Ancient music

Major centers of ancient music developed in China, Egypt, Greece, India, Iran/Persia, the Maya civilization, Mesopotamia, and Rome.

However, with the rise of social classes, many European and Asian societies regarded literacy as superior to illiteracy, which caused people to begin writing down their musical notations.

The earliest material and representational evidence of Egyptian musical instruments dates to the Predynastic period, but the evidence is more trustably attested in tomb paintings from the Old Kingdom (c. 2575–2134 BCE) when harps, end-blown flutes (held diagonally), and single and double pipes of the clarinet type (with single reeds) were played.

[5][12] The sistrum, a highly important rattle used in religious worship, was among the percussion instruments utilized in ancient Egypt.

[13] In 1986, Anne Draffkorn Kilmer,[14] professor of ancient history and Mediterranean archaeology at the University of California, Berkeley, published her decipherment of a cuneiform tablet, dating back to 2000 BCE from Nippur, one of the oldest Sumerian cities.

She claimed that the tablet contained fragmentary instructions for performing and composing music in harmonies of thirds, and was written using a diatonic scale.

[19] Among the Hurrian texts from Ugarit in Syria are some of the oldest known instances of written music, dating from c. 1400 BCE and including one complete song.

[21] The Natya Shastra is an ancient Indian treatise on the performing arts, encompassing theatre, dance and music.