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Mesopotamia
From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Genre
Mesopotamia · In the royal tombs of Ur, in the south of present-day Iraq, Leonard Woolley found lyres with a golden bull's head around 1929. They were made around 2500 BC and are the oldest surviving stringed instruments. More than a thousand years later, a hymn to the goddess Nikkal was written down in cuneiform at Ugarit, on the Syrian coast, with Babylonian instructions for a nine-string lyre. It is the oldest nearly complete music in writing that we know.
Listening
Listening tip. This is a reconstruction of the Hurrian hymn, played on a rebuilt lyre. Listen to how the melody circles in small steps around a few central notes, and bear in mind that the scale and the rhythm have been filled in by researchers.
Hurrian Hymn No. 6 (reconstructie) · Michael Levy, -1400
The Flood · Stef Conner, Andy Lowings & Mark Harmer (The Lyre Ensemble), 2014
The Silver Lyre of Ur · Peter Pringle, 2025
See also
- Michael Levy
- Stef Conner, Andy Lowings & Mark Harmer (The Lyre Ensemble)
- Peter Pringle
- Prehistoric music
- Psalms and temple chant
- Ancient Greece
- Arabic classical music (maqam)
- Persian classical music
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