By: VERONICA DERIU, DIEGO SERRA
This comparative study gives ancillary elements supporting the leading theories on Babylonian music, showing the relationship between the numerical series and several resulting geometrical figures, which logically precede the writing of the tablet(s) and were probably part of the musician’s analysis and reasoning as “implied elements” of the same tablets. Taking into consideration Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis describing the orbits’ sounds, a few ancillary elements have emerged, highlighting (from a different perspective) innovative – but foreseeable – aspects of the Mesopotamian algebraic logic applying to music, suggesting additional uses of the two texts at issue, in conformity with the leading scholars’ opinions. New graphic representations of the tablet are provided. This work should be meant as a preliminary note underlining new data. Further interdisciplinary studies and research (on Babylonian mathematics, archaeology, archaeo-musicology; astronomy) will be necessary in future to confirm, expand or question the results discussed in this work.
