3 HN users recommended this music video2 months2021–2025score 2
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
HN recommends it to fans of ancient music as a rare chance to hear an attempt at 4,000-year-old song.
Peter Pringle sings the opening of the Epic of Gilgamesh in Sumerian, accompanied by a reconstructed ancient instrument. The description gives background on Sumer, cuneiform and how little is known about the language's pronunciation.
“If you like this video, you will probably also like Peter Pringle's The Epic Of Gilgamesh In Sumerian” (HN, 2024)
In a somewhat similar vein, here's Peter Pringle singing the opening lines of The Epic of Gilgamesh (written 4,000 years ago), using our best guess at Sumerian pronunciation and playing a modern recreation of an instrument that the Sumerians would have had, as an attempt to guess what ancient Sumerian music might have sounded like: [this video]
Opening lines of Gilgamesh sung with reconstructed Sumerian instrument.
If you like this kind of stuff, you should listen to Peter Pringle singing the Epic of Gilgamesh while playing a reconstructed oud. While the melodies/rhythms he uses are his creation, the words are from the epic itself which was itself 2000 years old by the time of Ancient Greece. [this video]
Here's the first tablet in original language sung by Peter Pringle (with help from prof. A. R. George for pronunciation) accompanied with music instruments available at the time: [link] , a continuation to a very popular video made years ago where he sung an excerpt: [this video] .
Earlier popular video of Pringle singing an excerpt.
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