What if the oldest song in the world wasn’t just a myth, but something you could listen to today? The “Hurrian Hymn No. 6” is the world’s oldest recorded playable song and is believed to be around 3,400 years old. Unearthed in the ancient Syrian port city of Ugarit (now Ras Shamra) in the 1950s, the song reminds us that even millennia ago, music was already a vessel for human expression and spiritual connection.
A hymn glorifying Lipit-Ishtar of the First Dynasty of Isin is believed to predate the “Hurrian Hymn No. 6″ by 600 years. It's impossible to play today, however, because it “contains little more than tuning instructions for the lyre.” In contrast, the tablet containing “Hurrian Hymn No. 6” features cuneiform writing in Hurrian and Akkadian and instructions for musicians’ finger placement on the lyre. Four other tablets similar in nature were also recovered from the Ugarit region, but none of them were legible enough to attempt a musical reconstruction in the same way as the “Hurrian Hymn No. 6.”
Dr. Anne Kilmer, emeritus professor of Assyriology at the University of California, researched the tablet for 15 years and eventually transcribed it into modern musical notation in 1972. The song appeals to the promotion of fertility and references making libations and offerings to Nikkal, the moon goddess. While the tablet contains a certain level of instruction for finger placement, it does not go into the complexities of the song, such as how long notes should be held for or even how the lyre should be tuned.
As a result, modern arrangers have a certain degree of creative freedom when they attempt to play “Hurrian Hymn No. 6.” An interpretation from 1998 by archaeomusicologist Richard Dumbrill incorporates a vocalist to convey the appeal to fertility imbued in the song, while another by Syrian-American composer Malek Jandali is played entirely on the piano.
Some interpretations of “Hurrian Hymn No. 6” aim for historical accuracy, like the version recorded by Michael Levy, a “new ancestral” composer. Levy plays the song on a replica of an ancient lyre, in a bid to “open a portal to a time that has been all but forgotten.”
On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, Steve Onotera, also called the “Samurai Guitarist,” puts the song through a variety of contemporary genres like synthwave, lo-fi hip hop, and even reggae dub before settling on a clean and classic electric guitar solo. The “Hurrian Hymn No. 6” may be ancient, but its resonance in the present proves that music’s power to connect us endures beyond time.
Scroll down to listen to the different versions of Hurrian Hymn No. 6.
The “Hurrian Hymn No. 6” is the world’s oldest recorded playable song, and is believed to be around 3,400 years old.
Discovered in the 1950s in present-day Ras Shamra, the song is about appealing to the moon goddess Nikkal for fertility.
The tablet on which the hymn is written contains instructions for playing it on the ancient lyre, but it leaves much up to interpretation.
Musicians and composers have put their spin on the world's oldest song, ranging from historically accurate to contemporary and trendy.
Sources: Hear the World’s Oldest Known Song, “Hurrian Hymn No. 6” Written 3,400 Years Ago; The oldest song in the world
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