ABSTRACT
No notated music or sounds have survived from Elam, yet we have quite good information on its musical culture because a rich set of images shows instruments and the circumstances of their use. The correspondence is an early indication of the long-running musical entanglement of Elam and Mesopotamia. The ability to make animals listen to, and react to, song is, of course, distinct from seeing them make music, but the tale of Orpheus shows that the idea was not an alien subject at the time. Madaktu, Susa, and Hidalu were Elamite royal cities during the Neo-Elamite period. Since Madaktu was large enough to support a substantial court orchestra, Susa, the capital, is likely to have possessed an even larger ensemble. During the first half of the first millennium, further changes occurred in musical fashion: the vertical angular harp became closely associated with Elam, while horizontal angular harps became an Assyrian specialty.
