. BC, cfr. MS 1955/1-6), and the still later Biblical Hebrew kinnor. The system of phonetic notation in Sumer and Babylonia is based on a music terminology that gives individual names to 9 musical strings or ‘notes’, and to 14 basic terms describing intervals of the 4th and 5th that were used in tuning string instruments (according to 7 heptatonic diatonic scales), and terms for 3rds and 6ths that appear to have been used to fine tune (or temper in some way) the 7 notes generated for each scale. The combination of string names and interval terms is used to describe the tuning procedure and the generation of the 7 scales and form a skeletal phonetic notation. (The New Grove, 2nd ed., vol. 18, p. 74.) The oldest musical instruments known are a ca. 41 000 BC flute made of bear bone, found in 1995 at a Neanderthal site in Slovenia, and 6 intact and 30 fragmentary crane bone flutes from Jiahu, in the Chinese province of Henan, dated to 9000-7700 BC. One crane bone flute is still in playing order, the earliest instrument possible to play.
“HEBE-ERIDU THE SON OF ADAD-LAMASI
SAT WITH IL-SIRI IN ORDER TO LEARN MUSIC.
AT THAT TIME, IN ORDER TO STUDY SINGING,
THE TIGIDLU-INSTRUMENT,
THE ASILA, TIGI INSTRUMENT,
AND THE ADAB INSTRUMENT SEVEN TIMES,
ADAD-LAMASI PAID IL-SIRI 5 SHEKELS OF SILVER.
ILI-IPPALSANI, THE SCHOOLMASTER”
MS in Neo Sumerian on clay, Babylonia, 1900-1700 BC, 1 tablet, 6,5×4,4×2,0 cm, single column, 13 lines in cuneiform script.
Binding: Barking, Essex, 2000, blue cloth gilt folding case by Aquarius.
Context: Cf. MS 2340 listing 23 types of musical instruments.
Commentary: There are texts of dialogues between a teacher and a scribe
Old Babylonian cuneiform musical notation
MUSICAL NOTATION OF 2 ASCENDING CONSECUTIVE HEPTATONIC SCALES TO BE PLAYED ON A 4 STRINGED LUTE TUNED IN ASCENDING FIFTHS: C – G – D – A, USING FRETS; SCHOOL TEXT
MS in Old Babylonian on clay, Babylonia, 2000-1700 BC, 1 lenticular tablet, diam. 9,0×3,2 cm, 2 double columns, each of 7 ruled lines with numbers in Old Babylonian cuneiform notation, with headings, ‘intonation’ and ‘incantation’, respectively.
Context: The only other complete music text is a later Hurrian hymn written in the mode of nidqibli, which is the enneatonic descending scale of E.
Commentary: The oldest musical notation known so far. Lutes are not preserved from the Old Babylonian period. The earliest known description of a lute dates from the middle of the 10th c., of a 9th c. instrument, Oxford, Bodleian library MS Marsh 521. The present notation system gives contemporary information on the Old Babylonian 4 stringed lute. It further attests that frets were used, and that their values, tonal and semitonal, were purposely calculated. Most significantly the discovery of this text attests of a music syllabus in educational institutions about 4000 years ago.
Published: To be published by Richard Dunnbrill: An Old Babylonian music text, from where the information has been taken.