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The bone was discovered in a 1995 expedition led by Ivan Turk. When it was found, he proposed that it was either a musical artifact or a gnawed bone pierced with teeth, [2] favouring the former. As described by Turk and his colleagues, the Neanderthal musical instrument from Divje babe I would be the oldest known musical instrument.
The Seikilos epitaph is an Ancient Greek inscription that preserves the oldest surviving complete musical composition, including musical notation. [1] Commonly dated between the 1st and 2nd century AD, the inscription was found engraved on a pillar from the ancient Greek town of Tralles (modern Aydın in present-day Turkey) in 1883.
The Aurignacian flutes were created between 43,000 and 35,000 years ago. The flutes, made of bone and ivory, represent the earliest known musical instruments and provide unmistakable evidence of prehistoric music. The flutes were found in caves with the oldest known examples of figurative art.
The Lyres of Ur or Harps of Ur is a group of four string instruments excavated in a fragmentary condition at the Royal Cemetery at Ur in Iraq from 1922 onwards. They date back to the Early Dynastic III Period of Mesopotamia, between about 2550 and 2450 BC, making them the world's oldest surviving stringed instruments. [1]
Among the most notable items are two flutes carved from bird bone and mammoth ivory, the oldest known musical instruments with an age of 42,000 to 43,000 years. [3] [4] The flutes were able to play distinct melodies, and music was likely an integral part of the societies living in the region at the time. [1]
Surviving artifacts include the oldest known string instruments, the Lyres of Ur, which includes the Bull Headed Lyre of Ur. There are several surviving works of written music; the Hurrian songs , particularly the "Hymn to Nikkal", represent the oldest known substantially complete notated music.
Ugarit, where the Hurrian songs were found. The complete song is one of about 36 such hymns in cuneiform writing, found on fragments of clay tablets excavated in the 1950s from the Royal Palace at Ugarit (present-day Ras Shamra, Syria), [5] in a stratum dating from the fourteenth century BC, [6] but is the only one surviving in substantially complete form.
[citation needed] Similar string instruments include the Czech bratsche, Turkish saz and the sargija, çiftelia and bouzouki. The oldest surviving and authenticated tambura known, which is still kept in a museum in Osijek, dates from 1847 and was owned by Pajo Kolarić of Osijek, who was also the founder of the first amateur tamburica orchestra.