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The proper names of certain Mesopotamian musical instruments are always accompanied by the divine determinative (𒀭, dingir) used for gods. [68] Furthermore, these instruments’ names appear in written lists of gods. [71] Franklin writes, "These were not symbols of the gods, but instantiations of some sort […] divinized cult-objects were ...
In Mesopotamia, a balag (or balaĝ) refers both to a Sumerian religious literary genre and also to a closely associated musical instrument.In Mesopotamian religion, Balag prayers were sung by a Gala priest as ritual acts were performed around the instrument.
The Lyres of Ur or Harps of Ur is a group of four string instruments excavated in a fragmentary condition at the Royal Cemetery at Ur in modern Iraq from 1922 onwards. They date back to the Early Dynastic III Period of Mesopotamia, between about 2550 and 2450 BC, making them the world's oldest surviving stringed instruments. [1]
It is also cited as UET VII 126 (with the excavation number U.3011). It is a lexical tablet written in Sumerian-Akkadian text from Ur. This tablet lists the names and order of the nine strings of an unidentified musical instrument (presumed to be a horizontal harp). It, therefore, refers to the parts of a musical instrument and its construction.
The earliest reference to the word "lyre" is the Mycenaean Greek ru-ra-ta-e, meaning "lyrists" and written in the Linear B script. [5] In classical Greek, the word "lyre" could either refer specifically to an amateur instrument, which is a smaller version of the professional cithara and eastern-Aegean barbiton, or "lyre" can refer generally to all three instruments as a family. [6]
The name dates back to the origins of stringed instruments, when the archery-bow had a resonator added (becoming a musical bow) and was straightened to become a lute. [4] In Sumerian a "bow" (as in bow and arrow or musical bow) or arched harp was giš.ban. [5]
It was also common in ancient (and modern-day) Armenia, and Greece. The name derives ultimately from Ancient Greek: κανών kanōn, meaning "rule, law, norm, principle". The qanun traces one of its origins to a stringed Assyrian instrument from the Old Assyrian Empire, specifically from the nineteenth century BC in Mesopotamia. [1]
Arched harps is a category in the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system for musical instruments, a type of harp. [5] The instrument may also be called bow harp. [6] With arched harps, the neck forms a continuous arc with the body and has an open gap between the two ends of the arc (open harps).