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Seikilos Epitaph: Oldest Musical Score

The Seikilos epitaph is the oldest surviving complete musical composition, found engraved on a tombstone in Turkey dating from 200 BC to AD 100. It contains both lyrics and musical notation in the ancient Greek system. While older fragments of music with notation exist, this is the only fully intact example. The epitaph was inscribed from Seikilos to his wife Euterpe and the translation of the lyrics reflect on the brevity of life. It provides insight into ancient Greek musical practices before the system was lost in the Middle Ages.

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417 views2 pages

Seikilos Epitaph: Oldest Musical Score

The Seikilos epitaph is the oldest surviving complete musical composition, found engraved on a tombstone in Turkey dating from 200 BC to AD 100. It contains both lyrics and musical notation in the ancient Greek system. While older fragments of music with notation exist, this is the only fully intact example. The epitaph was inscribed from Seikilos to his wife Euterpe and the translation of the lyrics reflect on the brevity of life. It provides insight into ancient Greek musical practices before the system was lost in the Middle Ages.

Uploaded by

Mauro Lulli
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
  • THE SEIKILOS EPITAPH

Departamento de Música . IES Carlos Cano.

THE SEIKILOS EPITAPH


The Seikilos epitaph is the oldest surviving example of a complete musical
composition, including musical notation, from anywhere in the world. The song,
the melody of which is recorded, alongside its lyrics, in the ancient Greek musical
notation, was found engraved on a tombstone, near Aidin, Turkey (not far from
Ephesus). The find has been dated variously from around 200 BC to around AD
100.

While older music with notation exists (for example the Delphic Hymns), all
of it is in fragments; the Seikilos epitaph is unique in that it is a complete, though
short, composition.
Although the material is unique, it indicates that the Greeks had developed
a musical system in the third or fourth century BC. It was probably only used by
professional composers and choir leaders, while others learned the tunes by
listening to them. Texts of plays, regardless of type, were often copied without
music, so the lyrics with music like that of the Seikilos epitaph are extremely rare.
There is no evidence that the Greek musical system survived into the Middle Ages,
but texts from Byzantine times and the early Renaissance have added notations
after the Greek system.
Above the lyrics (transcribed here in modern Greek font) is a line with
letters and signs for the tune:

The Seikilos "score"


Translated into modern musical notation, the tune is something like this:

d You could listen at this link in your hearings auditions.


Departamento de Música . IES Carlos Cano.

Ὅσον ζῇς, φαίνου,


Hoson zês, phainou,
While you live, shine,

μηδὲν ὅλως σὺ λυποῦ·


mêden holôs su lupou;
don't suffer anything at all;

πρὸς ὀλίγον ἐστὶ τὸ ζῆν,


pros oligon esti to zên,
life exists only a short while,

τὸ τέλος ὁ xρόνος ἀπαιτεῖ.


to telos ho chronos apaitei.
and time demands its toll.

The last two words on the tombstone are Σείκιλος Εὐτέρπῃ, Seikilos
Euterpei meaning "(from) Seikilos to Euterpe"; so it means that it was probably
dedicated from Seikilos to his wife Euterpe.

The Epitaph was discovered in 1883 by Sir W.M. Ramsay. The stone had
been placed in a museum in Smyrna where it remained until the city was
destroyed during the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922), but was lost. Later it was
found in the possession of a Turkish woman who had had the base ground down
so it would serve as a support for a pot in her garden. While the stele would now
stand upright, the grinding had obliterated the last line of the epitaph. The marble
stele is now located in the National Museum of Denmark (Nationalmuseet), in
Copenhagen.

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