[2] Two kinds of citharas are shown: the antique rectangular,[3] and the later design with rounded body having at the point where the arms are added indications of the waist or incurvations characteristic of the outline of the Spanish guitar.

[4] The first stage in the transition is shown by a cithara or rotta[5] in which arms and transverse bar are replaced by a kind of frame repeating the outline of the body and thus completing the second lobe of the Spanish guitar.

[9] An evolution on parallel lines appears also to have taken place from the antique rectangular cithara[10] of the citharoedes, which was a favourite in Romano-Christian art.

The old German rotta[12] of the 6th century preserved in the Ethnological Museum of Berlin, and the instruments played by King David in two early Anglo-Saxon illuminated MSS., one a Psalter finished in 700,[13] the other "A Commentary on the Psalms by Cassiodorus manu Bedae" of the 8th century preserved in the Cathedral Library at Durham[14] form examples of the first stage of transition.

By the addition of a neck we obtain the clue to the origin of rectangular citterns with rounded corners and of certain instruments played with the bow whose bodies or sound chests have an outline based upon the rectangle with various modifications.

It is found among the frescoes which cover walls and barrel vaults in the palace of Qasr Amra,[15] believed to be that of Caliph Walid II.