Une musique ancienne de 3 400 ans ? (avec un doute)

Many artistic relics from the world's great civilisations include depictions of music making, and it is clear that music was a normal part of life for the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and other people. The Greek mathematician Pythagoras studied certain aspects of music theory, particularly the mathematical nature of harmony and musical scales. He knew for example that the pitch of a note from a vibrating string was related to its length, and that simple ratios of length gave rise to harmonious notes (e.g. if you halve the length of a string, its note sounds an octave higher). These early Societies (e.g. Babylonians and Egyptians) used various forms of musical notation, such as indications about using particular strings on a lyre and how the lyres were tuned.

However our knowledge of these is based on surviving fragments and is therefore incomplete. The earliest known example of a complete notated musical composition (a song complete with lyrics) used a method of notation developed by the ancient Greeks. This piece of music is called the Seikilos Epitaph, it is carved on a tombstone in Turkey, and it most probably dates from the 1st century AD.