The World's Oldest Love Song

This story might be of interest in particular to Joe Monzo in his
historical delvings and to the regulars as a passing titbit. An article
in the Scotsman daily newspaper reports that archaeologists have found
what they believe to be the world's oldest written music - and it is a
love song. Czech archaeologists found the song adorning the tomb of an
important nobleman in the dunes south west of Cairo. The tomb dates back
to the reign of Pepi during the 6th Dynasty and was built for a judge
named Inti.

The newly discovered love song is thought to be 900 years older than the
earliest known written music which is 3400 years old and of Syrian
origin.

The article concentrates mainly on the lyrics though it is implied that
there is some form of musical notation. Interested parties might like to
email the journalist who wrote the article at acrawford@scotsman.com .

--- In tuning@egroups.com, Alison Monteith wrote:

> http://www.egroups.com/message/tuning/15965
>
> The newly discovered love song is thought to be 900 years older
> than the earliest known written music which is 3400 years old
> and of Syrian origin.

Thanks for the info on this new discovery, Alison. Note that
I believe that a Babylonian tablet a few hundred years older
than the Syrian (Hurrian) hymn is not simply a 'tuning text',
but actually a kind of 'lyre etude', and thus an older
musical score.

Check the archives from around September-October for more
details. I have yet to put this all together in a webpage.

-monz
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/homepage.html
'All roads lead to n^0'