Lyre

[4] The earliest reference to the word "lyre" is the Mycenaean Greek ru-ra-ta-e, meaning "lyrists" and written in the Linear B script.

[11] However, older pictorial evidence of bull lyres exist in other parts of Mesopotamia and Elam, including Susa.

The Egyptian thin lyre was characterized by arms that bulged outwards asymmetrically; a feature also found later in Samaria (c. 375–323 BCE).

In contrast, thin lyres in Syria and Phoenicia (c. 700 BCE) were symmetrical in shape and had straight arms with a perpendicular yoke which formed the outline of a rectangle.

[1] The kinnor is an ancient Israelite musical instrument that is thought to be a type of thin lyre based on iconographic archaeological evidence.

[13]: 440  It has been referred to as the "national instrument" of the Jewish people,[14] and modern luthiers have created reproduction lyres of the "kinnor" based on this imagery.

The oldest extent example of the instrument was found in the ancient city of Uruk in what is present day Iraq, and dates to c. 2500 BCE.

The instrument reached the height of its popularity in Ancient Egypt during the reign of Pharaoh Akhenaten (c. 1353—1336 BCE).

They initially contained only round rather than flat bases; but by the Hellenistic period both constructs of lyre could be found in these regions.

However, this round-based construction of the lyre was less common than its flat-based counterparts in the east, and by c. 1750 BCE the instrument had died out completely in this region.

The earliest picture of a Greek lyre appears in the famous sarcophagus of Hagia Triada (a Minoan settlement in Crete).

[16][17] The lyre of classical antiquity was ordinarily played by being strummed like a guitar or a zither, rather than being plucked with the fingers as with a harp.

A classical lyre has a hollow body or sound-chest (also known as soundbox or resonator), which, in ancient Greek tradition, was made out of turtle shell.

[6] Before Greek civilization had assumed its historic form (c. 1200 BCE), there was likely to have been great freedom and independence of different localities in the matter of lyre stringing, which is corroborated by the antique use of the chromatic (half-tone) and enharmonic (quarter-tone) tunings - pointing to an early exuberance, and perhaps also to a bias towards refinements of intonation.

The earliest known lyre had four strings, tuned to create a tetrachord or series of four tones filling in the interval of a perfect fourth.

The accuracy of this representation cannot be insisted upon, the vase painters being little mindful of the complete expression of details; yet one may suppose their tendency would be rather to imitate than to invent a number.

[6] According to ancient Greek mythology, the young god Hermes stole a herd of sacred cows from Apollo.

In order not to be followed, he made shoes for the cows which were facing backwards, making it appear that the animals had walked in the opposite direction.

Some mythic masters like Musaeus, and Thamyris were believed to have been born in Thrace, another place of extensive Greek colonization.

The cultural peak of ancient Egypt, and thus the possible age of the earliest instruments of this type, predates the 5th century classic Greece.

[21] Fragmented tuning pegs and bridges made of wood have been discovered from the Iron Age industrial settlement in the Ramsau valley at Dürrnberg, Austria.

[21] Possible further wooden tuning pegs have been found in Glastonbury in Somerset in England and Biskupin in Poland.

[20][22] In 1988, a stone bust from the 2nd or 1st century BCE was discovered in Brittany, France which depicts a figure wearing a torc playing a seven-string lyre.

Appearing in warrior graves of the first millennium CE, these lyres differ from the lyres of the Mediterranean antiquity, by a long, shallow and broadly rectangular shape, with a hollow soundbox curving at the base, and two hollow arms connected across the top by an integrated crossbar or ‘yoke.

[24] Some instruments called "lyres" were played with a bow in Europe and parts of the Middle East, namely the Arabic rebab and its descendants,[25] including the Byzantine lyra.

A Roman fresco from Pompeii , 1st century CE, depicting a man in a theatre mask and a woman wearing a garland while playing a lyre
The Mycenaean sarcophagus of Hagia Triada, 14th century BCE, depicting the earliest lyre with seven strings, held by a man with long robe, third from the left.
A lyre from Ancient Egypt , found in Thebes
A bull lyrist on the Standard of Ur , c. 2500 BCE
Excavated at Tel Megiddo , a lyre player 1350-1150 BCE, identified as a likely kinnor by scholars. [ 12 ] During the Iron Age, Megiddo was a royal city in the Kingdom of Israel.
Lyre with tortoiseshell body ( rhyton , c. 475 BC )
Pothos (Desire), restored as Apollo Citharoedus during the Roman era (1st or 2nd century CE, based on a Greek work c. 300 BCE ); the cithara strings are not extant.
2nd or 1st century BCE bust found in the fortress of Paule , in Brittany
Reproduction of the lyre from the Sutton Hoo royal burial (England), c. 600 CE
Picture of a 1960s Ntongoli (Bowl Lyre) from St. Cecilia's Hall, Edinburgh
Picture of a 1960s Ntongoli (Bowl Lyre) from St. Cecilia's Hall , Edinburgh
Gärtner lyre; this modern lyre was created by Edmund Pracht and W. Lothar Gärtner in 1926.
The lyre as a symbol of poetry in the Pushkinska metro station in Kharkiv as photographed in 2010, the accompanying poetry by Aleksandr Pushkin as seen on this photo was removed from the station in January 2024. [ 27 ]