Hurrian songs
Encyclopedia
The Hurrian songs are a collection of music inscribed in cuneiform
on clay tablets excavated from the Hurrian city of Ugarit
which date to approximately 1400 BC. One of these tablets, which is nearly complete, contains the Hurrian hymn to Nikkal
(also known as the Hurrian cult hymn or A Zaluzi to the Gods, or simply h.6), making it the oldest surviving substantially complete work of notated music
in the world. While the composers' names of some of the fragmentary pieces are known, h.6 is an anonymous work
.
writing, found on fragments of clay tablet
s excavated in the 1950s from the royal residence at Ugarit
(present day Ras Shamra, Syria
), in a stratum dating from the fourteenth century BC, but is the only one surviving in substantially complete form. An account of the group of shards was first published in 1955 and 1968 by Emmanuel Laroche, who identified as parts of a single clay tablet the three fragments catalogued by the field archaeologists as RS 15.30, 15.49, and 17.387. In Laroche's catalogue the hymns are designated h. (for "Hurrian") 2–17, 19–23, 25–6, 28, 30, along with smaller fragments RS. 19.164 g, j, n, o, p, r, t, w, x, y, aa, and gg. The complete hymn is h.6 in this list. A revised text of h.6 was published in 1975.
The tablet h.6 contains the lyrics for a hymn to Nikkal, a Semitic
goddess of orchard
s, and instructions for a singer accompanied by a nine-stringed sammûm, a type of harp
or, much more likely, a lyre
. One or more of the tablets also contains instructions for tuning the harp
.
The Hurrian hymn pre-dates several other surviving early works of music, e.g., the Seikilos epitaph
and the Delphic Hymns
, by a millennium, but its transcription remains controversial. A reconstruction by Marcelle Duchesne-Guillemin may be heard at the Urkesh webpage, though this is only one of at least five "rival decipherments of the notation, each yielding entirely different results".
The tablet is in the collection of the National Museum of Damascus
.
words of the hymn at the top, under which is a double division line. The hymn text is written in a continuous spiral, alternating recto-verso sides of the tablet—a layout not found in Babylonian texts. Below this is found the Akkadian
musical instructions, consisting of interval names followed by number signs. Differences in transcriptions hinge on interpretation of the meaning of these paired signs, and the relationship to the hymn text. Below the musical instructions there is another dividing line—single this time—underneath which is a colophon
in Akkadian reading "This [is] a song [in the] nitkibli [i.e., the nid qabli tuning], a zaluzi … written down by Ammurabi". This name and another scribe's name found on one of the other tablets, Ipsali, are both Semitic. There is no composer named for the complete hymn, but four composers' names are found for five of the fragmentary pieces: Tapšiẖuni, Puẖiya(na), Urẖiya (two hymns: h.8 and h.12), and Ammiya. These are all Hurrian names.
The Akkadian cuneiform music notation refers to a heptatonic
diatonic scale
on a nine-stringed lyre, in a tuning system described on three Akkadian tablets, two from the Late Babylonian and one from the Old Babylonian
period (approximately the 18th century BC). Babylonian theory describes intervals
of thirds
, fourths, fifths, and sixths, but only with specific terms for the various groups of strings that may be spanned by the hand over that distance, within the purely theoretical range of a seven-string lyre (even though the actual instrument described has nine strings). Babylonian theory had no term for the abstract distance of a fifth or a fourth—only for fifths and fourths between specific pairs of strings. As a result, there are fourteen terms in all, describing two groups of six strings, three groups of five, four groups of four, and five different groups of three strings. Astonishingly, there are no known terms corresponding to a single note, or to intervals of a second or seventh. The names of these fourteen pairs of strings form the basis of the theoretical system and are arranged by twos in the ancient sources (string-number pairs first, then the regularized Old Babylonian names and translations):
The name of the first item of each pair is also used as the name of a tuning. These are all fifths (nīš gab(a)rîm, išartum', embūbum') or fourths (nīd qablim, qablītum, kitmum, and pītum), and have been called by one modern scholar the "primary" intervals—the other seven (which are not used as names of tunings) being the "secondary" intervals: thirds and sixths.
A transcription of the first two lines of the notation on h.6 reads:
It was the unsystematic succession of the interval names, their location below apparently lyric texts, and the regular interpolation of numerals that led to the conclusion that these were notated musical compositions. Some of the terms differ to varying degrees from the Akkadian forms found in the older theoretical text, which is not surprising since they were foreign terms. For example, irbute in the hymn notation corresponds to rebûttum in the theory text, šaḫri = šērum, zirte = ṣ/zerdum, šaššate = šalšatum, and titim išarte = titur išartim. There are also a few rarer, additional words, some of them apparently Hurrian rather than Akkadian. Because these interrupt the interval-numeral pattern, they may be modifiers of the preceding or following named interval. The first line of h.6, for example, ends with ušta mari, and this word-pair is also found on several of the other, fragmentary hymn tablets, usually following but not preceding a numeral.
s dividing the text into regular sections. To this, Duchesne-Guillemin retorts that the recto-verso-recto spiral path of the text—an arrangement unknown in Babylon—is ample reason for the use of such guides.
The first published attempt to interpret the text of h.6 was made in 1977 by Hans-Jochen Thiel, and his work formed the basis for a new but still very provisional attempt made 24 years later by Theo J. H. Krispijn, after Hurritology had made significant progress thanks to archaeological discoveries made in the meantime at a site near Boğazkale
.
Cuneiform
Cuneiform can refer to:*Cuneiform script, an ancient writing system originating in Mesopotamia in the 4th millennium BC*Cuneiform , three bones in the human foot*Cuneiform Records, a music record label...
on clay tablets excavated from the Hurrian city of Ugarit
Ugarit
Ugarit was an ancient port city in the eastern Mediterranean at the Ras Shamra headland near Latakia, Syria. It is located near Minet el-Beida in northern Syria. It is some seven miles north of Laodicea ad Mare and approximately fifty miles east of Cyprus...
which date to approximately 1400 BC. One of these tablets, which is nearly complete, contains the Hurrian hymn to Nikkal
Nikkal
Stanislas Marie Adélaïde, comte de Clermont-Tonnerre was a French politician.-Early life and career:Born in Pont-a-Mousson, in what is today the Meurthe-et-Moselle department in north-eastern France...
(also known as the Hurrian cult hymn or A Zaluzi to the Gods, or simply h.6), making it the oldest surviving substantially complete work of notated music
Musical notation
Music notation or musical notation is any system that represents aurally perceived music, through the use of written symbols.-History:...
in the world. While the composers' names of some of the fragmentary pieces are known, h.6 is an anonymous work
Anonymous work
Anonymous works are works, such as art or literature, that have an anonymous, undisclosed, or unknown creator or author. In the United States it is legally defined as "a work on the copies or phonorecords of which no natural person is identified as author."...
.
History
The complete song is one of about 36 such hymns in cuneiformCuneiform
Cuneiform can refer to:*Cuneiform script, an ancient writing system originating in Mesopotamia in the 4th millennium BC*Cuneiform , three bones in the human foot*Cuneiform Records, a music record label...
writing, found on fragments of clay tablet
Clay tablet
In the Ancient Near East, clay tablets were used as a writing medium, especially for writing in cuneiform, throughout the Bronze Age and well into the Iron Age....
s excavated in the 1950s from the royal residence at Ugarit
Ugarit
Ugarit was an ancient port city in the eastern Mediterranean at the Ras Shamra headland near Latakia, Syria. It is located near Minet el-Beida in northern Syria. It is some seven miles north of Laodicea ad Mare and approximately fifty miles east of Cyprus...
(present day Ras Shamra, Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
), in a stratum dating from the fourteenth century BC, but is the only one surviving in substantially complete form. An account of the group of shards was first published in 1955 and 1968 by Emmanuel Laroche, who identified as parts of a single clay tablet the three fragments catalogued by the field archaeologists as RS 15.30, 15.49, and 17.387. In Laroche's catalogue the hymns are designated h. (for "Hurrian") 2–17, 19–23, 25–6, 28, 30, along with smaller fragments RS. 19.164 g, j, n, o, p, r, t, w, x, y, aa, and gg. The complete hymn is h.6 in this list. A revised text of h.6 was published in 1975.
The tablet h.6 contains the lyrics for a hymn to Nikkal, a Semitic
Semitic
In linguistics and ethnology, Semitic was first used to refer to a language family of largely Middle Eastern origin, now called the Semitic languages...
goddess of orchard
Orchard
An orchard is an intentional planting of trees or shrubs that is maintained for food production. Orchards comprise fruit or nut-producing trees which are grown for commercial production. Orchards are also sometimes a feature of large gardens, where they serve an aesthetic as well as a productive...
s, and instructions for a singer accompanied by a nine-stringed sammûm, a type of harp
Harp
The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...
or, much more likely, a lyre
Lyre
The lyre is a stringed musical instrument known for its use in Greek classical antiquity and later. The word comes from the Greek "λύρα" and the earliest reference to the word is the Mycenaean Greek ru-ra-ta-e, meaning "lyrists", written in Linear B syllabic script...
. One or more of the tablets also contains instructions for tuning the harp
Musical tuning
In music, there are two common meanings for tuning:* Tuning practice, the act of tuning an instrument or voice.* Tuning systems, the various systems of pitches used to tune an instrument, and their theoretical bases.-Tuning practice:...
.
The Hurrian hymn pre-dates several other surviving early works of music, e.g., the Seikilos epitaph
Seikilos epitaph
The Seikilos epitaph is the oldest surviving example of a complete musical composition, including musical notation, from anywhere in the world. The song, the melody of which is recorded, alongside its lyrics, in the ancient Greek musical notation, was found engraved on a tombstone, near Aidin,...
and the Delphic Hymns
Delphic Hymns
The Delphic Hymns are two musical compositions from Ancient Greece, which survive in substantial fragments. They were long regarded as being dated circa 138 BCE and 128 BCE, respectively, but recent scholarship has shown it likely they were both written for performance at the Athenian...
, by a millennium, but its transcription remains controversial. A reconstruction by Marcelle Duchesne-Guillemin may be heard at the Urkesh webpage, though this is only one of at least five "rival decipherments of the notation, each yielding entirely different results".
The tablet is in the collection of the National Museum of Damascus
National Museum of Damascus
The National Museum of Damascus is a large museum in the heart of Damascus, Syria. The most popular part of the museum is the reconstruction of the 2nd century CE Dura-Europos synagogue.- Location :...
.
Notation
The arrangement of the tablet h.6 places the HurrianHurrian language
Hurrian is a conventional name for the language of the Hurrians , a people who entered northern Mesopotamia around 2300 BC and had mostly vanished by 1000 BC. Hurrian was the language of the Mitanni kingdom in northern Mesopotamia, and was likely spoken at least initially in Hurrian settlements in...
words of the hymn at the top, under which is a double division line. The hymn text is written in a continuous spiral, alternating recto-verso sides of the tablet—a layout not found in Babylonian texts. Below this is found the Akkadian
Akkadian language
Akkadian is an extinct Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian, an unrelated language isolate...
musical instructions, consisting of interval names followed by number signs. Differences in transcriptions hinge on interpretation of the meaning of these paired signs, and the relationship to the hymn text. Below the musical instructions there is another dividing line—single this time—underneath which is a colophon
Colophon (publishing)
In publishing, a colophon is either:* A brief description of publication or production notes relevant to the edition, in modern books usually located at the reverse of the title page, but can also sometimes be located at the end of the book, or...
in Akkadian reading "This [is] a song [in the] nitkibli [i.e., the nid qabli tuning], a zaluzi … written down by Ammurabi". This name and another scribe's name found on one of the other tablets, Ipsali, are both Semitic. There is no composer named for the complete hymn, but four composers' names are found for five of the fragmentary pieces: Tapšiẖuni, Puẖiya(na), Urẖiya (two hymns: h.8 and h.12), and Ammiya. These are all Hurrian names.
The Akkadian cuneiform music notation refers to a heptatonic
Heptatonic scale
A heptatonic scale is a musical scale with seven pitches per octave. Among the most famous of these are the major scale, C D E F G A B C; the melodic minor scale, C D E F G A B C ascending, C B A G F E D C descending; the harmonic minor scale, C D E F G A B C; and a scale variously known as the...
diatonic scale
Diatonic scale
In music theory, a diatonic scale is a seven note, octave-repeating musical scale comprising five whole steps and two half steps for each octave, in which the two half steps are separated from each other by either two or three whole steps...
on a nine-stringed lyre, in a tuning system described on three Akkadian tablets, two from the Late Babylonian and one from the Old Babylonian
First Babylonian Dynasty
The chronology of the first dynasty of Babylonia is debated as there is a Babylonian King List A and a Babylonian King List B. In this chronology, the regnal years of List A are used due to their wide usage...
period (approximately the 18th century BC). Babylonian theory describes intervals
Interval (music)
In music theory, an interval is a combination of two notes, or the ratio between their frequencies. Two-note combinations are also called dyads...
of thirds
Third (music)
In music and music theory third may refer to:*major third*minor third*augmented third/perfect fourth*diminished third/major second*Third , chord member a third above the root*Mediant, third degree of the diatonic scale...
, fourths, fifths, and sixths, but only with specific terms for the various groups of strings that may be spanned by the hand over that distance, within the purely theoretical range of a seven-string lyre (even though the actual instrument described has nine strings). Babylonian theory had no term for the abstract distance of a fifth or a fourth—only for fifths and fourths between specific pairs of strings. As a result, there are fourteen terms in all, describing two groups of six strings, three groups of five, four groups of four, and five different groups of three strings. Astonishingly, there are no known terms corresponding to a single note, or to intervals of a second or seventh. The names of these fourteen pairs of strings form the basis of the theoretical system and are arranged by twos in the ancient sources (string-number pairs first, then the regularized Old Babylonian names and translations):
-
- 1–5 nīš gab(a)rîm (raising of the counterpart)
- 7–5 šērum (song?)
- 2–6 išartum (straight/in proper condition)
- 1–6 šalšatum (third)
- 3–7 embūbum (reed-pipe)
- 2–7 rebûttum (fourth)
- 4–1 nīd qablim (casting down of the middle)
- 1–3 isqum (lot/portion)
- 5–2 qablītum (middle)
- 2–4 titur qablītim (bridge of the middle)
- 6–3 kitmum (covering/closing)
- 3–5 titur išartim (bridge of the išartum)
- 7–4 pītum (opening)
- 4–6 ṣ/zerdum (?)
- 1–5 nīš gab(a)rîm (raising of the counterpart)
The name of the first item of each pair is also used as the name of a tuning. These are all fifths (nīš gab(a)rîm, išartum', embūbum') or fourths (nīd qablim, qablītum, kitmum, and pītum), and have been called by one modern scholar the "primary" intervals—the other seven (which are not used as names of tunings) being the "secondary" intervals: thirds and sixths.
A transcription of the first two lines of the notation on h.6 reads:
- qáb-li-te 3 ir-bu-te 1 qáb-li-te 3 ša-aḫ-ri 1 i-šar-te 10 uš-ta-ma-a-ri
- ti-ti-mi-šar-te 2 zi-ir-te 1 ša-[a]ḫ-ri 2 ša-aš-ša-te 2 ir-bu-te 2.
It was the unsystematic succession of the interval names, their location below apparently lyric texts, and the regular interpolation of numerals that led to the conclusion that these were notated musical compositions. Some of the terms differ to varying degrees from the Akkadian forms found in the older theoretical text, which is not surprising since they were foreign terms. For example, irbute in the hymn notation corresponds to rebûttum in the theory text, šaḫri = šērum, zirte = ṣ/zerdum, šaššate = šalšatum, and titim išarte = titur išartim. There are also a few rarer, additional words, some of them apparently Hurrian rather than Akkadian. Because these interrupt the interval-numeral pattern, they may be modifiers of the preceding or following named interval. The first line of h.6, for example, ends with ušta mari, and this word-pair is also found on several of the other, fragmentary hymn tablets, usually following but not preceding a numeral.
Text
The text of h.6 is difficult, in part because the Hurrian language itself is imperfectly understood, and in part because of small lacunae due to missing flakes of the clay tablet. In addition, however, it appears that the language is a local Ugarit dialect, which differs significantly from the dialects known from other sources. It is also possible that the pronunciation of some words was altered from normal speech because of the music. Despite the many difficulties, it is clearly a religious text concerning offerings to the goddess Nikkal, wife of the moon god. The text is presented in four lines, with the peculiarity that the seven final syllables of each of the first three lines on the verso of the tablet are repeated at the beginning of the next line on the recto. While Laroche saw in this a procedure similar to one employed by Babylonian scribes in longer texts to provide continuity at the transition from one tablet to another, Güterbock and Kilmer took the position that this device is never found within the text on a single tablet, and so these repeated syllables must constitute refrainRefrain
A refrain is the line or lines that are repeated in music or in verse; the "chorus" of a song...
s dividing the text into regular sections. To this, Duchesne-Guillemin retorts that the recto-verso-recto spiral path of the text—an arrangement unknown in Babylon—is ample reason for the use of such guides.
The first published attempt to interpret the text of h.6 was made in 1977 by Hans-Jochen Thiel, and his work formed the basis for a new but still very provisional attempt made 24 years later by Theo J. H. Krispijn, after Hurritology had made significant progress thanks to archaeological discoveries made in the meantime at a site near Boğazkale
Bogazkale
Boğazkale is a district of Çorum Province in the Black Sea region of Turkey. It is located at 87 km from the city of Çorum. Population of the town is about 1,500. The mayor is Ali Rıza Soysat ....
.
Discography
- Music of the Ancient Sumerians, Egyptians & Greeks, new expanded edition. Ensemble De Organographia (Gayle Stuwe Neuman and Philip Neuman). CD recording. Pandourion PRDC 1005. Oregon City: Pandourion Records, 2006. [Includes the nearly complete h.6 (as "A Zaluzi to the Gods"), as well as fragments of 14 others, following the transcriptions of M. L. West.]
Further reading
- Bielitz, Mathias. 2002. Über die babylonischen theoretischen Texte zur Musik: Zu den Grenzen der Anwendung des antiken Tonsystems, second, expanded edition. Neckargemünd: Männeles Verlag.
- Braun, Joachim. "Jewish music, §II: Ancient Israel/Palestine, 2: The Canaanite Inheritance". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley SadieStanley SadieStanley Sadie CBE was a leading British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , which was published as the first edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.Sadie was educated at St Paul's School,...
and John TyrrellJohn Tyrrell (professor of music)John Tyrrell was born in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia in 1942. He studied at the universities of Cape Town, Oxford and Brno. In 2000 he was appointed Research Professor at Cardiff University....
. London: Macmillan Publishers, 2001. - Černý, Miroslav Karel. 1987. "Das altmesopotamische Tonsystem, seine Organisation und Entwicklung im Lichte der neuerschlossenen Texte". Archiv orientální 60:41–57.
- Duchesne-Guillemin, Marcelle. 1963. "Découverte d'une gamme babylonienne". Revue de Musicologie 49:3–17.
- Duchesne-Guillemin, Marcelle. 1966. "A l'aube de la théorie musicale: concordance de trois tablettes babyloniennes". Revue de Musicologie 52:147–62.
- Duchesne-Guillemin, Marcelle. 1969. "La théorie babylonienne des métaboles musicales". Revue de Musicologie 55:3–11.
- Gurney, O. R. 1968. "An Old Babylonian Treatise on the Tuning of the Harp". Iraq 30:229–33.
- Halperin, David. 1992. "Towards Deciphering the Ugaritic Musical Notation". Musikometrika 4:101–16.
- Kilmer, Anne Draffkorn. 1965. "The Strings of Musical Instruments: Their Names, Numbers, and Significance". Assyriological Studies 16 ("Studies in Honor of Benno Landsberger"): 261-68.
- Kilmer, Anne Draffkorn. 1971. "The Discovery of an Ancient Mesopotamian Theory of Music". Proceedings of the American Philosophical Association 115:131–49.
- Kilmer, Anne Draffkorn. 1984. "A Music Tablet from Sippar(?): BM 65217 + 66616". Iraq 46:69–80.
- Kilmer, Anne Draffkorn, and Miguel Civil. 1986. "Old Babylonian Musical Instructions Relating to Hymnody". Journal of Cuneiform Studies 38:94–98.
- Kümmel, Hans Martin. 1970. "Zur Stimmung der babylonischen Harfe". Orientalia 39:252–63.
- Schmidt, Karin Stella. 2006. "Zur Musik Mesopotamiens: Musiktheorie, Notenschriften, Rekonstruktionen und Einspielungen überlieferter Musik, Instrumentenkunde, Gesang und Aufführungspraxis in Sumer, Akkad, Babylonien, Assyrien und den benachbarten Kulturräumen Ugarit, Syrien, Elam/Altpersien: Eine Zusammenstellung wissenschaftlicher Literatur mit einführender Literatur zur Musik Altägyptens, Anatoliens (Hethitische Musik), Altgriechenlands und Altisraels/Palästinas". Seminar-Arbeit. Freiburg i. Br.: Orientalisches Seminar, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg.
- Thiel, Hans-Jochen. 1978. "Zur Gliederung des 'Musik-Textes' aus Ugarit". Revue Hittite et Asiatique 36 (Les Hourrites: Actes de la XXIVe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale Paris 1977): 189–98.
External links
- An interview with Anne Kilmer:
- Goranson, Casey. student article on Hurrian Hymn No. 6, with midi and score examples of many different interpretations. (Accessed 23 January 2011)
- A performance of the Hymn to Nikkal on Youtube.