Transcript Diapositiva 1

ERASMUS + PROJECT
«COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE»
'Where words leave off, music begins.'
(Henrich Heine)
Through the communication the human
beings have created their culture.
Through
music
they
have
communicated each other.
MUSIC IN THE
MESOPOTAMIAN
CULTURE
MESOPOTAMIA
 Mesopotamian
culture developped in the
Fertile Crescent along the TigrisEuphrates River, in the area known
nowadays as Iraq.
MESOPOTAMIAN MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS
Mesopotamian music followed the different artistic
traditions of its inhabitants, among them: the
Sumerians, the Accadians, the Assyrians and the
Hittitians.
 Musical
instruments in Mesopotamia included
harps, lyres, liutes, flutes and drums.
 The excavations in the royal cemetery of Ur, a
Sumeriancity, and the musical iconography with
which thearchitecture is richly decored during the
First Mesopotamian period let us realize that music
was probabily very important in the typical Sumerian
ritual forms.

THE HARP
The harp is one of the most ancient instruments
still used. Proofs of its existence in Mesopotamia
since the third millenium b.C. have been found .
 The ancient Sumerian harps, best known as
zaggal, had rich decorations,they had shapes and
dimensions very different and were built with the
resonating chamber and the strings’ arm joined
in a corner; the strings made of vegetable fibre or
horsehair were fixed to a diaphragm.
 The most ancient sample arrived until nowadays
is dated 2700 b.C. and comes from Ur – the current
Iraq. It was found by a British archaeologist,
Leonard Woolley.

MESOPOTAMIAN SONGS



The decoding and study of some cuneiform small boards of
the 1400 b.C. has allowed to bring the ancient sounds that
animated the musical taste of Mesopotamians to life. The
result was the creation of a song unheard for centuries.
Before the small boards had been discovered during the first
‘50s in the old city of Ugarit, nobody knew anything about
Assyrian-Babylonian music, except for the historical
instruments showed in the bas relieves dug up from the
archaeological site.
As Ancient Origins quotes, into the collection there are four
single cuneiform texts plus a small board with the difficult
music notation of a sacred Hurrian hymn played more than
3400 years ago, the oldest song of ever.
PRAYERS SUNG BY MESOPOTAMIANS
Mesopotamia has been occupied by Sumerians
before 4000 b.C. This people’s origins are unknown
but they had their own advanced culture.
 Music was very important: actually the simple
sound, considered the soul of every phenomenon,
had the power to evoke the supernatural strenghts
of nature. So that musicians represented a
privileged class, they were second after the king as
importance.
 Archaeologist have found some texts of hymns and
prayers sung during the services in the temple.
Unfortunately we have really a few information
about the complex Mesopotamian musical system
that for sure was developped and had a sort of
armony.
