Music in Ancient Mesopotamia: History and Instruments
Music in Ancient Mesopotamia
The Earliest Records
The oldest records of music we have are from Mesopotamia. These are mainly low reliefs depicting musicians and instruments found in locations like the Royal Cemetery of Ur. The earliest written representations are found in Sumerian ideograms on clay tablets dating back to 3000 BC. Later, instruments such as harps, flutes, and drums appear on stamps and in low reliefs. These representations demonstrate the importance of music in Mesopotamian culture and suggest that different peoples in the region used similar instruments.
Unfortunately, we have limited knowledge of Mesopotamian musical practices due to a lack of detailed sources.
The Sumerians
Music has been linked with magic and religion since ancient times, and it is believed that music played a significant role in Sumerian religion. In the fourth and third millennia BC, liturgical songs were performed in responsorial and antiphonal styles. Each poem had a specific tune and character. While we have many literary texts mentioning singing, the actual music has not been preserved. There is a possible Sumerian hymn, but it has not been deciphered.
Cuneiform clay tablets provide information about music, including contracts made with singers. We know that many singers were employed, sometimes accompanied by flutes and drums. These musicians initially served the temple, but by the beginning of the second millennium BC, some served the king.
Excavations at the Royal Cemetery of Ur have revealed instruments such as flutes, percussion instruments, and two types of harps: one with a low soundboard (zagsal) and another with a high soundboard (zaggal). Copper castanets, also depicted on cylinder seals, have been found.
Other known instruments include the flute (hallhallatu), an hourglass-shaped drum (balaggu), and a drum (lilis). The harp and drum were central to Sumerian music. The drum was considered a sacred instrument, particularly associated with women.
Wind instruments were relatively rare. Scenes and depictions of musical instruments suggest a sophisticated musical tradition that utilized flutes without mouthpieces made of silver and sugarcane, as well as a lute (pantur). A bas-relief from the ruins of Lagash shows a harp with a supporting column and a lyre, which later became a handheld instrument.
Percussion instruments included rattles, sistrums, various drums, and cymbals.
Acadian-Babylonian Times
Under King Hammurabi, the system of city-states came to an end, and a centralized monarchical system was established. This system copied the Sumerian and Akkadian literary masterpieces. Hammurabi’s successors preserved the culture, but it was destroyed when Babylon was captured by the Hittites.
During Hammurabi’s reign, a high cultural level was achieved. Religious songs were performed with instrumental accompaniment, and women were added to the temple musicians. It is unknown whether a system of musical notation existed, but some suggest that tablets contained a complex musical theory. It is believed that the musical range consisted of five sounds, but recent discoveries of cuneiform tablets suggest the use of pentatonic and heptatonic scales. These findings raise the possibility that European tonal systems have Mesopotamian origins.
The symbolic meaning of numbers makes it understandable that the series of fifths has endured as a basis in almost all civilizations.
After the attacks of the Hittites and the end of the First Babylonian Dynasty, musical data becomes scarce. We only know that the instruments used were similar to those found in Mesopotamia and Egypt.
Assyrian Period (13th-7th Centuries BC)
The Assyrians, located north of Mesopotamia, emerged from the merging of Semitic people with the Akkadians. They created the state of Assur and were under the rule of the Babylonian kings for over a thousand years. Later, Assyria reasserted its dominance until Nineveh fell to the Babylonians and their allies, the Medes, in 612 BC. Assyria was then divided between the Babylonian and Median empires.
Around 1000 BC, the Assyrians dominated Mesopotamia and inherited the Babylonian culture. Their art glorified kings and gods. The surviving reliefs in stone or bronze provide valuable information about their music. These reliefs indicate that music played a crucial role in religion, festivals, and other aspects of life. Musicians were highly esteemed, and during conquests, the Assyrians spared their lives and incorporated them into their spoils of war.
The bas-reliefs show that some musicians used a type of baton, similar to a conductor’s baton. These reliefs provide detailed information and reveal that the instruments depicted are similar to those used by the Babylonians.
We know that certain songs were accompanied by the flute (hallhallatu), which was considered the sacred instrument par excellence in the ancient East.
Despite the lack of extensive documentation, musicologist Curt Sachs, after extensive research, hypothesized that Assyrian music must have had a diversity of modes and tones, and that they possessed a well-developed understanding of their tonal system and color.