Stringed musical instruments : artefacts in the archaeology of Western Europe 500 B.C. to A.D. 1200.

Abstract

This dissertation takes a broad European view of stringed musical instruments as artefacts in the archaeology of later Prehistory and the early Hiddle Ages. It reports on recent finds of new data during the investigation of archaeological collections both in Britain and on the Continent, and it reassesses the significance of material already known from previous research. The discussion is set within an experimental framework of practical re.construction and other techniques (Appendix B) while its conclusions are drawn within the context of a more critical approach to the secondary sources of literature and art (Chapter 2 ) . Chapter Three considers the nature of classification and evolution, following on from the ethnographical researches of Picken (Folk Musical Instruments of Turkey 1975). This is followed in turn by considerations of ornamental a~d vestigial� d~tails (Chapter 1*), manufacture (Chapter 5), structures (Chapter 6) and both nn:.sical and non-musical aspects of their functions in early European society and culture (Chapter 7) . Among th e subjects discussed are the ancestry of the European roundlyre, which (it is suggeste d ) is likely to involve some general panEuropean Iron Age stock, and that of the 1uropean frame-harp (which i s suggested as an adaptation of- the cantilevered structure of the archaic harp under the influence of \v'estern lyre-building technolo gy . llesidual anomalous instrumental types (e.g. the forward-leaning 'kitbara' of Byzantine art and the 'quadrangular harps' of early mediaeval Ireland), previously though t to be genuine developments involved in the mainstream of European instrumental evolution, are viewed with considerable suspicion. At the end of the text there is a fully up-to-date cataloguP. of all of the relevant archaeological material, with both photographic illustrations and line-drawings of all principal finds.