zalzal
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Ugarit: Origin of Music
It seems that the Mesopotamian cultures knew a system of interrelated heptatonic scales as highly refined as those attested so much later in Greece
and India.
The first note of music seems to have been found in Ugarit
(MQD said that in the french radio program)
I found this interesting link
http://www.kingmixers.com/Cuneiform%20Texts.html%20
So Syria is the origin of music, and syrian oudists are the best......
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chaldo
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Hello, thanks for reminding us of the great heritage mesopotamians have gifted the cultures and the civilizations that folowed...
Here is couple of pics of a Sumerian Queen's Lyre (from the tomb of Queen Pu-abi, Ur), 2600 BCE, British Museum, London. There is more than one of
those lyres, there is one in baghdad museum (damaged by the looting), in Philadelphia, London and surely some still under Iraqi soil.
| Quote: | | So Syria is the origin of music, and syrian oudists are the best...... |
I think it will be much more safe to locate the origin of music in southern mesopotamia, Iraq. 
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zalzal
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Can you send us a video excerpt of you playing the lyre and singing on the love songs to Queen Pu-abi ?
Thank you
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chaldo
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| Quote: | Originally posted by zalzal
Can you send us a video excerpt of you playing the lyre and singing on the love songs to Queen Pu-abi ?
Thank you |
We're not there yet, but we, archaeologists are working on that.
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zalzal
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Just puting this topic on top because this picture of the lyre, fascinates me. I can not stop looking at it. May be because i am spanish and living in
Nîmes (with a famous roman "Arenes" where still "toro corridas" takes place). Bulls are a mythical figure in our imaginaries, remember Picasso, for
example.
I imagine this animal virile lyre probably played by women for Queen Pu-abi, some 4600 hundreds years ago is incredible. I think this is the oldest
instrument posted in this forum.
Did sumerian played ouds also ??
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Elias
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What a tenderness makes me think about the Sumerians that 5000years ago invented the great part of the things the still today are around us....and
sure they had a fundamental role in music development....
i don't know if i am wrong,and if there is an archaeologist here he will be sure more informed than me, but i've seen reading some books or article
that there could be some images of Sumerian ceremonies and rituals wich showed some primitive lutes..is it true or i am confusing with the follwing
mesopotamian civilizations like Babylonians or Assyirian...?
I found some pics
this is the Satandard of Ur, particular of a grear Lyre player of the age...
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Elias
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this one...a very old and primitive lute on a plate from Nippur, 2500 B.C.........
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Elias
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and this is a nice link were i found the pics...there are others!
http://www.guitarsite.com/history6.htm
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kasos
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I just love this sort of stuff, thanks all for your posts on this thread.
My son got me a book, "Guns Germs and Steel", as a Christmas (2005) present. Despite the title, most of the book actually talks about the origins of
food production in the neolithic period, and the various advantages and obstacles faced in different parts of the world. Basically, the fertile
crescent, including much of present day Syria, Iraq and some of eastern Turkey, was apparently first in the world in develeping food production (as
opposed to gathering), largely because several of the most efficient food grains (wheat, barley, etc.) grew in wild forms in that region, and the
process of domesticating production was only a relatively small step. (These plants didn't grow wild in many regions they are cultivated today - for
instance, Europe received wheat only after it had been developed in cultivated form in the Middle East).
In addition, the fertile crescent was also blessed with wild forms of a number of animals which were, in retrospect, ideally suited for domestication
(only some species are really suited for this, ever wonder why nobody rides zebras or rhinos?). So, in addition to crops, the ancient
Mesopotamians were first in on animals, too.
When I look at the bull's head harp, I thought of all this - the domestication of animals like the bull was in some sense 'cutting edge technology'
during those early periods - the sense of power that would have come from mastering strong animals like the bull would have been quite awesome, in
the truest sense of the word - and to have this 'technology', when those around didn't, must have been a tremendous source of pride for the citizens
of early Mesopotamia....
So, while to us the bull seems primarily an image of wild, primordial power, to those who made the harp, it might have been the symbol of
'civilisation' (and/or progress) - like a fin-de-siecle French impressionist putting the Eiffel tower in a painting, or an American news magazine
prominently displaying pictures of the latest spacecraft....
Anyway, that's my 2 cents....Take care, Mark
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stringmanca
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I saw part of a PBS documentary recently on the same subject as your book. One of the points brought up was that development of the arts is a direct
result of the leisure time made available by the move from hunting and gathering to the cultivation of food and domestication of animals.
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