2023-06-06 14:22:00
Called “Epitaph of Seikilos”, this song has been designated by scientists as the oldest musical composition found “complete” in the world.
Forget modern notes and sheet music: the oldest music in the world is unlike anything you know. And for good reason, it is more than 2,000 years old! Called the epitaph of Seikilos, this song is the oldest musical composition in the world discovered to date by scientists. Its inscription, engraved on a marble column placed on a tomb, was discovered in 1883 by a British researcher in the Turkish province of Aydın, a city called Tralles in Roman and Byzantine times. It was during the construction of the Ottoman railway that Sir William Ramsey unearthed the stele.
The Song of Seikilos, which is therefore the oldest trace of “complete” Greek music, dates from the 2nd or 1st century BC. Seikilos’ epitaph is now on display in the National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen. “As long as you live, shine! Don’t grieve at absolutely anything! Life hardly lasts. Time exacts its toll,” reads one of the stanzas of the inscriptions on the marble column, set to music. by contemporary artists. The author of the stele would be, according to the researchers, Seikilos the Sicilian. He would have offered this epitaph to a member of his family. “The stone that I am is an image. Seikilos places me here, Immortal sign of an eternal memory”, is it also inscribed on the stele.
There is, however, an even older fragment of musical score: a clay tablet on which are engraved chords composing a song called Hurrian Hymn No. 6, an ode to the goddess Nikkal, which dates back to the 14th century BC. This tablet was discovered by archaeologists in the 1950s in the ruins of the city of Ugarit, Syria. Its symbols remain indecipherable, thus making Seikilos’ epitaph the oldest actually known and readable melody.
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