Talk:Hurrian songs

Kilmer contact info
FWIW, here is Anne Kilmer's faculty page, complete with an email address. Once this article looks better, I'm tempted to email her and ask what she thinks. Raul654 (talk) 19:48, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Hurrian hymn complete or not?
Perhaps this is nitpicking but this seems contradictory. Is the Hurrian hymn complete or nearly complete? In which case, which is correct? This: "the Hurrian cult hymn ... is the oldest surviving complete work of notated music" or this: "The Seikilos epitaph is the oldest surviving example of a complete musical composition" (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seikilos_epitaph) ?

Hurrian song refers to a small repertory of mostly fragmentary relics, or to the one nearly complete member of this group (also known as the Hurrian cult hymn, the Hurrian hymn to Nikkal, A Zaluzi to the Gods, or simply h.6), which is the oldest surviving complete work of notated music, dating to approximately 1400 BC. Podoherty (talk) 09:47, 14 April 2011 (UTC)


 * yes. Youre nickpicking quite ALOT there...aside from a few missing words and musical intervals, it IS complete. And Wiki folks, bless you BUT, your b&w line drawing doesnt do it justice; not only in quality, but of course in quanity. ALSO your various footnote ref's left out a most important, especially for a good photo. That would be BAR (aka, Biblical Archaeology Review) Sept/Oct '80 vol vi, #5, pp 14-25 "World's Oldest Musical Notation". The lead article is, i believe written by Prof Kilmer. and of course the cover of the 'zine (perhaps this is the 'book' you refer to, published in 1980??) has a FULL color photo and w/in the article itself a well-executed line drawing of same.76.218.248.127 (talk) 18:33, 21 March 2013 (UTC)


 * The clay tablet containing the "substantially complete" hymn was broken in three pieces when found, and reassembled. There are a few flakes missing here and there, which require reconstruction, as indicated in the section of this article on the text. There is an image on Wikimedia Commons,


 * uplinked from the Dutch Wikipedia, where it is used in the article "Hurritische muziek", but is still awaiting review and verification of copyright-free status (it will certainly fail, since the drawing was taken from a book published in the 1980s and there is a copyright notice for it in that book, which is the reason I have not added it to the present article). From this it can be seen that two or three characters are missing from the upper-left corner of the text, and that some of the music notation below the double-scored line is faint and difficult to read. The vertical break in the middle also renders some characters somewhat doubtful.
 * The Seikilos epitaph is not quite complete, either. At some point in time, the column on which it is engraved was shortened (in order to make a plant stand or something) by breaking off a bit at the bottom. As a result, the reading of the last line is uncertain in places, and it is even possible that an additional line of music is completely lost. With artifacts of such antiquity, it is always difficult to say with certainty that what has survived is really complete, which is why the expressions "substantially complete" (the formulary used in the body of this article) and "nearly complete" are used by cautious writers.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:09, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I've added it to the article. A reproduction of a 2D work that is in the public domain is also in the public domain. (See Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp.). Raul654 (talk) 20:41, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, I hope that holds up, though I notice that the court decision you cite is from the US, which leaves open the question of whether a drawing of this nature may be copyrighted in other countries. I have in any case added the website information, where copyright is asserted for 2003, even though the image there is taken from Duchesne-Guillemin's book of 1984.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:27, 14 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Long story short: Bridgement is a US district finding which is technically not binding but highly likely to be upheld if it should ever come before another American court. It is based on common law and has implications in the UK, where it is presently unclear whether reproductions of public domain material are in the public domain. I'm not sure about the rest of the world, but that's all irrelevant. Wikipedia's servers are physically located in an American jurisdiction, therefore Wikipedia is obliged to follow American law (only), which says that the picture is fine to reproduce.
 * Anyway, what I'd really like to do is get a music sample or two, and eventually take this article to WP:FAC. Raul654 (talk) 07:51, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia may well be subject only to US law, but Wikimedia Commons (with which I have only a very little experience) seems to be urging a world-rights position with respect to the copyright-free status of materials placed there.
 * As to "music samples", I presume you mean sound-files, rather than scores. This is problematic inasmuch as there are at least nine competing transcriptions, few of which are even remotely similar. At least the two major divisions, Anne Kilmer's chordal-accompaniment hypothesis and the melody-alone view favoured by Wulstan, West, and Duchesne-Guillemin should be represented. The External link to Goranson's website has MIDI files of all nine versions, none of which are actually sung. On the other hand, the CD accompanying Kilmer's book, and the only other recording I know of (listed in the Discography) do attempt to fit the words to the music, and are sung and played by human singers and on your actual reconstructed Hurrian lyre-harps. The latter also includes a selection of the fragmentary (very fragmentary) songs, but as far as I am aware, these recordings are copyrighted and there are no MP3 samples offered anywhere online. On the other hand, if you do mean score samples, Goranson's website reproduces those, as well, though their legality is a bit of an issue, since these transcriptions are mostly from published, copyrighted sources, and are not subject to the same principle as the Bridgeman v. Corel case, since considerable creative input is required to interpret and transcribe the music.
 * In any case, I am pleased that you think so highly of this article (which is almost entirely my work), though I believe there are still major lacunae that need to be filled—in particular an English translation of the text. There are two published German ones, and on the (Italian) Urkesh webpage there is a badly mangled attempt at rendering part of the older and less complete of these into English. Goranson's website offers an English version of Krispijn's far better version found in "a more recent article from 2008", but does not name this source, and in any case the translation takes some serious liberties with Krispijn's German.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:14, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
 * As to "music samples", I presume you mean sound-files, rather than scores. - Yes, I was talking about sound files, although scores would be a nice addition too.
 * This is problematic inasmuch as there are at least nine competing transcriptions, few of which are even remotely similar. - to be blunt, beggars can't be choosers. And it's important not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Any reasonably accurate music samples would be an improvement over the none we have in this article today.
 * Where copyright is concerned, yes, you are probably correct that there are going to be copyright issues. I'm tempted to reach out to a few of the scholars named in this article and ask if they wouldn't mind giving us permission to use some of their stuff - scores, music samples, etc. Raul654 (talk) 17:48, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
 * One other thing that I have been meaning to add is a section on the controversy over what the music notation actually represents. This has an important bearing on the issue of sound examples, as you will know if you have visited Goranson's website and listened to the MIDI files or looked at the transcriptions there. The debate has at times been acrimonious (one scholar at one point accused another of relying on "a combination of Gallic logic and feminine intuition"), and it really would not do to be seen to be taking sides in this debate by choosing only one of the competing versions. This is further complicated by the fact that Kilmer's controversial polyphonic assumption leaves in doubt the extent to which the music notation represents the accompaniment only, or to what degree it may indicate the sung line—and Kilmer is responsible enough to admit she is an Assyriologist and not a musician. It is not therefore a matter of "letting the perfect be the enemy of the good", but rather of choosing among radically different "good versions", all of which are honest attempts to interpret very difficult material. The article now has the most accurate possible example of the notation of the music (the drawing of the artifact), but this does require the ability not only to read cuneiform writing in two languages, but also to interpret it and synchronise the text with the music notation. Clearly something more is needed here.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:52, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The translation was done by Krispijn himself, in the article he wrote in 2008. --Seadog driftwood (talk) 00:48, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Which 2008 article would that be, then? The only article listed here is his 2001 German-language article.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 04:59, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
 * in the first line...of NOTAION..qáb-li-te 3 ir-bu-te 1 qáb-li-te 3 ša-aḫ-ri 1 i-šar-te 10 uš-ta-ma-a-ri

i-sar-te SHOULD BE titim i-sar-te 10 76.218.248.127 (talk) 18:37, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
 * šaḫri 1 išarte 10 is the corrected reading by Dietrich and Loretz 1975, superseding Laroche's ša ši-ni (?) &lsqb;ti-ti-m&rsqb;i-šar-te 10Hieronymus Illinensis (talk) 21:15, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Just my 3 cents worth (a penny for your thoughts?). The term uš-ta-ma-a-ri translates as 'I make to slow down' (present-day latin term RETARD). Thus, interval išarte (strings 2 and 6) was played 10 times, the timing? between each a little bit longer.. just like we do so often today. Amazing. Kilmer and others, put this line at the END of the hymn. thx! 2600:1700:A760:C10:3DE5:D4FF:89C1:98A8 (talk) 17:25, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Was Ugarit really Hurrian? I don't think so
As far as I know, the population of Ugarit was of Northwest Semitic stock and spoke a language closely related to Phoenician. Why does the article state that the music notations were found in "... Hurrian city of Ugarit"? Especially in the light of the fact that the Hurrian heartland lay to the east of the Levant, in northern-norteastern Syria and southeastern Turkey? 81.218.33.195 (talk) 19:16, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

OK, I am removing the "Hurrian" epithet of Ugarit from the article. 77.125.113.112 (talk) 22:14, 16 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Please find a source for this, it would be most interesting to have a contrary view. All of the presently cited sources say "Hurrian", and your say-so is not sufficient, since it does not constitute a reliable source.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 01:08, 17 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I don't just "say so". It's actually a pretty common (and straightforward) knowledge that Ugarit was a Semitic city, just like the Phoenician ones a little to the south of it (Arwad, Gebal). Please refer to the Ugarit article in Wikipedia itself which clearly states the population was a branch of Amorites. With cited realiable source:


 * Pardee, Dennis. "Ugaritic", in The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia (2008) (pp. 5,6). Roger D. Woodard, editor. Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-68498-6, ISBN 978-0-521-68498-9 (262 pages).


 * Ugaritic language, specific to the area of the city, was one of Amorite dialects. I mean, how a supposedly Hurrian population would speak a Northwest Semitic language, and a very specific one at that? Besides, Hurrian heartlands lay way to the east of Ugarit, in the Khabur river valley. Hurrians clearly had influence on the area (that's why their hymns were found there) but that doesn't make the city Hurrian. For example, Amarna letters written in Akkadian don't make Akhetaten, where they were found, an Akkadian city! I am restoring the Amorite classification, this time with this source cited. I will also google for more books stating this. Update: sourced another book by the French author Marguerite Yon from 2006. 81.218.33.195 (talk) 12:44, 17 December 2013 (UTC)


 * All of this may well be "common knowledge" to you, but for me (and, I suspect, for the great majority of Wikipedia readers) it is nothing of the sort. I appreciate the sources you have provided, which I think will now require some additional explanations for why the Hymns should be in the Hurrian language, rather than the local one (not an uncommon occurrence in the ancient world, or even in the modern one, if the English lyrics favoured by pop bands in such wide-flung areas of the world as Serbia, Japan, and Egypt are anything to go by). Do you have any good sources for the Hurrian literary influence in this Amorite area?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:40, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I am sorry if it came out a bit abrasive, what I meant by "common knowledge" was actually "common knowledge among people interested in the history of ancient Near East". Since my knowledge about Ugarit is quite superficial (even more so with regard to Hurrians), I'm afraid I don't really know where to look for sources explaining the link between the city and the hymns that were found there. I do have a personal theory about it: given the fact that one hymn was dedicated to Nikkal, a Canaanite-Amorite goddess and had explanations in Akkadian written by a scribe with a Semitic name, these melodies might have been brought from a Hurrian area by Ugarit traders/diplomats who took a liking in them. They probably requested/bought tablet copies with dedication to their own goddess, having identified her with the Hurrian deity for which the songs were originally composed. 81.218.33.195 (talk) 19:12, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Apology accepted. If you can find a source supporting this theory, it would be nice to have. As the article currently stands, there is a (referenced) claim that the texts were in a local (Ugarit) dialect of Hurrian. Does this seem implausible? Is there evidence (apart from these tablets) of a Hurrian-speaking population at Ugarit in this time-frame?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:19, 17 December 2013 (UTC)