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A Music Tablet from Sippar(?): BM 65217 + 66616*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

Anne Draffkorn Kilmer
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Extract

It will be recalled that, since 1960, four cuneiform tablets containing valuable information regarding ancient music theory have been brought to light. One could almost say that it has been uncanny how each text, as it was discovered or recognized, has elucidated the other. Before BM 65217 + 66616 is examined, it is in order to review these texts briefly.

Text 1. CBS 10996, NB, Nippur. The (incomplete) first column of this mathematical text (a list of coefficients) deals with the strings of musical instruments. The string names are given, together with pairs of numbers; these are equated with special Akkadian terms that refer to intervals on the musical scale. Fourteen separate and distinct intervals are now recognized on the basis of this text: seven “primary” intervals of fifths and fourths, and seven “secondary” intervals of thirds and sixths. This text (see Fig. 1 where the “primary” intervals are listed as 1–7, the “secondary” intervals as a–g) hinted at a heptatonic scale.

Text 2. U 3011 (UET 7, no. 126) = Nabnītu 32, NB, Ur. This lexical text is a musical treatise whose (incomplete) obverse (see Fig. 2) column i presents the Sumerian and Akkadian names of nine musical strings as well as several of the terms known from Text 1 to be intervals on a scale. This second text provided the key to the understanding of Text 1 because it explains that the nine strings were numbered as: first, second, third, fourth, fifth, fourth behind, third behind, second behind, behind, i.e. 123456789 = 123454321. For an OB (MB?) parallel to this text, identified by Prof. Aaron Shaffer in November of 1977 in the University Museum, Philadelphia, see Iraq 43 (1981), 79–83; and below, pp. 81–85.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 46 , Issue 2 , Autumn 1984 , pp. 69 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1984

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Footnotes

*

A preliminary version of this paper was prepared for presentation to the First International Congress of Cuneiformists of Socialist Countries, Budapest, 23–25 April 1974; an abstract of it was presented there by W. J. Heimpel. This tablet is published here with the kind permission of the Trustees of the British Museum.

References

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