Understanding Archaeomusicology

This book covers about 5,000 years of Near and Middle-Eastern Archaeomusicology. The
primary sources come from authentic autographic clay tablets mostly written at the time of their
inception, in the Sumerian, Akkadian and Hurrian languages, unlike Ancient Greek musicology,
for instance, which only relies on much later copies and translations of elusive originals. It could
even be said that these original texts offer more accurate details on the nature of musicology 4,000
years ago than Western musicology can offer about music of the first centuries of the Common Era.
There is evidence that the Gregorian modes came from Babylon 4,000 years ago. The corpus of
Mesopotamian musicology includes the oldest ever written song about 3,400 years ago in modern
Northwest Syria and also gives the name of the scribe, the name of the god to whom the song was
dedicated, and most importantly the name of the composer.