''Nabnitu'' ("Creation") is an ancient
encyclopedic
An encyclopedia (American English) or encyclopædia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either general or special to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles ...
work of the
Old Babylonian
Old Babylonian may refer to:
*the period of the First Babylonian dynasty (20th to 16th centuries BC)
*the historical stage of the Akkadian language
Akkadian (, Akkadian: )John Huehnergard & Christopher Woods, "Akkadian and Eblaite", ''The Camb ...
period (
BCE
Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the or ...
) that consists of multiple tablets. The name Nabnitu is taken from the first line of the first tablet in the series. Some of the tablets provide "scientific" names for "parts" of objects and the human body. Tablet VII lists the parts of the human hand.
Tablet XXXI seems to refer to domesticated animals. The readable part of this tablet mentions the pig and bull. Other tablets provide information concerning human actions/activities. Tablet IX is concerned with the activity of singing.
Tablet XXXII is the 32nd tablet in the series in the collections of the
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
. It is also cited as UET VII 126 (with the excavation number U.3011). It is a lexical tablet written in
Sumerian-
Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to:
* Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire
* Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language
* Akkadian literature, literature in this language
* Akkadian cuneiform
Cuneiform is a logo- syllabi ...
text from
Ur.
This tablet lists the names and order of the nine
strings
String or strings may refer to:
*String (structure), a long flexible structure made from threads twisted together, which is used to tie, bind, or hang other objects
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* ''Strings'' (1991 film), a Canadian anim ...
of an unidentified musical instrument (presumed to be a horizontal harp). It, therefore, refers to the parts of a musical instrument and its construction.
The nine strings numbered symmetrically as 1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1, are presented in two parallel columns, one in Sumerian and the other in Akkadian. The table also indicates that there are "front" and "back" designations. 1-(first)-2(second)-3(front)-4(front)-5(middle)-4(back)-3(back)-2(back)-1(backmost).
Other important designations are the word "thin" and "small". The word "small" is written next to string 3 and "small" next to string 4. This means that the unidentified instrument is constructed with a high tension at the front and a low tension at the back.
References
*Coover, James B. and Franklin, John C. "Dictionaries & encyclopedias of music".
Grove Music Online' (subscription required). ed. L. Macy. Retrieved on March 5, 2007.
*Kilmer, Anne Draffkorn (April 22, 1971). "The Discovery of an Ancient Mesopotamian Theory of Music". ''Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society'', Vol. 115, No. 2. pp. 131–149.
*Wulstan, David (October 1971). "The Earliest Musical Notation". ''Music & Letters'', Vol. 52, No. 4. pp. 365–382.
Babylonia
Ancient Mesopotamia
Clay tablets
Music history
Akkadian literature
Sumerian literature
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