The History of Guitar

The Origins of the Lute in Ancient Mesopotamia

The Uruk and Jemdet Nasr Periods

The history of guitar begins with its most ancient known ancestor, the long-necked lute of Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia means "between rivers" referring to the region amidst the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. This area, also known as the "Cradle of Civilization", is situated in and around modern day Iraq, including Syria, Turkey and western Iran.

All the elements of ancient civilization seemed to have coalesced almost simultaneously in Mesopotamia. Perhaps that isn't so much a coincidence as it is the ingenuity of man rising to the occasion. As diverse groups of people came together and formed primitive cities, the needs of those cities inspired invention. Just as the fertile flood plains of the the Tigris and Euphrates nurtured agrarian societies, so also those urban environments were fertile for nurturing innovation.

Perhaps the greatest impetus for invention was the establishment of trade within and amongst various cities. This gave rise to the need for accurate record keeping as well as a means to identify personal property. As a result¹, cuneiform, the first form of written language, was born. But even before this, there was another important invention, which you will see pertains directly to the origins of the guitar: the cylinder seal.

As already stated, there was a need to identify property before written language was born. This was done by means of seals, stamping the property with an image in order to mark ownership. Originally this stamping was done directly to materials such as leather and textiles, but later clay balls were affixed in various ways and stamped². Eventually the need was realized to seal larger areas, and thus the cylinder seal was invented somewhere around 3500 B.C³. The earliest of these seem to have appeared at approximately the same time in both Uruk, of the land of Sumer in southern Mesopotamia, and Susa of the land of Elam (southwestern region of modern day Iran)⁴. Being cylindrical in shape, they could be rolled across a moist clay surface to imprint a repeating image. The clay could then be baked to preserve the image indefinitely.

The significance of this is that cylinder seals were made of durable materials, and several thousand of them have survived to modern day, providing us with a visual history of that time. Most of the earliest cylinder seals were made of limestone and sometimes lapis lazuli. Later they were carved out of harder materials such as greenstone, diorite, quartz, jaspar and crystal⁵. They were often ornately and beautifully designed and thus provide an invaluable record of images to accompany the written language, which was also being developed during the end of the 4th millenium B.C⁶.

Concerning the long-necked lute, a cylinder seal from Sumer provides the earliest known evidence of its existence. It is dated during the Uruk period⁷ which ended around 3100 B.C., so the seal must have originated somewhere between 3500 and 3100 B.C. It portrays a woman seated in the rear of a reed boat playing a lute. Before her stands a bull, which appears to be bearing some object upon its back. Then facing the bull and woman stands a man⁸, and behind him appears to be an boatsman, guiding the boat along its path. The lute is about two and half times the length of the woman's forearm, and so it would be about 30 inches long. There are protrusions extending from the neck of the instrument, which could possibly be tuning pegs. There also appears to be a pair of straps over the woman's shoulder supporting the instrument.

Another cylinder seal from the same period⁹ bears a striking resemblance to the one just described and may shed some light onto what's taking place in the scene. It portrays another group of passengers in a reed boat, but instead of a woman with a lute in the rear, there appears to be a second boatsman. It also has a man standing, identified as a king¹⁰, facing the rear of the boat, a bull with an object on his back, and in addition some other tall object between the bull and the boatsman at the back. What's interesting about this scene is that the object on the bull's back has on its top a pair of upright bundles of reed stalks. This was a common symbol of the Sumerian goddess Inana¹¹ (corresponding to the later Akkadian goddess, Ishtar). Therefore it is supposed that the object on the bull's back is some type of religious furnishing, such as an altar, offering table or dais for an idol¹².

From this evidence, it's possible that both cylinder seals are portraying the transport of worshippers to a religious ceremony¹³. Although the object on the back of the bull of the former cylinder seal lacks the clarity and any apparent divine symbolism, it too may be some type of temple furnishing. Even though it's far from conclusive, this may also provide evidence of the lute being used in temple worship. The musical instruments of Sumer were used in both religious and secular settings. Some of the instruments were even associated with particular gods. For instance, the balag drum was associated with Enki (Akkadian Ea), the god of water, and the reed pipe was associated with Ishkur (Akkadian Adad or Ramman), the god of storms¹⁴. The lute is not known to have any particular relationship with any of the gods, but there is evidence of its use in a religious context from a terracotta relief dated from 3000 - 2350 B.C¹⁵. It portrays a bearded man in a long robe playing a lute with a woman or child standing before him in prayer. This image also has what may be tuning pegs on the instrument.

By the end of this dynasty, the Sumerians had developed an amazingly sophisticated society, principally with respect to their economic practices. Lacking in natural resources beyond agriculture and fishing, they imported raw materials from various regions, manufactured goods, and then in turn exported these products¹⁶. They even had a financial system, in which investors could buy shares in an enterprise and in return receive a percentage of the profits¹⁷. Unfortunately for their sake, this level of sophistication and wealth stirred up the envy of the nomadic people around them. It was necessary to constantly protect their trade routes. Furthermore, the greatest weakness of the Sumerians was their lack of unity. Instead of being a unified country, they were a conglomeration of ever competing city-states, often warring amongst themselves for superiority¹⁸. This finally led to their downfall.

The Akkadian and Gutian Periods

To the northwest of Sumer an uprising occurred in the city-state of Kish. Sharrukin, also known as Sargon of Agade, an official of the state, overthrew his king and then proceeded to launch a military campaign against Sumer. Eventually his empire controlled the entire Mesopotamian region, including Elam of the southeast and into Anatolia to the far northwest. To oversee this empire, Sargon built the capital city of Agade, not far from Kish and most likely to the northwest¹⁹. From the name of this capital, the region northwest of Sumer became known as Akkad, and the era of Sargon's empire became known as the Akkadian period, dated from 2334-2143 B.C.²⁰

Unlike the Sumerians, Sargon implemented a number of policies which helped ensure the unity of the state²¹. Perhaps the most important of these was that he allowed the Sumerians, for the most part, to maintain their culture. In fact, Sargon became a worshipper of Sumerian gods²², and thus the myths were maintained intact except now under Akkadian names. Akkadian was a Semitic language as opposed to Sumerian, which was isolated, i.e. no known language is related to it²³. Even though the Akkadian language came to dominate the region, they adopted the same cuneiform symbols that the Sumerians used. Since cuneiform was based on the sounds of syllables it was easily adapted to a number of languages²⁴.

Two cylinder seals which depict lute players have been recovered from the Akkadian period. The size and proportions of these instruments are similar to the one from the Uruk period. Both of these portray Ea (Sumerian Enki), the god of the "sweet waters" as well as of wisdom and music, seated on the right. As is typical of many such scenes of Ea, water is flowing down from his shoulders with fish swimming upstream. Before him stands his vizier, Usmu (Sumerian Isimud), who is identified by having two faces²⁵. In the first of these cylinder seals²⁶, seated opposite of Ea is another deity next to a crescent moon, which was the symbol of Sin (Sumerian Nanna), the god of the moon²⁷. The last figure is a bearded lutanist shown sitting on a stool, facing Sin.

Lute player with Ea and Sin

In the other seal²⁸, there is a bearded lutanist sitting on the floor to the far left of Usmu and Ea. There are a pair of tassles hanging from the extreme end of the instrument's neck. Such tassles are found in many of the later images of lute players and are thought to correspond to the number of strings. The presence of tassles would also tend to indicate the absence of tuning pegs and that the strings were tied to the neck as was done in ancient Egypt and various other regions²⁹. In between the lutanist and Usmu are two figures: a deity (identified as such by his horned headgear³⁰) armed with a mace in his right hand and some other long object in his left; and next to him is his apparent prisoner, a bearded bird-man with his hands clasped as if pleading. Behind Ea stands another deity also with his hands clasped.

Ur-ur at Anzu's trial

The bird-man is thought to be Anzu³¹, a divine creature sometimes depicted as a lion-headed eagle³². He appears as a bird-man in another very similar cylinder seal³³, once again as a prisoner standing before Ea. According to the myth, Anzu was the guardian of Ellil (Sumerian Enlil), and one day, while Ellil was bathing, Anzu stole the tablet of destinies from him³⁴. That tablet gave him the power on command to alter the destiny of things³⁵. So great was this power that many of the gods felt it was hopeless to pursue him and in fear refused to do so. Finally Ninurta (Ningursu in the Old Babylonian version) accepted the challenge³⁶:

Both were bathed in the sweat of battle.
Anzu grew weary and in the clash of tempests shed his pinions.
He (Ninurta) took a throw-stick to follow his arrows,
And cut off his pinions, detached both right and left.
He (Anzu) saw his wings and emitted his utterance.
But as he shouted 'Wing to wing' a shaft came up at him
A dart passed through his very heart.
He (Ninurta) made an arrow pass through pinion and wing,
A dart passed through heart and lungs,
He slew the mountains, inundated their proud pastures,
Inundated the broad earth in his fury,
Inundated the midst of the mountains, slew wicked Anzu,
And warrior Ninurta regained the gods' Tablet of Destinies for his own hand³⁷.

Thus it appears the cylinder seals is portraying the judgement day of Anzu, and perhaps the deity with the mace is the hero of the story, Ninurta. All the members of the court are facing Ea, and all backs are turned to the lutanist, who is depicted as a dwarfishly small man seated in the background. Because of this, it is a curiosity that above the lute player appears the only inscription on the seal, which reads: "Ur-ur, the musician³⁸."

Besides these two cylinder seals, there is a lot of other iconographic evidence of the lute from the Akkadian and post-Akkadian period (2334-2000 B.C.) in the form of terracotta reliefs and statuettes³⁹. The depiction of the instruments themselves are rather obscure. It's difficult to judge the size of them with respect to bodily proportions, because the bodies of the players often seem somewhat out of proportion as well, but they seem to be in the neighborhood of 30 inches, as described before. Some appear slightly shorter, and others appear to be perhaps as long as 36 inches or perhaps longer. The soundboxes of these lutes are sometimes very circular in shape, and at other times they appear more oblong and even sometimes almost squarish. The size of the soundboxes seem to vary from the size of a small halved watermelon to that of a large cantaloupe. Some of these lutes appear with from one to three tassels. In particular, one terracotta relief from Eshnunna seems to depict a three stringed instrument, but it only has two tassels, which calls into question the theory that the number of tassels corresponds to the number of strings⁴⁰. However harps were also often shown with tassels, and the number of them clearly corresponded with the number of strings⁴¹. Two other reliefs from this region also seem to depict three strings, but another only appears to have two. Of these three just mentioned, no tassels are shown⁴².

One matter of note with respect to the region of Eshnunna, which would include Ischali, is the unusual portrayal of the lutanists themselves. Eshnunna was a city-state approximately 85 miles north of Kish. Besides the fact that these male lute players are portrayed as nude except for a pleated waistband, they also wore a strange head-dress, thought to be possibly a lamb's pelt⁴³. Their heads may have been shaven bald, except for as many as four long braids extending from around the right ear. Similar braids seem to be depicted from Kish⁴⁴, but unlike those of Eshnunna, they appear clothed. This form of head-dress seems to be unique for lute players of the region. No other musicians from the region, nor anyone else for that matter, seem to have had similar braids. Furthermore, the harpists and lyrist from this region aren't depicted nude as the lute players are. However there are a few nude lutanist portrayed during this time period from Susa as well⁴⁵, and this trend of nudity among male lute player seems to have spread throughout much of Mesopotamia up until about 1500 B.C⁴⁶. The only other musicians so prevalantly depicted nude were female tambourine players⁴⁷, so it has been theorized that the lute and tambourine became associated with a fertility cult⁴⁸.

Although the power of the Akkadian Empire achieved a level of prominence never before known in Mesopotamia with its trade routes extending as far as Cyprus and India, its reign was always under a constant challenge. The Elamites in particular threw of the yoke of their dominion more than once, and besides the rebellion from within the empire, the Akkadians also had to constantly deal with threats from the eastern tribes of the Zagros mountains⁴⁹.

Sargon was succeeded by Naram-Sin, followed by Shargali-Sharri. It was under the reign of this latter that the Guti, one of the Zagros mountain tribes, managed to overwhelm the kingdom around 2143 B.C⁵⁰. The period of the Guti was characterized by chaos⁵¹. Over the following century they are reported to have had 21 different kings, making the average reign less than 5 years⁵². They were a barbaric people unable to bring any sort of organization to the region, and thus many of the cities were able to conduct their affairs with relative independence. Around 2120 B.C. Utuhegal of Uruk overthrew the Guti, but he was unable to restore any unity to the land⁵³.

The Third Dynasty of Ur

Out of this chaos arose a ruler, whose reign marked the beginning of the last but greatest dynasty of the Sumerians (2113-2000 B.C.)⁵⁴. The founder of this dynasty was king Ur-nammu of Ur, who is noted for the earliest known code of laws as well as the building of a huge ziggurat temple to the moon god, Nanna⁵⁵. Ur-nammu was killed in battle after a reign of only nine years⁵⁶.

Shulgi, the son of Ur-nammu, succeeded him on the throne and managed to build an empire as grand as that of the Akkadians. He continued in his father's footsteps, building a number of ziggurats and promoting a kingdom based on laws⁵⁷. However he went beyond that by uniting the empire to an unprecedented extent by establishing a strong central government, characterized by social and economic reforms⁵⁸. He is noted for his attention to foreign policy⁵⁹, the regulation of trade practices⁶⁰, and the improvement of roads and highways. He has even been attributed with establishing the first "motels" for travellers⁶¹.

With respect to the history of the guitar, Shulgi was of particular significance. He was the first of the Sumerian king's to deify himself⁶², and he either wrote or had written hymns of praise to himself. In one of these hymns he is attributed with the mastery of musical instruments among which is the lute. This would mark the earliest written evidence of the lute⁶³:

I, Shulgi, king of Urim, have also devoted myself to the art of music. Nothing is too complicated for me; I know the full extent of the tigi and the adab, the perfection of the art of music. When I fix the frets on the lute, which enraptures my heart, I never damage its neck; I have devised rules for raising and lowering its intervals...

Even if they bring to me, as one might to a skilled musician, a musical instrument that I have not heard before, when I strike it up I make its true sound known; I am able to handle it just like something that has been in my hands before. Tuning, stringing, unstringing and fastening are not beyond my skills.⁶⁴

In another such hymn, King Shulgi claims the following:

Since I am also pleasure-loving and a devotee of singing, I can perform tigi, adab and great malgatum compositions. When fixing the frets of the great lutes, I know how to raise and lower them. I am adept enough to play perfectly all the seven instruments.⁶⁵.

In both of these passages, the word translated as "lute" is the Sumerian word shukar. Most commonly it occurs as a general term for various tools⁶⁶. However, it is found again in another musical context, namely in a lexical text among a group of several other musical words and terms⁶⁷. This particular lexical text is well known as one used in a scribal school for drilling and testing students in their mastery of cuneiform⁶⁸.

In closing this period of history, the land of Sumer enjoyed a long period of peace and prosperity under Shulgi. Unlike so many rulers before him, his death wasn't accompanied by the usual political uprising⁶⁹. Rather, the kingdom remained unperturbed in anticipation of his successor and son, Amar-sin. Amar-sin was succeeded in turn by his son, Shu-sin, under whose reign Amorite tribes from the northwest started to make incursions into the region. This trend continued under Shu-sin's successor, Ibbi-sin, to the extent that the kingdom started to disentigrate. The cities of Sumer began to revert to independant states, ignoring Ibbi-sin's sovereignty. To make matters worse, the Elamites started launching assaults against Ur. Finally around 2006 B.C.⁷⁰, the Elamites defeated Ur and carried Ibbi-Sin off into exile, thus ending the Third Dynasty of Ur⁷¹.

Much more to come!

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