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The Fragmentary Music Text from Nippur*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

R. L. Crocker  and
A. D. Kilmer
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Extract

In November of 1977, in the University Museum Babylonian Collection in Philadelphia, Aaron Shaffer identified a small fragment whose obverse is closely parallel to the obverse of Nabnītu 32. His handcopy and transliteration (of the obverse) are presented directly below.

There is little question that this fragment belongs to Nabnītu 32, col. 1 ( = Music Text 2) as reconstructed from U.3011 (UET 7, 126) + K.9922 (see MSL 16, 249–54).

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 46 , Issue 2 , Autumn 1984 , pp. 81 - 85
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1984

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Footnotes

*

Iraq 43 (1981), 79–83.

References

1 Prof. Gurney's reading and hand copy (privately communicated) of the -ba-nu[-ú] has been inadvertently left out of the hand copy in UET VII. U.3011 was collated by Kilmer in 1977.

2 Read throughout ˹zi˺-ip i-šar-tum instead? See note 5.

3 Read throughout zi-hi-ip instead? See note 5.

4 For a discussion of the four other music terms with a meaning “cover/covered (part)” see Kilmer, above, p. 75, note 22, 7.

5 For the non-musical term GIŠ.BAR.KÍN = sihpu, add Güterbock, H. G., “Einige Seltene oder Schwierige Ideogramme” (Festschrift Otten, 79)Google Scholar. For zehpu/zīpu, “form, coin, impression; bread-roll; clay tag, (etc.)” add Stol, M., Akkadica 9 (1978), 25–9Google Scholar, to the discussion in CAD z, sub ze'pu. In light of Stol's remarks, it is tempting to see a connection between musical z/sihpu, “flattened” and zehpu, “cast, form” with the basic meaning “cast down”, “thrown down” for z/shp linking the terms. CAD s, sub sihpu meaning 2, will translate “cover, layer”. See Güterbock, ibid., for Boǧazköy zihpu, “overlay” (i.e. a “bark” ) of gold. If the terms should be united by means of a basic meaning “cast” (cf., e.g., English “cast”) then perhaps, in Text A of Nabn. 32 (U.3011, obv. 13), read ⌜zi⌝-ip i-šar-tum instead of [s]i-˹hi˺-ip. If so, then OB z/sihpu = NB zi'pu, “cast down/aside”.

6 Or, putting it differently, the list presents the seven scales, each of which has a subordinate form.

7 See, for example, Henderson, I., “Ancient Greek Music” (New Oxford History of Music I (1957), 348, 382 ff.)Google Scholar.

8 Cf. the Hurr. terms “high” and “low”, still not understood, in the notation sections of the cult hymns published in Ugaritica V.