Anglo-Saxon lyre
Despite this, knowledge of the instrument was largely forgotten until the 19th century when two lyres were found in cemetery excavations in southwest Germany.
"[2] The Museum of London Archaeology describes the lyre as the most important stringed instrument in the ancient world.
From northwestern Europe—particularly from England and Germany—an ever-growing number of wooden lyres have been excavated from warrior graves of the first millennium AD.
Today the lyre is defined as an instrument where the strings are parallel to the soundboard, similar to a violin or guitar.
In Old English the lyre was called a "hearpe" and in old Norse a "harpa", the word coming from Latin, "to pluck".
[4] An instrument called a rote or rotta appears in medieval manuscripts from the 8th to the 16th century,[5] where the name is sometimes applied to illustrations of box-like lyres with straight or waisted sides.
[6] The rote is probably related to the equivalent Irish word cruit and also the Welsh bowed lyre known as the crwth.
[17] The maple fragments of the lyre reveal beaver hair pressed onto it indicating a fur-lined carrying bag.
[28] The wooden lyre had almost entirely decayed except for a dark soil stain revealing its outline.
Fragments of wood and metal fittings of iron, silver and gilded copper-alloy were preserved in their original positions.
[3] The lyre had been broken in two at some time during its life and put back together using iron, gilded copper-alloy and silver repair fittings.
[3] At least 30 lyre finds of this type have been discovered in archaeological excavations, including one in Denmark, eleven in England, eight in Germany, two in the Netherlands, three in Norway and four in Sweden.
The material for the bridges on the lyres varies greatly, including bronze, amber, antler, horn, willow and pine.
The Vespasian Psalter, an early 8th-century Anglo-Saxon illustrated book originating from Southumbria (Northern Mercia), contains the best image of the lyre found.
The image is a common one repeated across the Christian world, usually with David playing a harp; however, in some English versions he has an Anglo-Saxon lyre, such as the one in the Vespasian Psalter.
[34] Another image of the lyre being plucked can be found in the Utrecht Psalter, a 9th Century book of illustrations from the Netherlands.
In five of the lyre finds, evidence of a wrist strap has been found to take the weight of the left arm.
The only contemporary account of lyres comes from the Frankish monk and music theorist Hucbald in his book De Harmonica Institutione, written around 880 AD.
[38] Mentions of the lyre in literature commonly associate it as accompanying storytelling, being used during celebrations or in context of war.
þaér wæs gidd ond gléo: gomela Scilding felafricgende feorran rehte· wílum hildedéor hearpan wynne gomelwudu grétte· hwílum gyd áwræc sóð ond sárlíc· hwílum syllíc spell rehte æfter rihte rúmheort cyning· there was song and glee: old Scylding who has heard tell of many things, from long ago narrated; at times this battle-daring one the harp for pleasure the old-wood played; sometimes recited a song, true and tragic; sometimes strange tales he related rightly, the open-hearted king Bede, relating the story of Cædmon (the "first" English poet), describes how the lyre was passed around during feasts, so that as part of the merriment people could pick it up and sing songs.
[40] A distinction between Mediterranean and northern strands of lyre culture dates from much earlier than the Middle Ages.
[41] In the 4th century BC a lyre was depicted on a broad gold Scythian headband known as the Sakhnivka Plate.
[41][43] Another find of the same type is a wooden instrument excavated in 1973 from a medieval settlement belonging to the Dzhetyasar culture in southwest Kazakhstan.
Dating to the 4th century AD, recent re-examination of the artefact has emphasized its close similarity to Germanic lyres.
A later lyre gauloise is shown on a stone bust from the 2nd or 1st century BC which was discovered in Brittany, France in 1988.
[47][48] An excavation in 2010 in High Pasture Cave on the Isle of Skye, Scotland, revealed a piece of wood dating from the 4th century BC, which is interpreted by some non-experts to be a bridge of a lyre, though this claim is hotly disputed.
The six-string Germanic lyre tradition appears in the archaeological record by the 2nd century AD, in a settlement at Habenhausen near Bremen, Germany.
