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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 theory was a variation of an earlier theory, talked about in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica's articles about the guitar, cithara and rotta, which were written by Kathleen Schlesinger. [5] Where Winternitz later focused on the cittern, Schlesinger concentrated on the chain of instrument evolution from lyre to guitar.
The Anglo-Saxon lyre, also known as the Germanic lyre, a rotta, or the Viking lyre, is a large plucked and strummed lyre that was played in Anglo-Saxon England, and more widely, in Germanic regions of northwestern Europe. The oldest lyre found in England dates before 450 AD and the most recent dates to the 10th century.
Its origin is found in the word lyric, derived via Latin lyricus from the Greek λυρικός (lurikós), [2] the adjectival form of lyre. [3] It is often employed to relate to the capability of a lyricist .
The rotta (also rotte, chrotta or hrotta) is a type of lyre that was widely used in north-western Europe from pre-Christian to medieval times. It a descendant of the ancient lyre which originated in western Asia, was adopted in Ancient Egypt, and then adopted and adapted by the Ancient Greeks as the cithara. [1] One variant is the Anglo-Saxon lyre.
The Cylix of Apollo with the tortoise-shell lyre, on a 5th century BC drinking cup . Lyre; According to the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, after stealing his brother Apollo's sacred cattle, Hermes was inspired to build an instrument out of a tortoise shell; he attached horns, and gut-string, to the shell and invented the first lyre. Afterwards, Hermes ...
The instrument had a "superstructure" that reminded him of the "yoke" on the cithara lyre and "enormous ornamental wings" that were remains from the cithara lyre's arms. [43] Under the theory, a neck was constructed between the two arms of the lyre, and then the arms of the lyre became vestigial, as "wings" (on the cittern "buckles"). [41]
[1] [2] All of the instruments of the ancient Greek lyre family were played by strumming the strings, but modern African lyres are most often plucked; a few yoke lutes are played with a bow. [ 2 ] The sound box can be either bowl-shaped (321.21) or box-shaped (321.22).