[1] Commonly dated between the 1st and 2nd century AD, the inscription was found engraved on a pillar (stele) from the ancient Hellenistic town of Tralles (present-day Turkey) in 1883.

While older music with notation exists (e.g. the Hurrian songs or the Delphic Hymns), all of it is in fragments; the Seikilos epitaph is unique in that it is a complete, though short, composition.

An alternative view, put forward by Armand D'Angour, holds that the inscription does not mark a tomb, but was instead a monument erected by Seikilos himself to commemorate his musical and poetic skill.

The Sekilos stele is an inscribed marble column from the ancient settlement of Tralles in western Anatolia, in what is now the city of Aydın, Turkey.

The base of the stele was in a damaged state; wishing to use it as a pedestal for his wife's flowerpots, Purser had the bottom of the pillar sawed flat so it would stand steadily.

Originally in all-capitals (followed below by the polytonic lowercase and Latin transliteration), it reads:[10] ΕΙΚΩΝ Η ΛΙΘΟΣ / ΕΙΜΙ ∙ ΤΙΘΗΣΙ ΜΕ / ΣΕΙΚΙΛΟΣ ΕΝΘΑ / ΜΝΗΜΗΣ ΑΘΑΝΑΤΟΥ / ΣΗΜΑ ΠΟΛΥΧΡΟΝΙΟΝΕἰκὼν ἡ λίθος εἰμί.

The text, here excluding the musical notations (followed below by the polytonic script[11] and Latin transliteration[12]), reads: ΟΣΟΝ ΖΗΣ ΦΑΙΝΟΥ / ΜΗΔΕΝ ΟΛΩΣ ΣΥ / ΛΥΠΟΥ ΠΡΟΣ ΟΛΙ / ΓΟΝ ΕΣΤΙ ΤΟ ΖΗΝ / ΤΟ ΤΕΛΟΣ Ο ΧΡΟ / ΝΟΣ ΑΠΑΙΤΕΙὅσον[ˈoson]hósonζῇς,[ze̝s],zêis,φαίνου[ˈpʰɛnu]phaínou|||μηδὲν[me̝ˈden]mēdènὅλως[ˈolos]hólōsσὺ[sy]sỳλυποῦ[ˈlypu]lypoû|||πρὸς[pros]pròsὀλίγον[oˈliɡon]olígonἔστι[ˈesti]éstiτὸ[to]tòζῆν[ze̝n]zên|||τὸ[to]tòτέλος[ˈtelos]télosὁ[o]hoχρόνος[ˈkʰronos]khrónosἀπαιτεῖ.

[ˈoson] [ze̝s], [ˈpʰɛnu] | [me̝ˈden] [ˈolos] [sy] [ˈlypu] | [pros] [oˈliɡon] [ˈesti] [to] [ze̝n] | [to] [ˈtelos] [o] [ˈkʰronos] [aˈpɛti]hóson zêis, phaínou | mēdèn hólōs sỳ lypoû | pròs olígon ésti tò zên | tò télos ho khrónos apaiteî.In English the poem translates as: "As long as you're alive, shine, don't be sad at all; life is short, time asks for its due" per Rohland (2022).

[13] Landels (1999) provides the alternative translation: "As long as you live, let the world see you, and don't make yourself miserable; life is short, and Time demands his due".

The verb 'ζει' zei, meaning "is alive", was a common ancient convention indicating that the dedicator had survived the dedicatee and created the monument in their memory.

[1] Alternatively, the inscription references Euterpe, the Muse of lyric poetry and music in Greek mythology, as a way to emphasize Seikilos' poetic skill.

[14] A German scholar Otto Crusius in 1893, shortly after the publication of the inscription, was the first to observe that the music of this song as well as that of the hymns of Mesomedes tends to follow the pitch of the word accents.

"[25] Yet Claude Palisca explains that the difficulty lies in the fact that "the harmoniai had no finals, dominants, or internal relationships that would establish a hierarchy of tensions and points of rest, although the mese ('middle note') may have had a gravitational function".

The song's pitch centers (notes of emphasis according to frequency, duration, and placement) are, in Greek notational nomenclature, C and Z, which correspond to G and D if the scale is mapped on the white keys of the piano (A and E in the "two sharps" transcription above).

[33] A possible alternative way of rhythmizing the Seikilos song, in order to preserve the iambic ('rising', di-dum) feel of the rhythm, was suggested by classicist and musician Armand D'Angour, with the barlines displaced one quaver to the right, as in the following transcription:[34][35] Stefan Hagel, discussing an example in the Anonymus Bellermanni, suggests the possibility of a similar transcription with displaced barlines of a line of music with this same rhythm.