Hurrian Hymn No. 6

The Hurrian Hymn No. 6, also known as the Hurrian Hymn to Nikkal, is the oldest substantially complete work of notated music in the world, dating back to approximately 1400 BC. It was inscribed in cuneiform on a clay tablet excavated from the ancient city of Ugarit in northern Syria.The hymn is accompanied by Akkadian cuneiform music notation, which refers to a diatonic scale on a nine-stringed lyre, in a tuning system described on three Akkadian tablets. The notation consists of interval names followed by number signs, indicating the strings to be played. However, the relationship between the hymn text and the musical notation remains controversial, with at least five different interpretations yielding entirely different results.The arrangement of the tablet places the Hurrian words of the hymn at the top, followed by a double division line. The hymn text is written in a continuous spiral, alternating recto-verso sides of the tablet

. Below the text is the Akkadian musical instructions, consisting of interval names followed by number signs. Differences in transcriptions hinge on interpretation of the meaning of these paired signs, and the relationship to the hymn text.While the Hurrian hymn pre-dates several other surviving early works of music by a millennium, its transcription remains challenging due to the imperfect understanding of the Hurrian language and the possibility of a local Ugarit dialect. Additionally, the rhythm of the music, the prosody and colometry of the Hurrian hymn texts, and the allocation of notes to syllables are still unclear.


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