The marble Seikilos stele with poetry and musical notation - National Museum of Denmark
Music is found in every culture around the world and has existed for at least 55,000 years.
Although musical compositions may have existed this far back in human history, the earliest written songs only date back to over 3,000 years ago.
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The Seikilos Epitaph is the oldest surviving complete musical composition, including musical notation.
The epitaph has been variously dated, but seems to be either from the 1st or the 2nd century CE.
The song, the melody of which is recorded, alongside its lyrics, in the ancient Greek musical notation, was found in 1883 engraved on a pillar (a stele) from the Hellenistic town of 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.
Although usually referred to as an epitaph, it is possible (according to a suggestion put forward by Armand D'Angour) that it does not mark a tomb, but was merely a monument erected by Seikilos himself to commemorate his skill.
The following is the Greek text found on the tombstone (in the later polytonic script; the original is in majuscule), along with a transliteration of the words which are sung to the melody, and a somewhat free English translation thereof; this excludes the musical notation:
Ὅσον ζῇς φαίνου
μηδὲν ὅλως σὺ λυποῦ
πρὸς ὀλίγον ἔστι τὸ ζῆν
τὸ τέλος ὁ χρόνος ἀπαιτεῖ.
—
hóson zêis, phaínou
mēdèn hólōs sỳ lypoû
pròs olígon ésti tò zên
tò télos ho khrónos apaiteî.
—
While you live, shine
have no grief at all
life exists only for a short while
and Time demands his due.
Seikilos Epitaph (100 - 200 AD)