Imagine finding a piece of stone that’s almost 2,000 years old and discovering that the person who carved it didn’t just leave behind a few words, but an entire song. Not just the lyrics, either. The musical notes were carved into the stone as well, meaning that after all those centuries, we can actually work out the melody and hear what someone in the ancient world heard.
That’s exactly what happened with the Seikilos Epitaph, a small marble tombstone dating back to around the 1st century. The Greek words are accompanied by tiny marks indicating the musical pitches and rhythm, making it the oldest complete surviving song that we can reconstruct from its original musical notation.
And the stone has had quite a life of its own.
It was discovered in what is now Turkey in the late 19th century and, incredibly, was reportedly cut down so it could be used as a stand for flower pots. It later survived the destruction of Smyrna in 1922 before eventually making its way to Denmark, where it remains today.
The song itself is surprisingly uplifting for something carved on a tombstone. Rather than dwelling on death, it tells us to enjoy the short time we have:
“While you live, shine.
Grieve not at all.
Life lasts only a little,
and time demands its due.”
We don’t know much about the person who wrote it. We don’t even know for certain who Euterpe was, the person mentioned in the inscription. But somehow, this stranger from nearly 2,000 years ago managed to leave us something far more personal than a name and a date.
And after almost two millennia, we’re still here to listen to it.
The person who wrote it is long gone. The world he knew is gone. But his music survived.
[Via Neatorama]