The Obituary
Hurrian was spoken across northern Mesopotamia, Syria, and eastern Anatolia in the second millennium BCE, most prominently in the kingdom of Mitanni. Written in cuneiform borrowed from the Akkadians, it belonged to the small Hurro-Urartian family, its only close relative being the later Urartian. Among its texts is the Hurrian Hymn to Nikkal, the oldest written melody yet found. As Mitanni fell and Assyrian and Aramaic speakers spread, Hurrian declined through the late Bronze Age and disappeared from the record by roughly 1000 BCE.
Worth remembering
- A Hurrian hymn from around 1400 BCE is the oldest substantially complete notated melody known to exist.
- Its only surviving relative was Urartian, the language of a later kingdom around Lake Van.
Sources
A graveyard tradition: leave a stone to show you came, and remembered.