The oldest song in the world is 3,500 years ago, and it is the Hurrian anthem.
The oldest known song in the world was the anthem of a cult in the Middle East, and the tables on which it was written were found in the ancient city of Ugarit on the territory of today's Syria in the early fifties of the last century.
The version of the song that is attached to the video is performed by Michael Levy, a musician and composer who deals with reading and reconstruction of ancient music and playing techniques.
Levy says that his mission is to "present the beautiful lyrics of antiquity to the pale and soulless modern music world."
"Over the last few years, I've recorded several of my 'Hurrian anthem' arrangements," says Levi.
On the 29 tables found, signs were engraved indicating "notes" in the Hurrian language. H6 is the oldest fragment of the melody ever discovered in history.
The oldest love song in the world:
"Bridegroom, dear to my heart, your beauty is great, sweet as honey" are the words with which the 4,000-year-old Sumerian song, dedicated to the king by his darling, begins.
Words of love that have been passed down for generations were written in the eighth century BC on a Sumerian clay tablet small enough to be placed on the palm of your hand. It was discovered in 1880 in Nipur, a region that belongs to the territory of present-day Iraq, and has been kept in a museum in Istanbul ever since.
Historians claim that these words were recited by a young priestess in love with the Sumerian king Shu-Sin, the fourth ruler of the Ur dynasty, who ruled between 2037 and 2029 BC. The translation of this song reads:
“The bridegroom dear to my heart,
your beauty is great, sweet as honey,
you, the lion that is dear to my heart,
great is your beauty, sweet as honey.
You have conquered me, made me tremble before you,
the bridegroom who will take me to his bed,
you have conquered me, you have made me tremble before you,
you, lion, who will take me to your bed.
Groom, let me caress you,
my precious caress is sweeter than honey,
in your bed, filled with honey,
let me enjoy your great beauty,
lava, let me caress you,
my precious caress is sweeter than honey.
Groom, you got pleasure from me,
if you tell my mother, she'll serve you treats,
if you tell my father, he will bring you gifts.
Your spirit - I know how to cheer him up,
groom, sleep in our house until dawn,
your heart - I know where to satisfy your heart,
lava, sleep in our house until dawn.
You, because you love me,
give me the prayer of your caresses,
my supreme god, my protector,
my Shu-Son, who guards Enlil's heart,
give me the prayer of your caresses. "
According to the old Sumerian belief, the king had the sacred duty to marry a priestess every year so that the land and women would be fertile. The ritual of holy marriage implied the union of two deities, usually the goddesses Ishtar and Tammuz, the god of the productive forces of nature. The priestess thus symbolizes Ishtar, the goddess of fertility and sexual love, and the king represents Tammuz.
Because of that, this song is also known as the "hymn of love Ishtar and Tammuz".
Muazez Hilmiy Zig, a respected retired Turkish historian who once worked at the Istanbul Museum, points out that the Sumerian experience of love is fascinating because it completely excludes sexual taboos and is based on the belief that only love and passion can bring people fertility, fame and satisfaction.
How does the oldest musical instrument in the world sound?
Listen to the sound of the "Neanderthal flute", a 43,000-year-old musical instrument.
When we study the distant past, long before the appearance of the letter, we are completely unaware of what form of music prehistoric people loved. However, we know that music was a part of their daily lives, as well as us. We have evidence for that in the form of instruments on which they played. In 2008, archaeologists discovered parts of flutes made from the bones of Stone Age animals at a site in southern Germany. These instruments are 42,000-43,000 years old.
The flutes are made with incredible precision, especially the mammoth bone flute, which was especially challenging to make. When they were discovered, scientists considered that the flute "was perhaps the first cultural achievement to give the first European modern humans (Homo sapiens) an advantage over the now extinct Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalis)." Yet with new findings on Neanderthals, which include evidence of mixing with Homo sapiens, these conclusions can be revised.
It is possible that mostly underestimated Neanderthals also had their own flutes. This is indicated by the discovery from 1995, when the femur of a cave bear, from which a flute was made, was discovered in the cave. The instrument was discovered by Ivan Turk at a Neanderthal site near Divja Baba in northwestern Slovenia. It is estimated that the instrument is over 43,000 years old and may be as old as 80,000 years. According to musicologist Bob Fink, the four holes on the flute coincide with the four notes of the diatonic (do, re, mi ...) scale.
"Unless we deny that it's a flute at all, the notes are unquestionably diatonic and sound so that they can match almost perfectly with any standard diatonic scale, modern or antique," says Fink. To demonstrate this, the curator of the National Museum of Slovenia played on a clay replica of the flute. Below you can hear Slovenian musician Ljuben Dimkaroski playing it.
The prehistoric instrument is so good that Dimkaroski can play parts of several compositions from Beethoven, through Verdi, Ravel, Dvorak and others, all the way to free interpretations of "animal voices". Although there is still a debate among archaeologists as to whether the flute is the work of Neanderthals, Turk believes that confirmation of such a thesis would mean that the theory that human relatives "left no evidence of their musicality" does not stand.
Very interesting