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Ancient Origins Tour IRAQ

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The cow’s head on the Silver Lyre. Source: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin / CC BY-SA 4.0)

Bask in the Beauty and Melody of the Ancient Mesopotamian Lyres of Ur

It is unknown which culture was the first to create music, but a set of beautiful Sumerian instruments from the city of Ur provide us with some insight into the world of ancient music. Over 4,000...
5,000-year-old musical scene found on pottery in Israel

5,000-year-old musical scene found on pottery in Israel may reflect sacred marriage ritual

Archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority working at Bet Ha-‘Emeq have discovered a shard from an early Bronze Age storage vessel depicting scenes from what seems to be a ‘sacred marriage...
An ancient mouth harp found in the Altai Republic of Russia.

This Musical Instrument Still Works 1,700 Years After a Hun Nomad Crafted it!

The nomadic musician looked fondly upon the latest of the completed instruments – a mouth harp carefully crafted by splintering the rib of a cow, or was it a horse? No matter, the sound it made when...
Colossi of Memnon, guarding the passage to Theban Necropolis; west-bank's section of Luxor, Egypt.

Memnon’s Musical Statues: The Long-Standing Guardians of Amenhotep III’s Temple That Found a Voice

The most important statues in Egypt, after the Giza Sphinx, are the two Colossi of Memnon in Western Luxor. The two gigantic statues, about 3500 years old, are also known as the musical statues...
The Mysterious Lithophones of Vietnam: Descendants of the First Musical Instruments?

The Mysterious Lithophones of Vietnam: Descendants of the First Musical Instruments?

The word ‘lithophone’ is derived from two Greek words, ‘lithos’ and ‘phone’. The first can be translated as ‘stone’, whilst the second means ‘sound’. Therefore, a lithophone may be said to be a ‘...

Song of Seikilos: Oldest Known Musical Composition Lay Hidden on a Flower Stand in Turkish Garden

The Song of Seikilos is the oldest complete surviving music composition in the world engraved in a marble stele that served as a flower stand. The beautiful composition, also known as the ‘Seikilos...
The female musicians in the center of the image are playing transverse bamboo flutes and guan

Earliest ancient Chinese musical instruments unearthed in tomb complex

Ancient musical instruments, some the earliest of their kind ever found, have been discovered by archaeologists in the tombs of Zaoyang city, China. China Daily reports the musical finds were...
Stonehenge Sounds

Researchers reveal Stonehenge stones hold incredible musical properties

A team of researchers from London’s Royal College of Art (RCA) have discovered that the stones used to construct Stonehenge hold musical properties and when struck, sound like bells, drums and gongs...
Old Flute in Germany - Origins of Music

The Origin of Music

The origin of music itself is very difficult to determine because in all probability, it is likely to have begun with singing and clapping or beating the hands on different surfaces, for which there...