Nippur N 3354, a fragmentary cuneiform tablet created in Nippur in Sumer (today's Iraq) around 2000 BCE and preserved in the University Museum, Philadelphia, records fragmentary instructions for performing music that was composed in harmonies of thirds. It was written using a diatonic scale. This is the earliest surviving form of
musical notation.
Kilmer & Civil, "Old Babylonian Musical Instructions Relating to Hymnody,"
Journal of Cuneiform Studies,
38 (1986) 94-98.
