The recreations are absurdly western sounding. The middle east has a long history of not using 12-tone equal temperament scales of Europe and while it's somewhat interesting to fantasize what it would sound like in the common current context, it seems a little white-washing and disingenuous.
> The recreations are absurdly Western sounding… white-washing and disingenuous
From the article—
“University of California emeritus professor of Assyriology Anne Kilmer spent 15 years researching the tablet, before transcribing it into modern musical notation in 1972.”
I’m sure Professor Kilmer, who has spent her entire career studying these civilizations and resurrecting some small piece of their history and culture for our modern generations to enjoy and appreciate before they disappear forever, would be thrilled to hear you summarize her decades of work as “white washing”.
The music is published and open source - anyone can go and play it! Publish their own interpretation! They already seem to range from authentic recreations of traditional instruments to a modern guitar.
Congratulations to Dr. Kilmer on her incredible work.
Agreed. Nobody knows what it would sound like, but I can't imagine it would sound as someone like myself plucking notes off a fretted guitar. You only have to look at contemporary music outside of Western tradition to hear something which doesn't sound anything like that.
You can get more info here for example: https://youtu.be/Kr3quGh7pJA