A cultic hymn in the Hurrian language, inscribed in cuneiform on clay tablet RS 15.30 and its joining fragments, recovered from the royal palace archive at Ugarit. The French Ministry of Culture's own excavation record states that the tablet's opening lines give the words of a hymn to the goddess Nikkal, the Hurrian and Ugaritic transcription of a Sumerian lunar goddess whose name means "the great lady." Alongside the lyrics the tablet carries musical notation and tuning instructions for a stringed instrument, and it is the only one of Ugarit's roughly thirty musical texts preserved well enough for a substantially complete modern reconstruction, making it the oldest surviving substantially complete work of notated music yet recovered.
Facts
Subject Matter
Religious Subject MatterNikkal, the Hurrian lunar goddess: the excavating ministry's own record names her and the Hurrian language outright as the hymn's subject. 1 Production
Place of OriginUgarit (Ras Shamra), northern Syria 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Hurrians directly: "A cultic hymn in the Hurrian language, inscribed in cuneiform on clay tablet RS 15.30 and its joining fragments, recovered from the royal palace archive at Ugarit."
Ugarit, Cities This source names Ugarit directly: "from the royal palace archive at Ugarit."
This source names Ugaritic directly: "to the goddess Nikkal, the Hurrian and Ugaritic transcription of a Sumerian lunar goddess whose name means "the great lady." Alongside the lyrics the tablet carries musical notation and tuning..."
Depicts
The excavating French Ministry of Culture's own record for this tablet names the Hurrian language and the goddess Nikkal outright as its subject, making this the oldest substantially complete work of notated music recovered from any Hurrian or Ugaritic context.
Sources
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