The Song of Seikilos

Humans have been making music for thousands of years, as evidenced by fragments of ancient instruments unearthed by archaeologists, such as bone flutes. Much of this early music was likely passed down orally through generations. With the advent of writing, however, songs and hymns, along with primitive musical notation, began to be recorded on papyrus and clay tablets.

The oldest surviving written music are the Hurrian songs dated to 1400 BCE, written in cuneiform on clay tablets and excavated from the ancient city of Ugarit, in northern Syria. Among this, the Hymn to Nikkal is nearly complete, making it the one of the oldest surviving substantially complete work of notated music in the world. However, the earliest song to have survived in its entirety along with complete noted musical composition is the so-called Seikilos epitaph, dated to the 2^nd century CE.

The epitaph was discovered sometime around 1883 during the construction of the Ottoman Railway in Aydın, Turkey. The song was inscribed on a marble column and was meant to serve as an epitaph to the wife of the unknown Seikilos.

The Seikilos epitaph at the National Museum of Denmark. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The song begins with a verse couplet that serves as a preface, stating:

"I am an image and a stone; Seikilos sets me up here as a long-lasting marker of undying memory."

This is followed by the song itself, a concise text of 17 words with small alphabetic signs representing the pitches of the melody. Linear symbols and dots are used to indicate the duration and rhythm of specific syllables.

The remarkable feature of the Seikilos Song is that it can be transcribed into modern staff notation, allowing it to be sung at any pitch or tempo and accompanied by a variety of instruments. This flexibility reflects the absence of standardized performance practices in antiquity, a sharp contrast to the more codified traditions of modern music.