Do you like old music?
Splendid.
You cannot become older than HURRIAN HYMNE N ° 6which was discovered on a clay tablet in the ancient Syrian port city of Ugarit in the 1950s, and is over 3,400 years old.
In fact, you can – a similar tablet, which refers to a glorifying hymn Lipite-ishtarThe 5th king of First Isin dynasty (In what is now in Iraq), is more than 600 years older. But as Cmuse reportsIt “contains a little more than adjustment instructions for the lyre”.
Hurrian Hymn n ° 6 offers more busy content, and unlike five other tablets discovered in the same place, is well preserved enough to allow archaeologists, and others, to take a crack to rebuild its song, although it was in no way easy.
Professor emeritus of the University of California of Assyriology, Anne Kilmer I spent 15 years looking for the tablet, before transcribing it into a modern musical notation in 1972.
His is one of the many interpretations of the samples of Youtuber Hochelaga in the video above.
While the original tablet gives specific details on how the musician must place his fingers on the lyre, other elements, such as the adjustment or the duration of notes, are absent, which gives modern arrangers a place for creativity.
Below the archaeomusicologist Richard Dumbrill explains her 1998 interpretation, in which singer Lara Jokhader assumes the part of a young woman in private for the goddess Nikkal To make it fertile:
Here is a particularly charming classic guitar spin, graciousness of the Syrian musicologist Vitale Raoul and composer RADA…
And a haunting piano version, by a Syrian-American composer Malek Jandalifounder of Peace pianos::
And who can withstand a chance to hear Hurrian Hymn n ° 6 on a replica of an old lyre by the “new ancestral” composer Michael LevyWho considers him his musical mission to “open a portal at a time that was almost forgotten:”
I dream of rekindling the very spirit of our old ancestors. To capture, for a few moments, an era when people imagined that the fabric of the universe was woven from harmonies and notes. Relaxing in a softer period when the fragility of life has been really appreciated and that each action has been carried out in the all-powerful the sense of fear felt for the ancient gods.
The guitarist of Samurai Steve onote will also channel the mystery of antiquity, by combining the melody of Dr. Dumbrill with Dr Kilmer, by trying and throwing a certain number of approaches – Synthwave, Lo -Fi Hip Hop, Reggae Dub (“an absolute disaster”) – before deciding, he was better made as a solo for his electric daycare.
Amaranth publishing has several MIDI files from Hurrian Hymn No. 6, including Dr Kilmer, which you can download for free here.
Open them in the musical notation software of your choice, and if he pleads to the goddess, maybe yours will be the next interpretation of Hurrian Hymn No. 6 to appear here on the open culture …
Note: an earlier version of this article appeared on our site in 2022.
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– Ayun Halliday is the main primatologist of The East Village Inky zine and author, more recently, of Creative, not famous: the manifesto of the small potato. Follow her @Ayunhalliday.
