Ancient Greece to Britain in the 13th century. The oldest music pieces in the world

It may even seem difficult for us to imagine the music of bygone eras, or to imagine that there was music before the classical pieces that some might think is the oldest music that we have reached. But this is not the case.

These are the oldest pieces of music in the world:

Sumer Is Icumen In

This piece known as Summer Coming is also known as “Summer Cannon” and it is one of the most famous ancient music tracks, specifically in England; Because it mainly appeared in the English lands, and dates back to the thirteenth century AD, according to what historians and the British Library have agreed upon .

The piece of music is one of the oldest pieces of music in the world and it bears words in Old English, as well as poems in Old Latin.

The piece carries words celebrating the coming of summer; It is well known that the harsh winter season in the British lands, in the past, and also in the recent times.

Te Deum track

Te Deum, or what is translated from Latin as “God’s Call,” dates back to its use in 387 AD, and historians have brought it back to the era of the Roman Empire specifically.

The musical piece bears a religious character, specifically Catholic, and was used in major church ceremonies such as the ordination of the Pope, or one of the major members of the Church.

Some sources attribute the spiritual passage to a group of saints who lived in the Roman Empire at this time, the most famous of them being Saint Augustine and Saint Ambrose.

Oxyrhynchus Hymn Lump

It was considered the oldest Christian musical manuscript in the Greek era, containing almost complete melody and words. The manuscript written on papyrus was found in Egypt in 1786, among hundreds of other papyri, and historians have not been able to attribute it to a specific author.

In 1918, papyrus scholars, with the help of some translators, were able to return the date of the musical piece to the end of the third century AD, and it is written in Greek numerical symbols. As is the case in the musical compositions of this era, most of them were used in Christian devotion.

Although Oxyrhynchus Hymn’s verse does not contain any text from the Bible, its words glorify the Holy Christian Trinity.

Seikilos Epitaph fragment

Perhaps it is not the oldest at all, but the secret of the popularity of this song or piece of music is that it is considered the first completed piece of music in history found so far.

The piece belongs to BC, specifically between 200 BC and the first century AD.

The piece was found engraved on a Greek funerary column in 1883 belonging to the Hellenistic period, and historians attribute it to the Greek poet and artist ” Seikilos ” and possibly co-authored by his wife, “Euterpe”. .

Music Hurrian Hymn to Nikkal

To this day, this lyric or hymn is classified, which literally means “Harrani Hymn to Nikal”; Serve as a world footed or piece of music

The composition is composed of 36 parts of a hymn written in the ancient cuneiform language that spread in the Mesopotamian civilization, and it dates back to 12 centuries or 1200 years BC.

The clay tablet containing the fragment was found in the remains of the ancient city of Ugarit, which is located in northern Syria, now “Ras Shamra Reserve” near Latakia.

The piece or hymn itself is a collection of hymns addressed to (Nikal), the goddess of the Canaanite orchards. The tablet also contains instructions that describe to the “harp” player how to play the hymn phonetically.