These are very old songs.
They were written on clay. People found them in a big palace. Long ago, people sang them with a harp. It is a special gift from the past.
Can you imagine the music?
People found very old songs on clay.
These songs were written in a city called Ugarit.
One song was for a goddess named Nikkal. She was a goddess of orchards.
A singer would sing this song. A person would play a nine-stringed harp. This is the oldest song we have.
It is a special piece of music. We can still study it today.
Long ago, people wrote music on clay tablets.
These are called the Hurrian songs. Experts found them in an ancient city named Ugarit.
The city was in northern Syria. These tablets date back to about 1400 BC.
One song is very special. It is a hymn to a goddess named Nikkal. She was the goddess of orchards.
This song is the oldest complete piece of music we have. It tells a singer how to perform. A person would play a nine-stringed instrument. This instrument was likely a lyre, which is a type of small harp.
Scientists have worked hard to understand these songs. They found the music was written in cuneiform. This is a way of writing using wedge shapes. Scholars use the notes to try and play the songs today. They study how the strings were tuned. This helps us hear what music sounded like a long time ago. Even though the pieces are old, they still teach us about art. They show us how people shared music and stories in the past.
The Hurrian songs are a special collection of ancient music.
These songs were written using cuneiform, which is a way of writing with wedge shapes. They were found on clay tablets in the old city of Ugarit.
This city was located on a headland in northern Syria. The tablets date back to about 1400 BC. These songs are important because they show us how people made music long ago. One song is the oldest complete piece of musical notation in the world. It is known as the Hymn to Nikkal. This hymn was written to honor a goddess of orchards.
Reading these tablets is like solving a very old puzzle.
The tablet for the hymn to Nikkal is organized in a specific way. The lyrics for the song are written at the very top. Below the words, there is a double line that separates the text. Under that line, you will find musical instructions in a language called Akkadian. These instructions use names for musical intervals and number signs. The lyrics are written in a continuous spiral on the clay. This spiral goes around both sides of the tablet. It is a different way of writing than what was used in Babylon.
Finding these songs was a big moment for history.
Archaeologists found the clay fragments in the 1950s. They were digging in the Royal Palace at Ugarit. A scholar named Emmanuel Laroche was the first to publish accounts of these shards. He identified several different fragments as parts of the same tablets. He gave the hymns names like h.2 or h.6. While most of the 36 hymns are just broken pieces, h.6 is nearly complete. This complete song is a very rare treasure from the ancient world.
Scientists use many clues to understand how the music sounded. One tablet even describes how to tune a nine-stringed lyre. A lyre is a musical instrument that looks like a small harp. The tuning system uses fourteen different names for pairs of strings. Some names describe the distance between strings, like a third or a fourth. One pair of strings is called nīš tuḫrim, which means "raising of the heel." Another pair is called pītum, which means "opening." These names help experts try to recreate the sounds of the past.
Learning about these songs helps us connect to people from long ago.
For a long time, the music was a mystery. In the 1970s, experts like Anne Draffkorn Kilmer and Marcelle Duchesne-Guillemin worked together. They helped people hear the music for the first time in modern times. Some early guesses about the music were actually upside down. Today, different scholars have different ideas about how to play the notes. Even with different versions, these songs change how we think about the history of music. They show that people have loved singing and playing instruments for thousands of years.
The Hurrian songs are a collection of ancient musical compositions written in cuneiform.
These songs were recorded on clay tablets found in the ancient city of Ugarit. Ugarit was a headland located in northern Syria.
The tablets date back to approximately 1400 BC. This collection is vital to historians because it provides a rare window into ancient music. Most importantly, one specific piece known as the Hymn to Nikkal is the oldest surviving substantially complete work of notated music in the world. This hymn was written to honor Nikkal, an Ancient Near Eastern goddess of orchards.
Reading the tablets requires understanding a complex, multi-layered system of notation.
On tablet h.6, the layout is very specific. The lyrics of the hymn are placed at the very top of the tablet. Below the words, a double division line separates the text from the musical instructions. These instructions are written in Akkadian, a different language from the Hurrian lyrics. The musical notation consists of interval names followed by specific number signs. The lyrics themselves are written in a continuous spiral that travels across both the front and back sides of the tablet. This spiral layout is unique and differs from Babylonian writing styles.
There are about 36 such hymns in this cuneiform collection.
Most of these hymns exist only as fragmentary pieces or shards. Archaeologists discovered these fragments in the 1950s while excavating the Royal Palace at Ugarit. A scholar named Emmanuel Laroche was the first to publish accounts of these shards in 1955 and 1968. He identified several fragments as parts of single tablets and cataloged them using the designation "h." for Hurrian. While many hymns have known composers, such as Tapšiẖuni or Puẖiya(na), the famous Hymn to Nikkal is an anonymous work.
To reconstruct the sounds, researchers must understand the ancient tuning systems. One tablet provides tuning methods for a Babylonian lyre, which is a stringed instrument similar to a harp. The notation refers to a diatonic scale played on a nine-stringed instrument called a sammûm. This instrument was likely a lyre. The tuning system is based on fourteen different terms that describe pairs of strings. These terms describe musical intervals, which are the distances between notes. Some of these intervals are "primary," such as fourths and fifths. Others are "secondary," such as thirds and sixths.
These ancient terms use vivid language to describe how a musician interacts with the strings.
For example, one pair of strings is called nīš tuḫrim, meaning "raising of the heel." Another pair is named pītum, which means "opening." A third pair is called kitmum, meaning "covering" or "closing." These names describe the specific groups of strings that a hand might span. By using these fourteen specific pairs, musicians could navigate the theoretical range of the instrument. This system allowed for precise musical expression even thousands of years ago.
Modern understanding of this music has evolved through intense scientific debate.
In the 1970s, Assyriologist Anne Draffkorn Kilmer and musicologist Marcelle Duchesne-Guillemin collaborated to decode the tablets. Their work led to the first modern performance of the hymn in 1974. This event was described by the New York Times as a revolution in the concept of western music origins. However, the process has not been simple. Early reconstructions were actually upside down, interpreting the highest tones as the lowest. Today, there are at least five different "rival decipherments" of the notation. Each version yields entirely different musical results.
These studies connect the study of linguistics to the study of musicology. Researchers must be experts in both the Akkadian language and musical theory to succeed. The tablets show how math, language, and art were deeply linked in the ancient world. The discovery of the Hurrian songs predates other surviving musical works, like the Delphic Hymns, by a full millennium. This makes the tablets a foundational piece of human history. They prove that complex musical systems and organized notation have existed for much longer than previously thought.
Where will your curiosity go next?
🖼️ Images & Media (4)
More to explore
✨ What else?
Related topics you might enjoy
🔬 Go deeper
More advanced topics to explore
🪜 Step back
Simpler topics to build understanding
What is Nepedia?
A free, ad-free encyclopedia for children. Every article is written at five reading levels, so the same page works for a five-year-old and a fifteen-year-old — use the level switcher above to see this one change. No account needed to read.