Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh is the earliest great work of literature that we know of, It was created around 2100 B.C.
By 2000 B.C., the language of Sumer had almost completely died out and was used only by scholars (like Latin is today). No one knows how it was pronounced because it has not been heard in 4000 years.
What you hear in this video are a few of the opening lines of part of the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh poem, accompanied only by a long-neck, three-string, Sumerian lute known as a “gish-gu-di”. The instrument is tuned to G – G – D, and although it is similar to other long neck lutes still in use today (the tar, the setar, the saz, etc.) the modern instruments are low tension and strung with fine steel wire. The ancient long neck lutes (such as the Egyptian “nefer”) were strung with gut and behaved slightly differently. The short-neck lute known as the “oud” is strung with gut/nylon, and its sound has much in common with the ancient long-neck lute although the oud is not a fretted instrument and its strings are much shorter (about 25 inches or 63 cm) as compared to 32 inches (82 cm) on a long-neck instrument. For anyone interested in these lutes, there is a popular book called “The Archaeomusicology of the Ancient Near East” by Professor Richard Dumbrill.
The location for this performance is the courtyard of Nebuchadnezzar’s palace in Babylon. The piece is four minutes long and is intended only as a taste of what the music of ancient Sumer might have sounded like.
There are many artists who made works based on the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh. Abed Azrié is one of them, he is a Syrian composer and singer, but he lived most of his life in France. You can watch his work in the video:
Also listen: The oldest melody in the world
