World’s Oldest Musical Notation Deciphered on Cuneiform Tablet

Excavations at ancient Ugarit in modern Syria began in 1929. To date, thousands of cuneiform tablets have been unearthed revealing a Canaanite civilization which, in many respects, is linguistically and culturally closer to the civilization of the Old Testament than any civilization ever uncovered. Thus, these cuneiform tablets have been the subject of numerous scholarly studies.

By now, scholars know a great deal about cuneiform writing. It was used to write many different ancient languages, like Sumerian, Akkadian, Hurrian, and Hittite. In some cuneiform sign writing systems, the signs represent primarily whole words—logograms; in others, they represent mostly syllabic sounds. Often both are used together. Still other signs are non-phonetic—that is, they tell the reader something about the word, although the sign itself is not pronounced. The Ugaritic system is unique among cuneiform sign systems because it is alphabetic—no doubt adapted from the Semitic alphabet that had developed in Canaan a few hundred years earlier.