ICOBASE

Object identity: IC200710:14

Museum identity: The Schoyen collection: MS 5105

Possibly some 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. it is a school text.

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 tablature 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.

Location: The Schoyen collection

Bibliography: Dumbrill, R.J., (2005) The Archaeomusicology of the Ancient Near East, pp.96-110

IC200710:14

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