Track Title: Epitaph Of Seikilos

Album: Disc 1 - History of Music in Western Culture

guiltyguiltypleasures:

This is the Epitaph of Seikilos. It is the earliest complete music composition with notation ever discovered. It dates from somewhere between 100 BC and 100 AD. There are earlier examples of music to be sure - the Delphic Hymns, of course, as well as some early Japenese and Chinese ceremonial music, but it’s all either fragmented or unable to be dated due to oral tradition.

The original ‘score’, such as it is, doesn’t look like much to our modern eyes:

If you translate that into Western notation, however:

This is music that is two thousand years old. It could have been played when Christ walked the earth. And thanks to music being a universal language, we can hear those exact same notes, like a piece of history coming to life in front of us. Isn’t that just incredible?