This document discusses the history of music in antiquity, including prehistoric music dating back 36,000 BCE consisting of whistles and flutes. Ancient Mesopotamian cultures from 4000 BCE are also discussed, with evidence of lyres, harps, lutes, pipes and percussion instruments. Written records from Mesopotamia provide information on instruments, tuning, performers and genres of music used in rituals, daily life and religious ceremonies. Babylonian musical theory from 1800 BCE involved a seven note diatonic scale and is thought to have influenced later Greek music.

1. Music in
Antiquity
Music 314 - Music History
Lourdes College

2. Historical Traces of
Music
 Physical Objects (Instruments)
 Visual Images
 Writings about Music and
Musicians
 Notated Music

3. Prehistoric Music
 Before 36,000 BCE - Whistles and
flutes from stone age in europe
 6,000 BCE - Turkish cave paintings
show drummers and dancers
 4,000 BCE - Bronze age instruments
(bells, cymbals, horns
 4,000 BCE - Stone carvings show
string instruments

4. Ancient Mesopotamia
 Several cultures, first cities, first known form of writing
 Clay tablets in cuneiform mention music
 Pictures show musicians with instruments

5. Ancient Mesopotamian
instruments
 Surviving instruments include:
 Lyres and harps
 Lutes and pipes
 Drums, bells, other percussion
instruments
 Evidence of music survives from
the ruling class

6. Uses of music in
mesopotamia
 Ritual - weddings, funerals
 Daily life - nursery songs, work
songs, dance music
 Festival entertainment
 Religious ceremonies
 Story-telling songs

7. Written records from
mesopotamia
 Written records of instruments,
tuning procedures, performers,
techniques, and genres (types of
musical compositions)
 Earliest known composer:
Enheduanna (high priestess of ur)
 She composed hymns to various gods
and goddesses
 Only the text of her hymns survive

8. Babylonia 1800 BCE
 Instructions for tuning a string
instrument using a seven note diatonic
scale
 Development of interval theory, used to
create the earliest known notation (1300
BCE)
 Not enough known about the system to put
it into modern notation
 Most music, however, performed from
memory or improvised
 Bablyonian musical theory seems to have
influenced the later greeks

9. Other ancient
civilizatons
 Instruments, writings and images of
musical culture have survived from
India and china, but did not influence
greek or european music
 Egyptian sources includes artifacts,
paintings, and writings, but no
notated music
 Bible describes religious musical
practices in ancient Israel