![]() After that, harps were increasingly angular, until the arched harp disappeared from Mesopotamia and Iran. Harps depicted were always arched until about 2000 B.C. They were commonly depicted in Egypt by 2500 B.C. īy 3000 B.C., bow harps were common in the Middle East. The earliest harps appeared in Mesopotamia (vertical) and Iran (horizontal), circa 3300–3000, and researchers haven't determined if one is earlier than the other. The image is a pictograph, an early form of writing, showing a three-stringed bow harp. Ī very early depiction of a bow-shaped harp with three strings survives on a clay tablet from the Uruk period at the end of the 4th millennium. The musical bow "probably" became the bow harp when its disconnected resonator and the bow were integrated, the bow becoming the instrument's neck, and more strings were added. Musical bows need resonators, and a calabash gourd is used for that purpose. was found in the Cave of the Trois-Frères. The earliest image of a musical bow from circa 15,000 B.C. The musical bow has been identified by some researchers as "the earliest chordophone". Other materials have included gut (animal intestines), plant fiber, braided hemp, cotton cord, silk, nylon, and wire. Historically, strings were made of sinew (animal tendons). īow harps have relatively few strings, usually fewer than 10, compared to angular harps, which usually have 15 to 25 strings. The defining characteristic of the bowed harp is that its neck starts more or less in the direction of the longitudinal axis of the body, and then curves. Their other end is connected to the neck via a tuning device - which can be a special loop, rotating leather ring or tuning peg. A leather soundboard is stretched on its open surface facing the direction of the strings, and a string-holding rod usually runs along its center line, to which the strings are tied. Its shape is varied, and it can have the shape of a spade, spoon or ladle, boat or box, among others. Description Classification īow harps without the skin soundboard, showing the neck and wooden-bowl body with string-holding rod. Īlternative, the arched harp may have entered Sub-Saharan Africa from Indonesia, during trade in the Middle Ages. Portable bowed harps may have made their way from Egypt up the Nile to East Africa and, branching off from this route, also to Central and West Africa. The latter became known in China as the Phoenix-headed konghou. Additionally, Buddhist Burma sent two types of harp to Chinese court to perform, including the phoenix-headed harp. ![]() The Buddhists took the harp north from India along the silk road to China, where it was painted in the Mogao Caves and Yulin Grottos. The harp disappeared in India about the time when Hinduism displaced Buddhism. Artwork depicting the arched harp that survived in China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Burma, and Cambodia comes from Buddhist communities. Cambodia as the pin īhuddists were involved with the spread of the arched harp in Asia. It can still be found today in Sub-Saharan Africa.įrom India the arched harp was introduced into Malaysia, as well as Champa and Burma (as early as 500 A.D.) where it is still played under the name of saung, and in 7th-century A.D. (a form of ancient vina), and in Egypt until the Hellenistic Age (after 500 B.C). in the Middle East and spread along the Silk Road, the arched harp was retained in India until after 800 A.D. When the angular harp replaced the arched harp about 2000 B.C. Like Egypt, however, India continued to develop the instrument on its own undated artwork in caves shows a harp resembling a musical bow, with improvised resonators of different shapes and different numbers of added strings. The horizontal arched-bow from Sumeria spread west to ancient Greece, Rome and Minoan Crete and eastward to India. ![]() India may have had the instrument as early as Mesopotamia. in Iran and Mesopotamia and then in Egypt. The first bowed harps appeared around 3000 B.C. Īrched harps are probably the most ancient form of the harp, evolving from the musical bow. 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). The instrument may also be called bow harp. Arched harps is a category in the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system for musical instruments, a type of harp.
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