Mesopotamian MusicWhen we study ancient cultures, it is necessary to examine as many aspects of that culture as possible, although sometimes some aspects are considerably more difficult to study than to others. One of these aspects is music. Music is difficult because it leaves no physical remains once it is no longer played. So we have to infer what it may have looked like entirely based only on the rare remains of instruments we find, or the even rarer inscriptions on how to play music. Music is one of those aspects of a culture that can teach us a lot. By studying the music of the ancient Mesopotamians, in all its facets, we can learn a lot about their society and culture. In particular, how they thought about music and how it was used and performed. By examining how the Mesopotamians viewed music, as well as their ideas about its purpose and origin, we can better understand their views on different forms of communication, the gods, and the world. To understand how the Mesopotamian people and society understood and used music, we must first look at the instruments they used, as these formed the basic structure that allowed their music to arise and become an ingrained part of the culture. Much of the evidence for musical instruments comes to us from Assyrian reliefs depicting musicians and instruments, and from the environments in which their music would have been present, particularly a well-known Assyrian relief, the Garden Party relief, from the North. The Palace of Ashurbanipal shows musicians playing for Ashurbanipal and his wife, shortly after his return from battle, and hosts a party of...... middle of paper ......t Nations. Books for Libraries Press, 1970. Foreign Musicians in Neo-Assyrian Royal Courts. Ropes and wires. Edited by Wolfgang Heimpel and Gabriella Frantz-Szabo. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2011 Gabbay, Uri and Sam Mirelman. "Two summary tablets of Bala compositions with performative indications from the late Babylonian Ur." Zeitschrift Für Assyriologie Und Vorderasiatische Archäologie 101, no. 2 (2011): 274-93, Jones, Philip. “Embracing Inana: legitimation and mediation in the ancient sacred Mesopotamian marriage hymn Iddin-Dagan A.” The Journal of the American Oriental Society. 2 (2003): 291Rubin, Norman A. “The Sounds of Early Music.” The World and Me (2010), http://go.galegroup.com.libproxy.wlu.ca/ps/i.do?&id=GALE|A240098743&v=2.1&u=wate18005&it=r&p=AONE&sw=wZettler, Richard. Treasures from the royal tombs of Ur. Seattle: Marquand Books, Inc..., 1998.