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Posted on 2006 by MG

Oldest song in the world

harpscor

According to Prof. Anne Draffkorn Kilmer (Professor of Assyriology, University of California, and curator at the Lowie Museum of Anthropology at Berkeley), the one you see could be the score of the oldest musical piece currently known.
The tablet, which comes from Ugarit's ancient town (today Ras Shamra in Syria), dates back to 3400 years ago. In the upper part is the text, while the lower part brings information on the execution.

The point is that, according to the interpretation of Prof. Kilmer, the music that comes out is diatonic (more obviously not tempered scale but probably based on a natural scale) and harmonized . I put this data in Neretto because, if they were true, they would deny in a single blow two assumptions of traditional musicology: the idea that the first structured stairs date back to the Greeks (2000 years ago) and that the first musical events were only melodic.


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