Clay tablets that have been traced to the ancient Syrian city of Ugarit and dated back to some 3,400 years ago contain what is considered the “ oldest preserved song with notation in the world”, Far Out Magazine has reported.

The tablets were excavated in Syria by French archaeologists in the early 1950s, the report added. Anne Draffkorn Kilmer, the curator at the Lowie Museum of Anthropology in Berkeley, California, worked with colleagues Richard L Crocker and Robert R Brown to “create a definitive record and booklet about the song which has been called the Sounds From Silence”.

“This approach produces harmonies rather than a melody of single notes,” Kimler was quote as saying. “The chances the number of syllables would match the notation numbers without intention are astronomical.”