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An Examination of the Structure, Texture, and Scale System of Ancient Elamite Music

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 MA in Pre-Islamic Iranian History, Department of History, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

2 Associate Professor, Department of History, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

3 Assistant Professor, College of Fine Arts, School of Performing Arts and Music, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

10.22059/jhss.2025.404587.473861

Abstract

Investigating ancient musical traditions, specifically within the Elamite civilization, is inherently complex due to the paucity of extant textual documentation. Despite Elam’s two millennia of profound cultural synthesis with neighboring powers—including Sumer, Babylon, Assyria, and the Achaemenid Empire—it remains an under-represented domain in the historiography of Iranian music, with prior research largely confined to organological descriptions and basic functional roles of instruments. Adopting a descriptive-analytical framework and comparative methodology, this study integrates material culture—such as reliefs, glyptic arts (seals), inscriptions, and surviving artifacts—with archival data and cross-cultural analyses. This research scrutinizes fundamental inquiries into instrument morphology, plectrum techniques, tuning systems, ensemble configurations, and the prevailing musical textures of Elam. By postulating hypotheses regarding melodic texture (monophony vs. heterophony), potential scalar systems (tetrachordal and heptatonic), and the occurrence of the tritone interval within Mesopotamian modal structures, this paper seeks to reconstruct a nuanced perspective of the Elamite soundscape. The findings demonstrate that Elamite music was a highly structured, ritualistic practice; through a rigorous re-interpretation of iconographic and archaeological evidence, a viable reconstruction of this ancient musical heritage is achieved.

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References
 
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Historical Sciences Studies
Volume 18, Issue 1 - Serial Number 41
April 2026
Pages 85-112
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