Hurrian hymns

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hurrian hymn to the goddess Nikkal from Ugarit (14th century BC)

The Hurrian hymns are considered to be the oldest musical notations for a melody. They come from the Bronze Age city ​​of Ugarit . The cuneiform texts are written in Hurrian , the notations follow the Mesopotamian tonal systems. The text tablets are only partially preserved, with the exception of the hymn to the goddess Nikkal . It has been interpreted several times and also set to music. The translation of the melodies into modern tonal systems is difficult, since it depends on the interpretation of Mesopotamian music theory and terms appear in the Hurrian texts that are not understood. The tablets are in the National Museum Damascus .

discovery

The Hurrian clay tablets were discovered in stairwell 53 of the Ugarit royal palace in the 1950s. The French Hittitologist Emmanuel Laroche published the first five texts in 1955. During the 19th excavation campaign in 1955, another 30 fragments were discovered, which Laroche published in 1968. The texts are named after Laroche with h.1-31, where h. stands for "hourrite". It turned out that these Hurrian tablets, with the exception of h.31, formed a uniform group. Shortly afterwards, Hans Gustav Güterbock recognized the musical character of the lyrics .

The majority of the texts date from the 14th century BC. Dated.

Structure and content of the texts

Already when deciphering the first tablets it was recognized that the texts form a uniform group, which the later finds confirmed. The rectangular clay tablets are described lengthways. The first part of the texts differs from board to board and usually consists of a paragraph. They are lyrical texts, with sentences sometimes being repeated. After a hyphen the second part follows with the music notations. The texts are concluded by a colophon , which apparently always consists of the same Hurrian formula that names the key, the composer of the hymn and the writer who wrote it: “This song (is) in nitkibli key, a zaluzi of the gods of PN 1 (= composer). Hand of PN 2 (= scribe). ”The Mesopotamian key nīd qibli (“ fall of the middle ”) corresponds to C major . All of the composers mentioned, Ammiya, Piḫiyana, Tapšiḫuni and Urḫiya, have Hurrian names, while the two well-known scribes Ammurabi and Ipšali have Semitic names.

A Hurrian god name can be seen in some of the lyrics, such as Teššub (h.2), Nikkal (h.6), Ḫutilureš (h.18) and perhaps Kubaba (h.20, h.22). Other well-known words in the song lyrics also indicate that they are religious hymns.

Type of music notation

Akkadian music theory texts describe multiple tone systems and also how string instruments are tuned. The strings had different names, such as išartum "normal", šalatum "third" or embubu "flute". Tone differences were indicated with expressions like šamušum “next (string)” or šalši uḫrim “third from the back”. These words were hurritized in Ugarit's texts, for example šaššate for Akkadian šalšatum “third” or irbute for ributum “fourth”.

While in the music theory treatises the information always follows a fixed order so that the scale or tuning of an instrument can be determined, the musical terms on the Hurrian tablets from Ugarit follow arbitrarily without regularity, which suggests the notation of a melody. After each musical term there is also a number, usually 1, 2, 3 or 4, less often 5 and three times 10. A modern translation of the notations depends on how the Akkado-Hurrian musical terms and the associated numbers are to be interpreted.

Hurrian text 6: Hymn to Nikkal

The tablet with the hymn to the goddess Nikkal (h.6 = RS 15.30 + 15.49 + 17.387) is the only well-preserved of the group, so that it seems possible to determine the melody. Nikkal is the wife of the moon god in the Hurrian religion. The melody follows the nitkibli mood, the composer's name is lost, the tablet was written down by Ammurabi.

The text tablet could be assembled from three fragments, its height is 6 cm. The lyrics consist of four lines, with the last seven syllables of a line repeated at the beginning of the next line. The name of the goddess Nikkal is at the end of line 3 and at the beginning of line 4. The melody is notated in six lines.

Implementation in modern music notation

The musicologist David Wulstan was the first to try to translate the lyrics into modern notes (h. 6, 7, 9, 19 and 21). He realized that a certain musical phrase occurs four times in the hymns he has translated, but each time is paraphrased differently. The Assyriologist Anne Draffkorn Kilmer criticized Wulstan's interpretation and offered an alternative interpretation in which the number of notes and syllables of the lyrics matched better. She noted the melody in dyads that form a two- note chord ; she regarded the upper note as a singing voice and the lower note as an accompaniment. The musicologist Marcelle Duchesne-Guillemin criticized Kilmer's dyadic notation and based her interpretation on Jewish and Syro-Chaldean music.

There are now over 15 interpretations and settings of the Hurrian hymn to Nikkal, both by Assyriologists and musicologists and musicians, with the interpretations being quite different.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Kilmer: The Cult song with Music from Ancient Ugarit: Another interpretation , p 69
  2. ↑ F.-A. Schaeffer, J. Nougayrol, G. Boyer, E. Laroche: Le Palais Royal d'Ugarit , 3 (1955), 327-335
  3. ↑ Laroche: Ugaritica V, pp. 462-496.
  4. ↑ a b c d Wulstan: The Earliest Musical Notation , p. 371
  5. ^ Wulstan: The Earliest Musical Notation , p. 365
  6. ^ Kilmer: The Cult Song with Music from Ancient Ugarit: Another Interpretation , p. 81
  7. ↑ Laroche: Ugaritica V, 462nd
  8. ↑ Güterbock: Musical Notation in Ugarit , p. 51
  9. ^ Duchesne-Guillemin: A Hurrian Musical Score from Ugarit: The Discovery of Mesopotamian Music , p. 14
  10. ↑ Laroche: Ugaritica V , pp. 463, 486
  11. ↑ Laroche: Ugaritica V , p. 484.
  12. ^ Wulstan: The Earliest Musical Notation , p. 366
  13. ↑ Güterbock: Musical Notation in Ugarit , p. 47
  14. ^ Wulstan: The Earliest Musical Notation , p. 368
  15. ↑ a b Laroche: Ugaritica V , p. 463.
  16. ^ Wulstan: The Earliest Musical Notation , p. 378
  17. ↑ Güterbock: Musical Notation in Ugarit , p. 47
  18. ^ Wulstan: The Earliest Musical Notation , pp. 379-381
  19. ^ Wulstan: The Earliest Musical Notation , p. 381
  20. ^ Kilmer: The Cult Song with Music from Ancient Ugarit: Another Interpretation
  21. ↑ Duchesne-Guillemin: A Hurrian Musical Score from Ugarit: The Discovery of Mesopotamian Music , p. 21 f.

literature

  • Manfried Dietrich, Oswald Loretz: collations for music text from Ugarit , in Ugarit research 7 (1975): 521-522.
  • Marcelle Duchesne-Guillemin: A Hurrian Musical Score from Ugarit: The Discovery of Mesopotamian Music , in Sources from Ancient Near East , 2 , 2 (1984), 5-32.
  • Hans Gustav Güterbock : Musical Notation in Ugarit , in Revue Assyriologique 64 (1970)
  • Anne Draffkorn Kilmer: The Cult Song with Music from Ancient Ugarit: Another Interpretation , in Revue d'Assyriologique 68 (1974), 69-82.
  • Emmanuel Laroche : Ugaritica V , 1968, Chapter 2: Textes Hourittes en Cunéiformes Syllaboques , pp. 462-496.
  • ML West : The Babylonian Musical Notation and the Hurrian Melodic Texts , in Music & Letters 75 , 2 (1994), 161-179.
  • David Wulstan: The Earliest Musical Notation , in Music & Letters 52 , 4 (1971), 365-382.

Web links