[2] The playing position was different from other psalteries, as the Rotte might be held like a harp, leaned sideways (flat against the musician's chest), or rested on the lap.

[7] Similarly, harps show background through the strings if the artist painted sufficient detail.

[1] The artists and church in the 4th-5th centuries A.D. wrote about a triangular-shaped psalterium, holy to them because the 3 sides represented the Trinity.

[1] This fondness for the idea of the psalterium didn't overcome the early church's (1st-2nd century A.D.) overall program of shunning the use of musical instruments, which they associated with paganism.

[1] In the Carolingian Renaissance, they looked at images and descriptions of the triangular-shaped psalterium and didn't realize that it was an "open, vertical, angular harp" of Asian style, once familiar to Christians.