78 BULLETIN 136, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



With this group is classified the auto harp (95237), whose strings 

 are sounded by the manipulation of a series of bars. 



INSTRUMENTS WITII STOPPED STRINGS, PICKED 



Some of the most ancient instruments of oriental races belong to 

 this group, as well as the medieval lute and the modern guitar, banjo, 

 zither, and mandolin. Confucius, the Chinese philosopher, was so 

 fond of a certain musical instrument that it was called the lyre of 

 Confucius. It is now called the "scholar's lute" (54023, pi.' 33c). 

 Another ancient Chinese instrument of this class is the ki moon 

 guitar," two specimens of which are exhibited (95729 and 13044). 

 The "tamboura" (or tanboura) is one of the simplest and most 

 ancient of these instruments, and was known to the Assyrians and 

 Egyptians 3,000 years ago. An Egyptian tamboura is 95244, while 

 95312 is a small tamboura from Turkey, its sound hole filled with an 

 openwork parchment rosette. A large tamboura from Cairo 

 (95175) is strung with three brass and five steel strings, passed over 

 a bridge of dark redwood. It has 17 frets of gut wound around the 

 finger board. The "nofre," almost identical in construction, had a 

 very long neck, two or four strings, and was often provided with 

 frets consisting of cord wound around the neck of the instrument 

 at carefully calculated distances. This instrument shows that the 

 Egyptians at an early date had learned to produce on a few strings. 

 by means of a fretted finger board, a larger number of tones than 

 was obtainable on the harp. The influence of the nofre and tam- 

 boura is seen in the lute and mandolin with pear-shaped bodies and 

 in the guitar with its flat back, also in the banjo. It will be noted 

 that all these instruments have vibrating, plucked strings passed 

 over frets or bridges. 



The lute is an instrument with a body shaped like half a pear, 

 and it is especially traced in ancient India. Persia, and countries 

 influenced by their civilization. It always had a round sound hole, 

 and usually had both open and stopped strings and frets on the 

 finger board that gave semitones. The peg box is always at an 

 angle with the neck. The various forms of its name suggest that it 

 passed from Arabia and Egypt into northern Africa and was car- 

 ried by the Moors into Spain, whence it spread over all Europe. 

 The medieval lute flourished during the period of creative Gothic 

 architecture, subsided as the violin quartet arose, and became obso- 

 lete with the coming of the pianoforte. Originally the lute had four 

 strings, but others were added in course of time. They were picked 

 cither with the fingers or with a quill. The medieval lute was so 

 hard to keep in tune that Matheson said, "A hiterist 80 years old 

 has certainly spent 60 years in tuning his instrument." The oldest 

 instrumental compositions we possess were written for the lute and 



