***Futwick, the examples of music you linked to are facsimiles of very old music manuscripts, and at least one of them is not written notation, it is tablature. The first two have only four lines, indicating that they predate the current system, which has five lines.   The last one is obviously tablature, but the instrument it's written for is not indicated.***

Feeling any irony at your statement Western notation hasn't changed because it's good enough. Wasn't always so and I suspect it isn't going to always be so soon again.

**Guitar? Lute? Vihuela? The instruments are tuned differently, and if you try to play right off lute tablature on a modern guitar, it isn't going to work.**

Just play the notes, Don, should be a piece of cake since western notation is so stable.