There Have Been A Lot Of Truly Extraordinary Literary Works Produced In The Past Century But The Harsh

there have been a lot of truly extraordinary literary works produced in the past century but the harsh truth is the written word peaked with the epic of gilgamesh, enheduanna’s prayer to inanna, and whoever was so mad at ea-nasir that they had a bad yelp review carved into stone

History of Music (Part 2): Mesopotamia

The Fertile Crescent - the Cradle of Civilization - was a crescent-shaped region in what is today the Middle East (mostly Iraq).   In comparison to the arid, dry land around it, the Crescent’s soil was moist and fertile, thus laying the foundations for the first civilizations to develop.

The Fertile Crescent, with the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers marked.

The most important area within the Fertile Crescent was Mesopotamia, home to the world’s first empires.  The Tigris & Euphrates Rivers formed its boundaries (as seen above).

The first civilization was Sumer, in southern Mesopotamia.  Its name is in the Akkadian language, and means “land of the civilized kings”. During the 3000’s BC, the first cities developed in Sumer, and so did cuneiform, the world’s first writing system.  Many of the cuneiform tablets have been translated.  Later civilizations, including the Akkadians and Babylonians, adopted cuneiform.

Several lyres and harps have been found in the Royal Tombs of Ur (a Sumerian city on the Euphrates River) from around 2500 BC, and also pictures of them being played.  A lyre’s strings running parallel to the soundboard, and are attached to a crossbar supported by two arms.  A harp’s strings, on the other hand, run perpendicular to the soundboard, and the neck that they’re attached to is directly attached to the soundboard, rather than needing the arms like a lyre.

The number of strings on a Sumerian lyre varied.  They ran from a bridge on the soundbox to the crossbar; on the crossbar, they were knotted around sticks that could tune the instrument by being turned.

The Queen’s Lyre.

Other Sumerian instruments included lutes, pipes, drums, cymbals, clappers, rattles and bells.

Writing and art from that time show that the Sumerians used music for many different purposes.  There were wedding and funeral songs; military music and work songs; nursery songs; music for playing at taverns, and for feast entertainments; songs to address the gods; music to accompany ceremonies and processions; and epics with instrumental accompaniment.

Our knowledge of Sumerian music is mostly about the music of the elite classes, particularly the rulers and priests.  Because of their wealth and influence, they could employ musicians and instrument-makers, as well as scribes to write about it, and artists to depict it.

Sumerian word-lists from around 2500 BC onwards give vocabulary for instruments, genres, performers, performing techniques and tuning methods.  The earliest composer whose name we know was Enheduanna (active c.2300 BC), an Akkadian high priestess who lived in Ur.  She composed hymns to the moon god Nanna and goddess Inanna.  The words can be written on the cuneiform tablets, but unfortunately the music was not notated.

Babylonian musicians began writing about music around 1800 BC.  They wrote about genres, performing techniques, improvisation, tuning and intervals. Their genres included love songs, laments and hymns.

There are instructions for tuning a string instrument that suggest the Babylonians used diatonic scales (scales with 5 whole tones & 2 semitones).  They had seven diatonic scales, roughly like the medieval modes (e.g. using the white keys on a piano).  Because these scales have parallels in the Greek music system, Babylonian music may have influenced Greek music.

The Babylonians developed the earliest known form of musical notation, using their names for intervals.  The oldest-known nearly complete piece is from 1400 – 1250 BC, on a tablet that was found at Ugarit (a merchant city-state on the Syrian coast).  It is a hymn to Nikkal (a wife of the moon god).  However, the notation is so far unable to be deciphered.

Even after the Babylonians developed notation, they would have mostly played from memory, or improvised.  Notation would have been used as a written aid for reconstructing a melody (like a recipe).

Jasnah Kholin

@the-inkling-devoted

Nyx, goddess of the night.

@the-inkling-devoted

My Life as a Modern Cheap Pagan

-buying cigarette lighters and being finicky about the design on the side

-trying and failing to make my own incense, buying it from the gas station in the meantime

-bulk tea lights

-salt dough and Sculpey and postcards for altar pieces

-that one incense holder I bought years ago at an anime convention

-buying apples with a discount from work

-homemade sugar cookies

-collecting wild water

-splurging once in a while for wine or dates

-praying after 10pm so the UPS man doesn’t see my female presenting nips

-my ace roommate not giving two flying fruitcakes about my female presenting nips/origami animal sacrifice/excessive candles so long as the fire alarm doesn’t go off

-squeaking with delight at the sight of jewelry that could fit my gods, then wincing at the price tag

-making my own religious jewelry because I reject your reality and substitute my own

-living that scribe life with my tablet and stylus and 46GB of data

-living that scribe life and running out of data

-praying to find my car keys

-doing my job with more care than fast food probably deserves because my gods approve of hard work

-knowing exactly how bad I am at practicing what I preach, looking my dirty dishes in the face, and then going back to reading fanfic in bed