View source for Byzantine lyra

{{short description|String instrument}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2014}}
{{Infobox Instrument
|image=Byzantine Lyra Museo Nazionale.jpg
|image_capt = Earliest known depiction of lyra in a Byzantine ivory casket<!--Where exactly did this casket come from? --> (900 – 1100 AD). (''Museo Nazionale, Florence'')<ref name=Butler>{{harvnb|Butler|2003}}</ref>
|name= Byzantine lyra
|names= Byzantine lyra, lira, lūrā, Rum Kemençe, medieval fiddle, pear-shaped rebec
|hornbostel_sachs=321.321–71
|hornbostel_sachs_desc=[[List of musical instruments by Hornbostel-Sachs number: 321.321|Necked bowl lute]] sounded by a bow
|background=string
|developed=9th century AD
|range=
|related=
* [[Lyre|Classical lyra]], ([[Greek language|Greek]]: ''Πολίτικη Λύρα'', [[Turkish language|Turkish]]: ''Armudî kemençe'')
* [[Pandura]]
* [[Kemenche]]
* [[Cello]]
* [[Lijerica]] ({{IPA|sh|lijɛritsa}})
* [[Calabrian Lira|Lira (Calabrian)]] (Italian: ''Lira Calabrese'')
* [[Lira da braccio]]
* [[Lyra (Cretan)]] ([[Greek language|Greek]]: ''Λύρα'')
* [[Lyre]] (''terminology'')
* [[Fiddle]]
* [[Gadulka]] ({{langx|bg|Гъдулка}})
* [[Gusle]]
* [[Gudok]] (''{{langx|ru|link=no|гудок}}'' ''{{langx|uk|гудок}}'')
* [[Rabāb]] ([[Arabic]] '''الرباب''')
* [[Violin]]
}}

The '''Byzantine lyra''' or '''lira''' ({{langx|el|λύρα}}) was a [[Medieval music|medieval]] [[Bow (music)|bowed]] string musical instrument in the [[Byzantine Empire|Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire]]. In its popular form, the lyra was a [[wiktionary:go pear-shaped|pear-shaped]] instrument with three to five [[Strings (music)|strings]], held upright and played by stopping the strings from the side with the fingertips and fingernails. The oldest known depiction of the instrument is on a Byzantine ivory casket, dated to circa 900–1100 AD, preserved in the [[Bargello]] in [[Florence]] (''Museo Nazionale, Florence, Coll. Carrand, No.26'').<ref name="Butler" /> Modern variants of the lyra are still played throughout the [[Balkans]] and in areas surrounding the [[Black Sea]] (and most of the historical territories of the Byzantine Empire), including [[Greece]], [[Crete]] ([[Cretan lyra]]), [[Karpathos]] (Karpathian lyra), [[Albania]], [[Montenegro]], [[Serbia]], [[Bulgaria]] (the ''[[gadulka]]''), [[North Macedonia]], [[Croatia]] ([[Dalmatia|Dalmatian]] ''[[lijerica]]''), [[Italy]] (the [[Calabrian lira]]), [[Turkey]] (the ''[[politiki lyra]]'' and the [[Kemençe of the Black Sea|Pontic lyra]] or ''kemençe'') and [[Armenia]].{{citation needed|date=August 2019}}

==History==
The most likely origin of the Byzantine lyra is with the long-necked, pear-shaped [[pandura]], a [[bouzouki]]-like, plucked stringed instrument; however, with the use of a [[Bow (music)|bow]], changes to the size and construction of the instrument was made. The first recorded reference to a bowed lyra is from the 9th century, by [[Persian people|Persian]] geographer [[Ibn Khordadbeh|Ibn Khurradadhbih]] (d. 911); in his lexicographical discussion of instruments, he cites the lyra (''lūrā'') as the 'typical' instrument of the Byzantines, along with the ''urghun'' (organ), ''shilyani'' (probably a type of [[harp]] or [[lyre]]) and the ''salandj'' (probably a [[bagpipe]]).<ref name=Kartomi124>{{harvnb|Kartomi|1990|p=124}}</ref> Together with the Arabic ''[[rebab]]—''which sees its ancient roots in [[India|Indian]] instruments like the ''[[sarangi]]—''the lyra is widely considered to be the ancestor of many modern European bowed instruments.<ref name=brytanica/>

The lyra spread widely via [[Byzantine]] [[trade routes]] between Eurasia and Africa; European writers in the 11th and 12th centuries used the terms '[[fiddle]]' and 'lira' interchangeably when colloquially referring to bowed instruments.<ref name=brytanica>{{harvnb|Encyclopædia Britannica|2009}}</ref> The Middle Eastern ''[[rabāb]]'' was probably inspired by early [[South Asia|South Asian]] lap-fiddles, like the Indo-Nepalese ''sarangi'', before later arriving in [[Western Europe]], likely through continued Arab presence in the [[Iberian Peninsula]]. Both instruments spread further throughout the continent, birthing many bowed fiddles across Europe such as the medieval ''[[rebec]]'', the Swedish ''silverbasharpa'' (and eventual ''[[nyckelharpa]]''), and the Scando-Icelandic [[talharpa]], among others. A notable example is the Italian ''[[lira da braccio]]'',<ref name="brytanica"/> a 15th-century [[Bow (music)|bowed]] [[string instrument]] that many consider to be the predecessor of the contemporary violin.<ref name=Arkenberg109>{{harvnb|Arkenberg|2002}}</ref>

==Terminology==
From the organological point of view, the Byzantine lyra is in fact an instrument belonging to the family of bowed lutes; however, the designation ''lyra'' (''Greek: λύρα ~ lūrā, English: lyre'') constitute of a terminological survival relating to the performing method of an [[ancient Greece|ancient Greek]] instrument. The use of the term ''lyra'' for a bowed instrument was first recorded in the 9th century, probably as an application of the term [[lyre]] of the [[stringed musical instrument]] of [[classical antiquity]] to the new bowed string instrument.
The Byzantine lyra is sometimes informally called a ''medieval fiddle'', or a ''pear-shaped rebec'', or a ''kemanche'', terms that may be used today to refer to a general category of similar stringed instruments played with a horsehair bow.

==Characteristics==
The Byzantine lyra had rear tuning pegs set in a flat peg similarly to the medieval [[fiddle]] and unlike the [[rabāb]] and [[rebec]]. However, the strings were touched by the nails laterally and not pressed from above with the flesh of the finger such as in the violin.
The lyra depicted on the Byzantine ivory casket of Museo Nazionale, Florence (900 – 1100 AD) has two strings and [[wiktionary:go pear-shaped|pear-shaped]] body with long and narrow neck. The [[sound board (music)|soundboard]] is depicted without [[soundhole]]s and as a distinct and attached piece, however this might be due to stylistic [[abstraction]]. The lyras of Novgorod (1190 AD) are closer morphologically to the present bowed lyras (''[[#Gallery|see gallery]]''): they were [[wiktionary:go pear-shaped|pear-shaped]] and 40&nbsp;cm long; they had [[Semicircle|semi-circular]] [[soundhole]]s and provision for three strings.<ref name=Bates109>{{harvnb|Baines|1992|p=109}}</ref> The middle string served as a [[drone (music)|drone]] while fingering the others by finger or fingernail alone, downwards or sidewards against the string, for there was no [[fingerboard]] to press them against: a method which gives the notes as clearly as the violin and remains normal in lyras both in Asia as well as on present bowed instruments in post-Byzantine regions such as the [[Cretan lyra]].<ref name="Bates109"/>

==In use today==
The lyra of the [[Byzantine empire]] survives in many post-Byzantine regions until the present day even closely to its [[archetype]] form. Examples are the ''Politiki lyra'' (i.e. lyra of the Polis, or City, referring to Constantinople) ({{langx|el|πολίτικη λύρα}}) also known as the [[Classical kemence]] ([[Turkish language|Turkish]]: Klasik kemençe or Armudî kemençe) from [[Constantinople]], used in today's [[Turkey]] and [[Greece]], the [[Cretan lyra]] ({{langx|el|κρητική λύρα}}) and the one used in the Greek islands of the [[Dodecanese]], the [[gadulka]] ({{langx|bg|Гъдулка}}) in [[Bulgaria]], the [[gusle]] in Serbia and [[Montenegro]], the [[Calabrian lira]] ({{langx|it|lira Calabrese}}) in Italy, and the [[Pontic lyra]] (Greek: ποντιακή λύρα; Turkish: Karadeniz kemençe) in the [[Pontic Greeks|Pontic Greek]] communities, that existed (or still exist) around the shores of the [[Black Sea]]. The [[gudok]], a historical Russian instrument that survived until the 19th century, is also a variant of the Byzantine lyra.

Similarly to the lyras found at Novgorod, the [[Cretan lyra]], the [[Gadulka]], the [[Calabrian Lira]] and the Greek lyras of [[Karpathos]], [[Macedonia (Greece)|Macedonia]], [[Thrace]] and [[Mount Olympus]] are manufactured from a single wood block ([[wikt:monobloc|monoblock]]), sculpted into a pear-shaped body. The slightly rounded body of the lyra is prolonged by a neck ending on the top in a block which is also pear-shaped or spherical. In that, are set the pegs facing and extending forward. The [[Sound board (music)|soundboard]] is also carved with a shallower arch and has two small semi-circular, D-shaped [[soundhole]]s. The [[Cretan lyra]] is probably the most widely used surviving form of the Byzantine lyra, except that in [[Crete]] instrument-making has been influenced by that of the violin. Currently, numerous models tend to integrate the shape of the scroll, the finger board and other morphology of some secondary characteristics of the violin.

The modern variants of the lyra are tuned in various ways: '''LA–RE–SOL''' (or '''a–d–g''', i.&nbsp;e. by [[Perfect fifth|fifth]]s) on the [[Cretan lyra]]; '''LA–RE–SOL''' (or '''a–d–g''', where SOL [=g] is a [[perfect fourth]] higher than RE [=d] rather than a fifth lower) in [[Thrace]] and on [[Karpathos]] and the [[Dodecanese]]; '''LA–LA–MI''' ('''a–a–e''', with the second LA [=a] an [[octave]] lower), in [[Drama, Greece|Drama]]; '''MI–SOL–MI''' ('''e–g–e''', i.&nbsp;e. a [[minor third]] and a [[major sixth]]) on the [[gadulka]]; '''LA–RE–LA''' ('''a–d–a''', a fifth and a fourth) on the Classical Kemenche.{{clarify|date=September 2011}}

==Gallery==
<gallery heights="140px" class="center">
File:Gdulka-bow copy.jpg|Bulgarian gadulka
File:Creatn Lyre2.jpg|Cretan lyra 
File:Lira calabrese.JPG|[[Calabrian lira]]
File:Lirica Dalmacija EMZ 300109.jpg|A lijerica from [[Dalmatia]]
File:Lyres2.jpg|Different types of Cretan lyra in the Museum of Greek Folk Instruments in Athens
</gallery>

==Notes==
<references />

==References==
* {{citation
 |last=Arkenberg|first=Rebecca
 |title=Renaissance Violins
 |date=October 2002
 | publisher=[[Metropolitan Museum of Art]]
 |url=http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/renv/hd_renv.htm
 |access-date=2006-09-22
}}
* {{citation
 |last=Baines
 |first=Anthony
 |title=The Oxford Companion to Musical Instruments
 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]
 |date=November 1992
 |isbn=0-19-311334-1
 |url-access=registration
 |url=https://archive.org/details/oxfordcompaniont00bain
 }}
* {{citation
 |last=Butler
 |first=Paul
 |title=The rebec project
 |date=October 2003
 | publisher=Personal website
 |url=http://crab.rutgers.edu/~pbutler/rebec.html
 |access-date=2009-03-10
}}
* {{citation |last=Encyclopædia Britannica
 |title= lira
 |url= http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/343204/lira
 |publisher=[[Encyclopædia Britannica Online]]
 |access-date=2009-02-20
 |year=2009 }}
* {{citation
 |last=Kartomi
 |first=Margaret J.
 |title=On Concepts and Classifications of Musical Instruments
 |publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]]
 |year=1990
 |isbn=0-226-42548-7}}
* {{citation
 |last=Grillet |first=Laurent
 |title=Les ancetres du violon v.1| year=1901
 |publisher=Paris
}}

{{Byzantine music}}
{{Music topics}}
{{Greek musical instruments}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Byzantine Lyra}}
[[Category:Bowed string instruments]]
[[Category:Byzantine music]]
[[Category:Early musical instruments]]
[[Category:European musical instruments]]
[[Category:Greek musical instruments]]