Видео 87
Просмотров 36 612 046

4:03

ENKIDU And The Woman SHAMKAT

7:29

Namárië - "Galadriel's Lament" - J.R.R. Tolkien

5:01

THE EXALTATION OF INANNA in Sumerian

6:04

SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT

8:48

Lament For GILGAMESH, The Gold Lyre Of Ur

8:02

How Gilgamesh Met Enkidu

What you hear me singing in this video, are lines 135 through 229 from THE BABYLONIAN GILGAMESH EPIC (Pennsylvania cuneiform Tablet OB II) which tell the story of the first meeting between Gilgamesh, King of Uruk, and the wild man called Enkidu.
Although the Babylonians wrote this down nearly 4000 years ago, the tale was taken from Sumer, a much older culture that preceded the Babylonians in southern Mesopotamia. It is possible that Gilgamesh was a real, historical Sumerian king who ruled in Uruk some 5000 years ago.
For those who are interested, a pdf of THE BABYLONIAN GILGAMESH EPIC as translated and transliterated by Andrew R. George, can be downloaded from the following URL.
eprints.soa...

Видео

4:03

SEVEN DAYS SINCE I LAST SAW MY LOVE

Просмотров 28 тыс.8 месяцев назад

There are dozens of ancient Egyptian songs and hymns for which we have the words, but not the music. Unfortunately, the ancient Egyptians did not have a formal system of notation so we can only guess at what the melodies for the songs might have been. We do know, however, quite a lot about the instruments they had because many of them have survived, while others can be seen illustrated on the w...

7:29

ENKIDU And The Woman SHAMKAT

Просмотров 149 тыс.Год назад

This is one of my favorite episodes from the Babylonian EPIC OF GILGAMESH. I think it needs to be pointed out that the story of Gilgamesh originated in Sumer, and we do have cuneiform tablets of parts of it in Sumerian, but most of what we know comes from cuneiform tablets written much later in Akkadian and Old Babylonian. These are Semitic languages (related to modern Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic a...

Namárië - "Galadriel's Lament" - J.R.R. Tolkien

5:01

Namárië - "Galadriel's Lament" - J.R.R. Tolkien

Просмотров 38 тыс.Год назад

This is a song that I posted a few years ago, but it was taken down because of a copyright dispute. I didn’t think my performance was particularly good, so I made no attempt to settle the dispute or to put the video back up on RUclips. In the intervening years I have received a couple of hundred inquiries from people wondering what happened to the video, and asking me to put it back. Since the ...

6:04

THE EXALTATION OF INANNA in Sumerian

Просмотров 89 тыс.Год назад

THE EXALTATION OF INANNA was written in Sumerian by the daughter of Sargon The Great, the High Priestess of Inanna in the city of Ur, a woman by the name of Enheduanna. What you hear in this video, are the first twelve lines of the EXALTATION, sung in Sumerian, and accompanied on a scale replica of the remarkable “Gold Lyre of Ur”, discovered in the 1920’s by British archaeologist Sir Leonard W...

8:48

SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT

Просмотров 67 тыс.Год назад

Most fans of Arthurian legend will be familiar with the story of Sir Gawain And The Green Knight. This epic poem was written in the 1300’s, and there is a detailed article in Wikipedia for those who are not already acquainted with the tale. The author of the work wrote in a Middle English dialect that is incomprehensible to us today. What you hear in this video is a simplified adaptation for mo...

Lament For GILGAMESH, The Gold Lyre Of Ur

8:02

Lament For GILGAMESH, The Gold Lyre Of Ur

Просмотров 521 тыс.Год назад

This video is a performance of a Sumerian incantation and lament upon the death of the hero, GILGAMESH. For those who are interested, the translation and transliteration of the Sumerian cuneiform tablets can be found online at the University of Oxford website - The Electronic Text Corpus Of Sumerian Literature. “The Gold Lyre of Ur” was unearthed by archaeologist, Sir Leonard Woolley, in the 19...

5:03

ENKI'S HAILSTORM - sung in Sumerian

Просмотров 271 тыс.2 года назад

The Sumerian god known as ENKI was god of the waters, and he is often depicted with rivers (possibly the Tigris and the Euphrates) flowing from his shoulders. Although the clay tablets on which this story of Enki was written are 5000 years old, they speak of a time even more remote, the time of creation, when the Sumerian gods (known as the Anunnaki) began organizing the world. The Sumerian tex...

4:25

CAEDMON'S HYMN on the Anglo-Saxon Lyre

Просмотров 188 тыс.2 года назад

This is the earliest known poem in the English language, written in the 7th century, in what is called “Old English”. We know very little about the author, whose name was Caedmon, beyond what was said about him by “The Father of English History”, the monk known as The Venerable Bede (672 - 735 A.D.). The setting for my performance of the hymn is Odda’s Chapel in Gloucestershire, South West Engl...

4:03

THE LYRE OF MEGIDDO, Psalm 23 in Hebrew

Просмотров 261 тыс.2 года назад

Seven years ago, I built a small lyre based on a 1200 BCE artifact that had been excavated in the ruins of the ancient city of Har Megiddo (aka “Armageddon”) in northern Israel. Once the instrument was completed, I posted a video of it to RUclips and within a couple of weeks I received a request from THE MUSEUM OF MAKING MUSIC in Carlsbad, California, to allow them to have the instrument on tem...

3:01

Franz Schubert - THE HURDY-GURDY MAN

Просмотров 37 тыс.2 года назад

This song was written by the Austrian composer, Franz Schubert, in 1827 the final song of a cycle called DIE WINTERREISE (The Winter’s Journey) and it is one of the most popular and enduring songs ever composed. Originally for voice and piano with words by the German poet, Wilhelm Müller, it tells the story of a wandering “drehleier” player, and was consequently called “Der Leiermann”. Schubert...

6:22

THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH (Tablet One)

Просмотров 147 тыс.3 года назад

One of the exciting things about the EPIC OF GILGAMESH is that there are probably parts of it still waiting to be discovered, hidden beneath the sands of Mesopotamia. What you hear in this video is from TABLET ONE (a Prologue) of a series of cuneiform tablets recovered from the excavations of the library of the Assyrian King Ashurbanipal in the ancient city of Nineveh. The translator of the Epi...

6:48

THE SEDUCTION OF THE GODDESS INANA

Просмотров 253 тыс.3 года назад

Although we do not know what this song sounded like when it was sung in ancient Sumer, we do have the words to the song, written in cuneiform on clay tablets nearly 5000 years ago, and I have used instruments (a three stringed Mesopotamian lute, and two reed flutes) that we know the Sumerians possessed. There are many songs, which the Sumerians called “tigi”, that have been translated by sumero...

THE SEA TURTLE (from the album Dancing Alone)

3:58

THE SEA TURTLE (from the album Dancing Alone)

Просмотров 15 тыс.3 года назад

This song was written as a lullaby, and is based upon a poem by the great Persian poet, Hafiz, who was born in the city of Shiraz in the year 1315. Hafiz wrote, “I am like a magnificent, magical, ocean turtle Setting aside his dazzling wings of blue Crawling upon your shores To bury the divine seed of verse.” This is one of fourteen songs from the album, DANCING ALONE, inspired by the works of ...

3:40

ONCE (From The Album DANCING ALONE)

Просмотров 28 тыс.3 года назад

This song is from an album I made a called DANCING ALONE, which consists of 14 songs inspired by the works of 12th and 13th century Persian Sufi poets. I never released the album until now because I didn’t think anybody would be interested in it. I made a few copies as gifts for friends, and then stuck it on a shelf where it has been sleeping for the last few years. It is now available for down...