Minoan Music

A friend of mine sent me copy of a paper by Robert R. Stieglitz, "Minoan
Mathematics or Music," Bull. Amer. Soc. of Papyrologists; Studies Presented
to Naphtali Lewis, vol. XV (1-2) (1978) pp. 127-132. Steiglitz argues,
quite convincingly, IMO, that an incomplete wall inscription from Hagia
Triada, Crete, in Linear A, is part of a tuning table or at least a
proto-Lambdoma as described by Plato, Nichomachus, et al. It appears to
contain the first four terms of the cycle of 3/2's, but at least 2 terms
are missing from the end. The numerals are accompanied by a rare
hieroglyphic sign which may mean length or even a monochord. As the
contemporary Babylonians and Egyptians, with whom the Minoans were in
cultural and commercial contact, already had well-developed musical systems
at the period of this inscription (2nd Millenium BCE), the musical
interpretation is plausible. The author, however, does admit that the table
could be purely mathematical.

--John



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