Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that answer the question.
Query: What is the oldest surviving example of written music?
The Seikilos epitaph is the oldest surviving complete musical composition, including musical notation, from anywhere in the world. The epitaph has been variously dated, but seems to be either from the 1st or the 2nd century AD. The song, the melody of which is recorded, alongside its lyrics, in the ancient Greek musical notation, was found engraved on a tombstone (a stele) from the Hellenistic town Tralles near present-day Aydın, Turkey, not far from Ephesus. It is a Hellenistic Ionic song in either the Phrygian octave species or Iastian tonos. While older music with notation exists (for example the Hurrian songs), all of it is in fragments; the Seikilos epitaph is unique in that it is a complete, though short, composition.[1]
Music in ancient India, encompassing the modern-day Indian subcontinent of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, can be reproduced from written works dating to the Indian classical period, such as the "Nātya Shastra", and through surviving examples of liturgical music such as the hymns of the Samaveda. Musical instruments dating to the prehistoric period have been recovered from archaeological excavations.
The earlier of the two sets is particularly notable for being the oldest surviving English translation of the Bible, albeit a very fragmentary one. It consists of 26 glosses, either interlinear or marginal, scattered throughout the manuscript. These so-called "red glosses" are written by a single scribe mostly in red ink in what is known as West Saxon minuscule, an Insular script found, for example, in charters of Æthelwulf, King of Wessex from 839 to 858. The glosses were first published in by E. Brock in 1876. A number of corrections were subsequently offered by Henry Sweet in 1885, Karl Wildhagen in 1913.
The sources for Scottish Medieval music are extremely limited. These limitations are the result of factors including a turbulent political history, the destructive practices of the Scottish Reformation, the climate and the relatively late arrival of music printing. What survives are occasional indications that there was a flourishing musical culture. There are no major musical manuscripts for Scotland from before the twelfth century. Neither does Scottish music have an equivalent of the Bannatyne Manuscript in poetry, giving a large and representative sample of Medieval work. The oldest extant piece of Church music written in Scotland is in the "Inchcolm Fragment". Musicologist John Purser has suggested that the services dedicated to St. Columba in this manuscript and the similar service in the "Sprouston Breviary", dedicated to St. Kentigern, may preserve some of this earlier tradition of plain chant. Other early manuscripts include the "Dunkeld Music Book" and the "Scone Antiphoner". The most important collection is the mid-thirteenth century "Wolfenbüttel 677" or "W1" manuscript, which survives only because it was appropriated from St Andrews Cathedral Priory and taken to the continent in the 1550s. Other sources include occasional written references in accounts and in literature and visual representations of musicians and instruments. The limitations on the survival of Medieval musical manuscripts is partly because of the relatively late development of printing in Scotland, which would mean that only from the mid-sixteenth century do large numbers of printed works survive.
An estimated 355 inscriptions survive, mostly short and dating from the 7th to the 2nd centuries BC. Some are written from right to left in a variety of the Old Italic alphabet, derived from the Etruscan alphabet, but they show some traces of the influence of the Latin alphabet. An inscription to Ceres of c. 600 BC, found in Falerii, usually taken to be the oldest example, is written left to right.
Because the deceiver is deceived, along with slapstick action, it is considered the oldest surviving farce in French literature. This means it is the oldest to survive in written form, but is part of a much older oral tradition.
By the mid-15th century, the form had become largely divorced from music, and numerous examples of this form (including the ballade and the rondeau) were written, which were either not intended to be set to music, or for which the music has not survived.
Music was an important part of social and cultural life in ancient Greece. Musicians and singers played a prominent role in Greek theater. Mixed-gender choruses performed for entertainment, celebration, and spiritual ceremonies. Instruments included the double-reed "aulos" and a plucked string instrument, the "lyre", principally the special kind called a "kithara". Music was an important part of education, and boys were taught music starting at age six. Greek musical literacy created a flowering of music development. Greek music theory included the Greek musical modes, that eventually became the basis for Western religious and classical music. Later, influences from the Roman Empire, Eastern Europe, and the Byzantine Empire changed Greek music. The Seikilos epitaph is the oldest surviving example of a complete musical composition, including musical notation, from anywhere in the world. The oldest surviving work written on the subject of music theory is "Harmonika Stoicheia" by Aristoxenus.
Jieshi Diao Youlan () or just "Solitary Orchid" ("Secluded Orchid" or "Elegant Orchid" in some translations) is the name of a piece of Chinese music or melody for the guqin which was composed during the 6th or 7th century, with the earliest preserved text dating from the 7th century, and is possibly the oldest surviving piece of written music in the Far East.
She is clinker-built and was schooner-rigged with a bowsprit. A set of her spars is preserved with her, along with her armament (six cannon and two stern chasers) and the winding gear employed to draw her into the boathouse. She is the oldest surviving schooner in the world and the oldest surviving example of the shallop hull form. She was fitted with sliding keels (progenitors of the modern daggerboard) not long after the invention of the technology by John Schank, and she is the oldest surviving example of such a vessel.
Music was an important part of social and cultural life in Ancient Greece. We know that composers wrote notated music during the Ancient Greek era because scholars have found the Seikilos epitaph. The epitaph, written around 200 BC to around AD 100 is the oldest surviving example of a complete musical composition, including musical notation, in the world. The song, the melody of which is recorded, alongside its lyrics, in the ancient Greek musical notation, was found engraved on a tombstone, a stele, near Aydın, Turkey (not far from Ephesus). It is a Hellenistic Ionic song in either the Phrygian octave species or Iastian tonos.
During Dawit's time atop the throne, two surviving examples of illustrated manuscripts were produced. One is a translation of the "Miracles of Mary", which had been written in Arabic, done at the command of Emperor Dawit. This is the oldest surviving illustrated book commissioned by an Ethiopian Emperor. The other, described as "one of the most beautiful illustrated books of the period", is a copy of the gospels, which is now preserved at the monastery of Saint Gabriel on Kebran Island in southern Lake Tana.
As a written language, Old Persian is attested in royal Achaemenid inscriptions. The oldest known text written in Old Persian is from the Behistun Inscription, dating to the time of king Darius I (reigned 522-486 BC). Examples of Old Persian have been found in what is now Iran, Romania (Gherla), Armenia, Bahrain, Iraq, Turkey and Egypt. Old Persian is one of the oldest Indo-European languages which is attested in original texts.
The prehistoric age is considered to have ended with the development of writing, and with it, by definition, prehistoric music. "Ancient music" is the name given to the music that followed. The "oldest known song" was written in cuneiform, dating to 3400 years ago from Ugarit in Syria. It was a part of the Hurrian songs, more specifically Hurian hymn no. 6. It was deciphered by Anne Draffkorn Kilmer, and was demonstrated to be composed in harmonies of thirds, like ancient "gymel", and also was written using a Pythagorean tuning of the diatonic scale. The oldest surviving example of a complete musical composition, including musical notation, from anywhere in the world, is the Seikilos epitaph.
The Samaveda text contains notated melodies, and these are probably the world's oldest surviving ones. The musical notation is written usually immediately above, sometimes within, the line of Samaveda text, either in syllabic or a numerical form depending on the Samavedic "Sakha" (school).
Glöggl's collection of musical instruments and manuscripts was acquired in 1824 by the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna, and formed the basis of what may be the oldest surviving institutional musical instrument collection, the Sammlung alter Musikinstrumente, which since 1938 has been held in trust by the Viennese Kunsthistorisches Museum.
Although most familiar to speakers of English in the context of Christianity, hymns are also a fixture of other world religions, especially on the Indian subcontinent. Hymns also survive from antiquity, especially from Egyptian and Greek cultures. Some of the oldest surviving examples of notated music are hymns with Greek texts.
Little is known about the early construction of the bassoon reed, as few examples survive, and much of what is known is only what can be gathered from artistic representations. The earliest known written instructions date from the middle of the 17th century, describing the reed as being held together by wire or resined thread; the earliest actual reeds that survive are more than a century younger, a collection of 21 reeds from the late 18th-century Spanish "bajon".
The music sung by the Thomanerchor in the 1750s included revivals of Bach's vocal music, which partly explains Penzel's interest in Bach's cantatas. For several cantatas Penzel's copy is the oldest surviving source. He also copied instrumental works including early versions of the Brandenburg Concertos (for example, what appears to be the earliest version of the first Brandenburg Concerto).
Possibly the oldest surviving music from Sussex is the 14th century Robertsbridge Codex which contains six pieces of music. This manuscript contains one of the earliest pieces of music specifically written for the keyboard. The Robertsbridge Codex is also the earliest evidence of two handed, polyphonic organ music and dates from around 1325.
It is believed by some scholars that this text has been first written in Pazend and latter, using the Pazend text, it was rewritten in Middle Persian, but others believe that this text was originally written in Middle Persian and later written in Pazend, Sanskrit, Gujarati and Persian. The oldest surviving manuscripts there are L19, found in the British Library, written in Pazend and Gujarati, which is believed to date back to 1520. One of the characteristics of L19 text is that the word "Xrad" "wisdom" is spelled as "Xard" throughout the text. The oldest surviving Pahlavi version of this text is K43 found in Royal Library, Denmark.
The oldest surviving work of Persian literary criticism is the "Muqaddamah-i Shāhnāmah-i Abū Manṣūrī" (Introduction to Abū Manṣūr's "Shāhnāmah"). "This work deals with the myths and legends of the "Shāhnāmah" and is considered the oldest surviving example of Persian prose." 
Probably the oldest surviving example of what certainly qualifies as a patilla miquelet lock is item No.I.20 in the Real Armería, Madrid. That unique item is a combination lance and double-barreled gun; its origin unknown, dated almost certainly before 1600.
The Ecbasis captivi (full title: "Ecbasis cuiusdam captivi per tropologiam", "The escape of a certain captive, interpreted figuratively") is an anonymous Latin beast fable that probably dates to the middle of the 11th century, and was likely written in the Vosges region of France. It is the oldest example of a European beast fable to survive, and the first medieval European example of anthropomorphic animals. The poem is written in hexameters with Leonine internal rhyme frequently used throughout the poem. The text survives in two manuscripts, both of which now are at the Royal Library of Belgium.
The poetic form of the "lai" usually has several stanzas, none of which have the same form. As a result, the accompanying music consists of sections which do not repeat. This distinguishes the lai from other common types of musically important verse of the period (for example, the rondeau and the ballade). Towards the end of its development in the 14th century, some lais repeat stanzas, but usually only in the longer examples. There is one very late example of a lai, written to mourn the defeat of the French at the Battle of Agincourt (1415), ("Lay de la guerre", by Pierre de Nesson) but no music for it survives.