Over 3,000 years ago, in the bustling port city of Ugarit on the eastern Mediterranean coast, scribes etched a song into a clay tablet.
This piece, written in the Hurrian language and known as the Hymn to Nikkal, holds the distinction of being the oldest known musical score ever discovered.
According to reports, new research suggests this ancient composition may be far more significant than previously believed—possibly pointing to a shared global musical tradition in the Bronze Age.
The study, conducted by Dan C Baciu of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and published on Preprints.org, compares the Hymn to Nikkal with the Rig Veda, one of India’s oldest sacred texts.
Using advanced computer-assisted tools to map rhythm and melody, Baciu uncovered striking parallels between the two.
His findings revealed that one in every five verses of the Rig Veda ends with the same cadence—musical punctuation used to mark verse endings—as found in the Ugaritic hymn. Statistically, the chance of this occurring by coincidence is less than one in a million.
Two cadences dominate the Hymn to Nikkal: one simple, resembling a heartbeat, and another more intricate. According to Baciu, these same two rhythmic patterns are also present in the Rig Veda.
The simpler cadence commonly ends verses, while the more complex is closely tied to the Triṣṭubh meter—a fundamental Vedic poetic structure. Baciu argues that this rhythmic duality reflects a conscious artistic decision.
Even more compelling than the rhythmic similarities are the shared melodic traits. Ancient commentaries on the Rig Veda describe its melodies as rising on accented syllables and then falling—a structure mirrored in the Ugaritic composition.
When digitally reconstructed, the two pieces resonate so closely that their musical kinship becomes unmistakable.
This unexpected connection raises fresh questions about the transmission of music across ancient civilizations. Ugarit, a strategic port city at the intersection of Mediterranean and Near Eastern trade routes, served as a cultural hub linking Mesopotamian, Anatolian, and Levantine traditions.
Scholars believe the Mitanni kingdom, a Hurrian-speaking Bronze Age state with ties to Indo-European cultures, may have acted as a conduit between Ugarit and the Indian subcontinent, facilitating the exchange of musical and poetic traditions.
Baciu’s research challenges long-held assumptions about the isolation of early musical cultures and suggests a deeper, shared heritage that spanned continents—even in antiquity.