arched harp

{{multiple image|caption_align=center|header_align=center

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| header= Open vs closed harps

|image3 =Frame harp from an ancient Greek vase.jpg

|width3 = 152

|alt3 = Possible trigonon frame harp

|caption3 =Frame harp, the opening is closed.

| image2 = Greek open angular harp.jpg

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| alt2 = Possible trigonon harp

| caption2 =Open angular-harp.

|image1 = Marble seated harp player MET gr47.100.1.R.jpg

|width1=187

|caption1=Cycladic culture harp player, 2800–2700 B.C

|footer = Although these are angular harps, the idea is the same. Closing the opening with a column support makes an "open" harp into a frame harp. However at least one expert researcher looked at the Cycladic frame harps and felt that, even though the arched harp's opening was closed, it was still an arched harp.{{Cite journal |last=Lawergren |first=Bo |title=A "Cycladic" Harpist in the Metropolitan Museum of Art |date=Fall 2000 |journal=Source: Notes in the History of Art |volume=20 |issue=1 |pages=5–7 |doi=10.1086/sou.20.1.23206959 |s2cid=191408889 |quote=The rod and box form a closed frame, and although the instrument is often called a "frame harp," structurally it is just a member of the arched harp family...}}

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The harp is a composite chordophone.{{Cite journal |last1=Erich M. von Hornbostel |last2=Curt Sachs |date=March 1961 |title=Classification of Musical Instruments |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/842168 |journal=The Galpin Society Journal |publisher=Galpin Society |volume=14 |pages=22–23 |jstor=842168 |translator1=Anthony Baines |translator2=Klaus P. Wachsmann}} It has string-carrying neck permanently attached to a resonator body that receives the vibrations of the strings and emits them as sound. Its strings are stretched between the neck and the body. What distinguishes it from lutes is that the plane of its strings is not parallel to the sound-emitting surface of the instrument's body, but perpendicular to it. The body and neck form an arch in arched harps, or two sides of a triangle in angular harps.{{Cite Grove |last1 = DeVale |first1 = Sue Carole |author-link1 =|author-link2 =|date = 20 January 2001|title = Harp, I. Introduction|url = https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.45738 |quote=Normally triangular in outline, all harps have three basic structural components: resonator, neck and strings...the neck of an arched harp curves away from the resonator while the neck of an angular harp makes a sharp angle with it}} If the triangle is completed, with a third side joining the body and neck, it is a frame harp. Harps without the third side are open harps.

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|image1= Arched Harp (shoulder harp) MET DP302724.jpg

|caption1=Boat-shaped body

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|image2=Bow harp ca. 2030–1640 B.C., Egypt, Middle Kingdom.jpg

|caption2=Ladle-shaped body

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|footer=Bow harps without the skin soundboard, showing the neck and wooden-bowl body with string-holding rod.

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The body of the bowed harp is resonator. Its shape is varied, and it can have the shape of a spade, spoon or ladle, boat or box, among others. 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.{{Cite web |last=Xie Jin |title=Reflection upon Chinese Recently Unearthed Konghous in Xin Jiang Autonomous Region |url=https://musicology.cn/news/news_299.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304083704/https://musicology.cn/news/news_299.html |archive-date=4 March 2016 |publisher=Musicology Department, Shanghai Conservatory of Music, China |quote=The konghous in Xinjiang ...skin cover...one string has been found. It is made of ox tendon...}} Their other end is connected to the neck via a tuning device - which can be a special loop, rotating leather ring or tuning peg. 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.

Bow harps have relatively few strings, usually fewer than 10, compared to angular harps, which usually have 15 to 25 strings. Historically, strings were made of sinew (animal tendons). Other materials have included gut (animal intestines),{{Cite web |title=Ngombi (arched Harp) Fang/Kele people 19th century |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/502965 |website=Metropolitan Museum of Art}} plant fiber, braided hemp,{{Cite web |title=lyre; harp |url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Af-4416 |website=The British Museum |quote=It has four (Hemp) strings and two hide thongs}} cotton cord,{{Cite web |title=Saùng-Gauk Burmese 19th century |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/502040 |website=Metropolitan Museum of Art}} silk,{{Cite book |last=Williamson |first=Robert M. |url=https://archive.org/details/sciencestringins00ross |title=The Science of String Instruments |date=2010 |publisher=Springer |isbn=9781441971104 |editor-last=Thomas D. Rossing |pages=[https://archive.org/details/sciencestringins00ross/page/n176 167]–170 |url-access=limited}} nylon,{{Cite web |title=Ngombi Tsogo mid-20th century |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/504481 |website=Metropolitan Museum of Art}} and wire.{{Cite web |title=ARCHED HARP OR BOW HARP |url=https://collections.ed.ac.uk/mimed/record/49737 |website=The University of Eidenburgh, Musical Instruments Museums Eidenburgh |quote=5 wire strings attached to lateral pegs in neck and attached at lower end to perforated wooden plaque anchored into the belly}}

{{Multiple images

|header=Vertical and horizontal arched harps

| image1 = Harpist-AO 12454-IMG 0635-black.jpg

| width1 = 148

| alt1 = Harpist. Moulded terracotta relief, early 2nd millennium BCE. From Eshunna

| caption1 = Tell Asmar or Eshnunna, Iraq. Harpist with horizontal arched harp. Moulded terracotta relief, 1900-1500 B.C.

|image2 = Harp Player, Khafaja Stone Tablet, 3000 BC.jpg

|width2 = 168

|alt2= Relief sculpture showing harpist

|caption2 = Bow harp, Harp, Khafajah, Iraq Stone Tablet, circa 3000-2334 BC.{{Cite book |last=Richard J. Dumbrill |title=The Archaeomusicology of the Ancient Near East |pages=185, 189, 190, 198, 199}} Alternate info: Khafajah banquet scene, c. 2650-2550 BC.

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Bowed harps are diverse in both size and shape, from instruments small enough for a child to hold in their arms to harps made from logs, left lying flat on the ground.

Similar to the angular harps, a vertical and horizontal variant can be distinguished here. The strings of the vertical bowed harp are more or less vertical, and most of the time the resonating body of the instrument is below the neck. The high notes are closer to the musician, the low notes are further away, just like in the case of today's Western harp. The body of the horizontal bowed harp is in a horizontal position, and the neck typically grows out of the end of the instrument body farthest from the musician.

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|image1= Harp pictogram 2b, Uruk IV (ca. 3350-3200 BC).jpg

|caption1= Harp pictogram, Uruk, period IV (ca. 3350-3200 BC)

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|image2= Harp pictogram 4 strings, Uruk period IV (ca. 3350-3200 BC).jpg

|caption2= Harp pictogram, Uruk, period IV (ca. 3350-3200 BC).

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The musical bow has been identified by some researchers as "the earliest chordophone".{{Cite journal |last=Bo Lawergren |year=1988 |title=The Origin of Musical Instruments and Sounds |journal=Anthropos |edition=83 |publisher=Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH |volume=83 |issue=1/3 |page=36 |jstor=40461485}} The earliest image of a musical bow from circa 15,000 B.C. was found in the Cave of the Trois-Frères.{{Cite book |last=Marcuse |first=Sibyl |title=Musical Instruments, A Comprehensive Dictionary |date=1964 |publisher=Doubleday |location=Garden City, New York |page=350 |chapter=Musical Bow}} Musical bows need resonators, and a calabash gourd is used for that purpose. 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.

A 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 image is a pictograph, an early form of writing, showing a three-stringed bow harp.{{Cite book |last1=Philippe Roi |url=https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2702712 |title=La Théorie Sensorielle. I - Les Analogies Sensorielles |last2=Tristan Girard |date=2013 |publisher=First Edition Design Publishing | ssrn=2702712 |quote=[note: page 7 has pictures of 4th century B.C. harp pictograms.]}} 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.{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2001 |title=Grove Music Online |url=https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.13895 |last=Lawergren |first=Bo |doi=10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.13895 |article=Iran, 2. 3rd millennium BCE (i) Arched harps|url-access=subscription }}

By 3000 B.C., bow harps were common in the Middle East.{{Cite journal |last=Lawergren |first=Bo |title=A 'Cycladic' Harpist in the Metropolitan Museum of Art |url=https://www.academia.edu/2506967 |journal=Notes in the History of Art |date=Autumn 2000 |volume=20 |issue=1 (Special Issue on Forgeries of Ancient Art) |page=4 |quote=Harp on sealing from Chogha Mish (Iran), 3300-3100 B.C.E. From P. Delougaz and H. J. Kantor, Chogha Mish I: The First Five Seasons of Excavations 1961-1971, ed. A. Alizadeh (Chicago: 1996), pI. 45:N.}} They were commonly depicted in Egypt by 2500 B.C. Harps depicted were always arched until about 2000 B.C. After that, harps were increasingly angular, until the arched harp disappeared from Mesopotamia and Iran. Frame harps used in Europe were invented about 1000 C.E. Separately, the Greeks had a frame harp, called spindle harp, shown well developed about 430 B.C. India also had early bow harps, similar to musical bows, visible in cave art which has not been precisely dated.{{Cite book |last=Meshkeris |first=Veronika |title=Studien zur Musikarchäologie I. Saiteninstrumente im archäologischen Kontext |date=2000 |publisher=Verlag Marie Leidorf |editor-last=Ellen Hickmann |series=Orient-Archäologie, Band 6 (Orient Department of the German Archaeological Institute, Berlin) |location=Rahden/Westphalia |pages=74, 75, 83 |chapter=Musical Phenomena of Convergency in Eurasian Rock Art |isbn=9783896466365 |quote=plate VII, figures 5, 6 and 7... Then, in the late Bronze Age and Iron Age (2nd-1st mill. B.C.) the attention of the painters shifted from imaginary images to ritual participants...development of musical culture is confirmed by the appearance of different musical instruments...the bowed harp and hourglass drum (Plate VII, 5-7, India)... |editor-last2=Ricardo Eichmann |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/saiteninstrument0000ictm/page/82/mode/2up?view=theater}}

In excavations of Megiddo in the former land of Canaan, a harp image was found engraved on a paving stone dating from between 3300 and 3100 B.C. The image shows an apparent framed harp, probably in the hands of a woman, which was found in a group of 20 carvings on floor stones.

According to Joachim Braun, this image of a stringed instrument predates the previously known images of Cycladic frame harps by 1000 years and is said to represent the oldest known forerunner of the Chang and angular harp in the Caucasus.{{Cite book |last=Braun |first=Joachim |title=The Earliest Depiction of a Harp (Megiddo, late 4th millenium B.C.): Effects on Classical and Contemporary Cultures |date=2000 |series=Studien zur Musikarchäologie |publisher=Verlag Marie Leidorf, Rahden |editor-last=Ellen Hickmann |location=Westphalia |pages=5–10 |chapter=I. Saiteninstrumente im archäologischen Kontext. (Orient-Archäologie, Band 6) |isbn=9783896466365 |editor-last2=Ricardo Eichmann |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/saiteninstrument0000ictm/page/5/mode/1up?view=theater}} Braun draws a typological connection to the tor-sapl-yukh angular harp played by the West Siberian Khanty and Mansi people up to the beginning of the 20th century, the free ends of which are connected by a strut. However, such an interpretation is not universally accepted; other authors want to be cautious in recognizing a harp or a lyre.

File:Musicians portrayed on pottery found at Chogha Mish archeological site.jpg, Iran, 3300-3100 B.C. Lower figure: drawing of five fragments made of unfired clay. Height of the harp player in the music scene about 1.5 centimeters. University of Chicago Oriental Institute]]

An early image of a bow harp can be seen on a cylinder seal from Iran that dates from 3300 to 3100 B.C., found in Chogha Mish (western Iranian province of Khuzestan).{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Harp |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Iranica |url=http://www.iranica.com/articles/harp |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100907053922/http://www.iranica.com/articles/harp |url-status=usurped |archive-date=7 September 2010 |last=Lawergren |first=Bo |date=12 December 2003 |accessdate=21 July 2011}}{{Cite book |last1=Pinhas Delougaz |url=http://oi.uchicago.edu/pdf/oip101_text.pdf |title=Chogha Mish. Band I. The First Five Seasons of Excavations 1961–1971. Part 1: Text. |last2=Helene J. Kantor |date=1996 |publisher=Oriental Institute Publications of the University of Chicago |location=Chicago |pages=f, 147 |quote=One man plays a four-stringed harp, which here in its first appearance is already part of the ensemble...We have here what appears to be the earliest known representation of an ensemble with the essential elements of an orchestra, musicians playing string, percussion, and wind instruments accompanying a singer. |access-date=2 November 2022 |archive-date=7 October 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121007165406/http://oi.uchicago.edu/pdf/oip101_text.pdf |url-status=dead }}

It was found during excavations from 1961 to 1978 by the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago.[https://iranicaonline.org/img/v4/v4f7a026_f1_300.jpg Photo of cylinder seal from Chogha Mish, from Encyclopedia Iranica online] Though broken, small fragments were put together to form an orchestra image which includes the harp. It is, perhaps, the oldest known image of an orchestra or ensemble.

In the image, a presumably female protagonist sits on the right-hand side. Facing her is a servant holding a milk jug for her, while opposite four musicians are also seated. A musician is playing a four-string bowed harp, and the figure below is beating a drum standing on the floor in front of it. Further to the left a musician is blowing a horn, and behind him the singer is holding a hand behind his cheek, as oriental singers still do today, such a Kurdish Dengbêjdo. The large jug with a handle in the middle and the scene on the right make it clear that the band is performing at a religious festival. Other illustrations of horizontal bowed harps come from Shar-i Sokhta (3000-2300 B.C.) in eastern and southeastern Iran.

{{Multiple images

| image1 = Mesopotamia, Periodo proto-dinastico, frammento di contenitore in clorite con procesisone di musici, 2700-2500 ac ca, da bismaya.jpg

| width1 = 258

| caption1 = Steatite vase from Bismaya, Iraq, 2700-2500 BC. Musicians' procession with horizontal arched harps. University of Chicago Oriental Institute.

|image3= Kiš, Iraq, detail of banquet showing harp.png

|caption3= Kiš, Iraq, 3000 to 2334 BC. Detail of banquet showing arched harp. Louvre.

|width3=100

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The harp was zà-mí in the Sumerian language.{{Cite book |last=Richard J. Dumbrill |title=The Archaeomusicology of the Ancient Near East |pages=181–183, 185 |quote=This alone would determine that by ZÀ.MÍ = sammû, it was the harp that was meant and not the lyre.}} The Akkadian word for harp was sammû, possibly a loanword from Sumerian.

Among the Sumerian pictographs from around 3000 B.C. is one in Uruk that resembles a vertical bowed harp.{{Cite book |last=Richard J. Dumbrill |title=The Archaeomusicology of the Ancient Near East |pages=185, 194 |quote=Rare example of an Uruk pictograph for which there is yet no equating phonetic value. This is probably one of the earliest pictorial representation of a harp}} In this period similar representations also occur on stone tablets and seal impressions.{{Cite book |last=Richard J. Dumbrill |title=The Archaeomusicology of the Ancient Near East |pages=186–194}} A horizontal bowed harp can also be recognized on a Bismaya steatite vase fragment from the second half of the 3rd millennium B.C.

The remains of two 13-stringed harps were found in the royal cemetery of the city of Ur from around 2500 B.C.{{Cite web |title=harp, 121198,b |url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_1928-1010-1-b |website=British Museum |quote=Curator's comments: harp had eleven strings prior to July 1955; when under repair another pin was found and an additional string was fitted; x-ray photographs indicated a further pin buried in Woolley's plaster which was removed and fitted on the upright.}} One harp was reconstructed and is now in the British Museum. All the wooden parts of the instruments were destroyed, but they could be easily reconstructed based on sketches from excavation, the gold and silver decoration embedded in bitumen that partially covered them, and images on seals.

In Mesopotamia, the bowed harp was used until around 1900 B.C., when it was replaced by the angular harp.

File:Banquet plaque, Tell Agrab, Main Shara Temple, Early Dynastic period, 2700-2600 BC, limestone - Oriental Institute Museum, University of Chicago - DSC07369.JPG|Tell Agrab, Iraq, 3000 to 2334 B.C. University of Chicago, Oriental Institute.

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{{Further|Ancient veena|Yazh|Silk Road transmission of Buddhism}}

{{multiple image|caption_align=center

|header=Indian arched harps

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| image4 = Sketch of Pawaya lute, 4th-5th century AD.jpg

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| alt4 = Sketch of sculpture of lute, part of a door lintel found at Pawaya, 4th-5th century AD

| caption4 =Sketch of sculpture of veena-lute, part of a door lintel found in northern India at Pawaya,Gupta period, 4th-5th century AD

|image3= Harpist (possibly Paficasikha) walking, accompanying a processional dancer, Amardvati, ca. 200 A. D. British Museum.jpg

|caption3 = Relief of harper playing vina, Amaravati ca. 200 A.D. East coast of India. British Museum.

|width3 = 135

|alt3 = Amaravati arched harp

| image1= Two seated female harpists, part of the chorus of a dance of apsarases, Bharhut, ca. 175 B. C. Indian Museum, Calcutta.jpg

|width1=128

| alt1 = relief sculpture, arched harp, Bharhut

| caption1 =Relief sculpture, Indian vina harps, Bharhut, 175 B.C. Northern India, eastern side. Players are using small fingersized plectrums.

|image2= Amaravati harp vinas, ca. 200 A. D.jpg|Amaravati harp vinas, ca. 200 A. D.

|caption2 = Relief of harpers playing horizontal veenas, using plectrums. Amaravati, ca. 200 A.D. British Museum.

|width2 = 200

|alt2 = Amaravati arched harp

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In India today, the term veena (vina, bin) includes a large variety of stringed instruments. In ancient Indian times, vina was used to name bowed harps and lutes and later to stick zithers.{{Cite book |last=Marcuse |first=Sibyl |title=Musical Instruments, A Comprehensive Dictionary |date=1964 |publisher=Doubleday |location=Garden City, New York |page=564 |article=Vīnā |url= https://archive.org/details/musicalinstrumen00marcus/page/564/mode/2up}} Names of arched harps included the fingerplucked chitra vīṇā with seven strings, the vipanchi vīṇā with nine strings (plucked with a plectrum) and the mattakokila vīṇā (a harp or possibly board zither) with 21 strings. Today, the mainstream instruments using the name veena include the Rudra veena stick zither and Saraswati veena lute.

In India, the vina harp had a history (as documented in sculpture) from circa 175 B.C. in the sculpture of Bharhut to artwork in circa 800 A.D. In looking for origins, ethnomusicologist Curt Sachs noted that the instrument in artwork in Mesopotamia and India was very close. He wrote that the horizontal harp seen in the Mesopotamian Bismaya art has the same "shape, position and manner of playing" as the Bharhut harp. Sachs felt that the link to the Bismaya harp was direct, that it could not be related to the Egyptian harp. His reasons included that both the Indian and Iraq harps were played horizontally with plectrums, and Egyptian were not. In spite of this, Sachs also wrote that the Egyptian bīnꞏt and Indian bīn (a north Indian variant of vīna) were the same word.

When Mesopotamia and Iran abandoned the use of the arched harp for the angular harp towards about 1900 B.C., Egypt and India continued to use the instrument. The development of the angular harp did not occur in India, nor did the chang angular harp type, widespread in the Middle Ages in the Orient, have an Indian counterpart at any time. The arched harp lasted in art in India until circa 800 A.D., and later in connected communities in Southeast Asia.

File:Indus script 311, harp pictogram.jpg

Among the writings of the Indus Valley Civilization (3000–1800 BC) there were pictograms resembling a harp, but after the Indus script stopped being used, there wasn't a depiction of a harp up to the 2nd century B.C.{{Cite web |last=Lawergren |first=Bo |title=Angular Harps Through the Ages – A Causal History |url=http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/physics/faculty/lawergren/repository/files/AngularHarpsThroughtheAges.pdf |access-date=12 August 2011 |language=English}} Upon the re-appearance of Indian pictorial art, bowed harps were immediately visible, so it is possible that the type of instrument was in continuous use until then. The instruments mentioned as vina or vipanci in the Natya Shastra, the oldest Indian collection of texts on music written in Sanskrit circa 200 B.C.E. — 200 C.E., were probably multi-stringed bowed harps.{{cite journal |title=The Parts of a Vīnā |author= Ananda K. Coomaraswamy |journal= Journal of the American Oriental Society |date= 1930 |volume= 50 |pages= 244–253 |publisher= American Oriental Society Stable |doi= 10.2307/593078 |jstor= 593078 |url= https://www.jstor.org/stable/593078|url-access= subscription }} In Old Tamil literature, the term yazh is used for "harp".{{cite web |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20100210134738/http://www.rso.cornell.edu/spicmacay/spicmacay_files/home_files/instr.html |archive-date= 10 February 2010 |url=http://www.rso.cornell.edu/spicmacay/spicmacay_files/home_files/instr.html |title=Musical instruments played in India |publisher=Chapter of SPICMACAY, Cornell University|access-date=16 November 2011 |quote= The yazh is an ancient Dravidian instrument, somewhat like a harp. It was named for the fact that the tip of stem of this instrument was carved into the head of the animal yaali (vyala in Sanskrit). The yazh was an open-stringed polyphonous instrument, with a wooden boat-shaped skin-covered resonator and an ebony stem. It was tuned by either pegs or rings of gut moved up and down the string...was displaced by the veena in the middle ages}} The Indian bow harp is most often used in a religious context related to Buddhism.

File:Nimbu Bhoj cave, harper.jpg, India, date uncertain, possibly 2nd millennium B.C. - 1st millennium B.C. Bronze Age harper playing a bow harp; the resonator for the harp is the box on its end.]]

Paintings in caves have revealed growth in human culture, as the focus of paintings moved from animals and hunting scenes to images of "ritual participants." In India in the rock caves of Bhimbetka have preserved paintings dating from the Mesolithic (older than 5000 BC) to historical times. In addition to numerous depictions of animals, there are scenes from the "late Bronze Age and Iron Age" of ritual dances and musicians.

Over time, the subject matter of paintings began to change, and "painters shifted from imaginary images to ritual participants." These ritual would come to include music, dancers and musicians. The timeline hasn't been settled.

An early version of the bow harp has been found in 5 cave paintings in the Pachmarhi hills. The harps are bows with 1-5 strings and one end attached to a resonator. The cave names are Batki Bundal, Nimbu Bhoj, Rajat Prapat, Kanji Ghat, and Langi Nadi.

According to the descriptions in the Vedas, the same instrumentation as in Choga Mish—bowed harp, flute, drum and song—was used in the 1st millennium B.C.in ancient India to accompany dancers. Similarly in the shelters in the Pachmarhi hills, all four classes of musical instruments (under Hornbostel-Sachs) can be found in paintings, idiophones, membranophones, chordophones and aerophones.{{Cite web |last=Dubey-Pathak |first=Meenakshi |date=9 September 2016 |title=Musical depictions in Indian rock art |url=https://www.bradshawfoundation.com/news/cave_art_paintings.php?id=Musical-depictions-in-Indian-rock-art |website=Bradshaw Foundation}}

The modern term vina was originally applied to arched harps, the ancient veena. Literary evidence is found in Brahmana texts (before 6th century B.C.), according to which the harp was said to have had "a hundred strings" (called satatantri).{{Cite book |last=Kaufmann |first=Walter |title=Musikgeschichte in Bildern |date=1981 |publisher=Werner Bachmann. VEB German Music Publishers |volume=2.8 Music of Antiquity, Ancient India |location=Leipzig |pages=22, 39 |language=de |trans-title=Music history in pictures}}

India's arched harp spread along the silk road to China. Buddhists carried the instrument with them into Gandhara in northern India (art survives 1st-4th centuries A.D.), and along the silk road to the civilizations including Balkh in Bactria and Samarkand in Sogdia.{{Cite book |last=Lawergren |first=Bo |title=Conservation of Ancient Sites on the Silk Road: Proceedings of the Second |editor-last=Neville Agnew |chapter=Harps on the Ancient Silk Road |date=3 August 2010 |publisher=Getty Publications |isbn=9781606060131 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n8YAyXzJE2IC&pg=PA119}} Images of the arched harp can be seen in Buddhist paintings from the 9th through 11th centuries A.D. in the Mogao Caves (Caves 327 and 465) and Yulin Caves in Dunhuang, China, and the Kizil Caves and Bezeklik Caves (cave 438) in Xinjiang, China. Images have also been found in Khotan in Xinjiang.{{Cite web |last=Samantha Li |date=4 August 2017 |title=The Kuchean Harp: Konghous in the Chinese Oasis Kingdom of Kucha |url=https://www.buddhistdoor.net/features/the-kuchean-harp-konghous-in-the-chinese-oasis-kingdom-of-kucha/ |website=Buddhist Door Global}} The Mogao caves marked the furthest point of spread of the arched harp eastward into China along the Silk Road.

{{multiple image|caption_align=center

|header=Arched harps, Gandhara

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|image2= Gandhara harpist, using an arched harp.jpg

|caption2 = Gandhara harpist. Giuseppe Tucci Museum of Oriental Art

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|alt2 = Gandhara harpist, using an arched harp.

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|image4= Vina arched, Sikri Yusufzai stupa (3rd-4th century A.D.).jpg

|caption4 = Sikri Yusufzai stupa (3rd-4th century A.D.), Gandhara. Harper holding plectrum in air.

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|alt4 = arched harp from Sikri Yusufzai stupa

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Indian bowed harps have been depicted on stone reliefs at Buddhist cult sites (stupas) from the Sunga period (2nd–1st centuries BC) in central north India, among others: five-string harps on the stupas of Bharhut and Bodhgaya , seven-string harps in Sanchi;Bigamudre Chaitanya Deva: Musical Instruments . National Book Trust, New Delhi 1977, p. 85 also on reliefs at the Butkara stupa in the Swat valley in the Gandhara region (2nd century AD), at the stupas of Amaravati and Nagarjunakonda (both 2nd/3rd centuries AD).Walter Kaufmann : Ancient India. Music history in pictures. Volume II. Music of Antiquity. Delivery 8th Ed. Werner Bachmann. VEB German Music Publishers, Leipzig 1981, pp. 50, 92, 96, 106 Buddha himself, after Jataka 243, was an excellent vina player at the court of Varanasi before retiring from worldly life.{{cite journal|first= Bo |last= Lawergren |title= Buddha as a Musician: An Illustration of a Jātaka Story |journal= Artibus Asiae |volume= 54 |issue= 3/4 |publisher= Museum Rietberg |place= Zurich |date= 1994 |page= 228 |doi= 10.2307/3250057 |jstor= 3250057 |url= https://doi.org/10.2307/3250057|url-access= subscription }}

In southern India in the 7th/8th century, harps could have as many as 14 strings and were used for singing accompaniment.Richard Widdess: The Oral in Writing: Early Indian Musical Notations. In: Early Music , Vol. 24, No. 3, (Early Music from Around the World) Oxford Journals, August 1996, pp. 391–402+405, here p. 402

Towards the end of the 1st millennium the bowed harp all but disappeared from India. Harps appear in Indian iconography until the about circa 1000 A.D. Indian arched harps were thought to be lost until 1983, when the bin-baja of the Pardhan of Madhya Pradesh was noticed by ethnomusicologist Roderic Knight, one surviving relic of India's arched-harp tradition.{{Cite magazine |last=Knight |first=Roderic |date=Summer 1983 |title=The bana of Bachargaon and beyond |url=https://www2.oberlin.edu/faculty/rknight/PubsIndia/83%20Bana%20of%20Bachargaon.pdf |magazine=Oberlin Alumni Magazine |publisher=Oberlin College |volume=79 |issue=3}} One reason the harp remained hidden for so long is that it is mainly used for private religious expression, and the musicians who play the instrument take special care not to play it publicly outside of ceremony. The bin-baja (bīṇ bājā, also Gogia bana) is a five-string arched harp in the Mandla area of the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, played by male musicians of the Pardhan caste to accompany epic songs. The harp has a boat-shaped body and a string connector in a sawtooth pattern, with bamboo laid beneath the strings.{{Cite web |last=Kersale |first=Patrick |title=The arched harp in India |url=https://www.soundsofangkor.org/english/ancient-music/the-arched-harp-in-india/}} Only the musicians of the Gogia, a small social subgroup of the Pardhans, play the bin-baja for their patrons, the Gonds, instead of the bowed lute bana that Pardhans otherwise use to accompany songs.{{Cite journal |last=Knight |first=Roderic |date=Winter 1985 |title=The Harp in India Today |url=https://doi.org/10.2307/852322 |journal=Ethnomusicology |publisher=University of Illinois Press |volume=29 |issue=1 |pages=9–28 |doi=10.2307/852322 |jstor=852322|url-access=subscription }}

Outside of India arched harps have survived in places culturally connected to India. These include the waji of Nuristan, the 5-7 string t'nah or na den or 6-string tinaou of the Karen from Thailand and Myanmar, and the saung of Burma.{{Cite journal |last=Marshall |first=Harry Ignatius |date=29 April 1922 |title=The Karen People of Burma: A Study in Anthropology and Ethnology |url=https://archive.org/details/karenpeopleburm01marsgoog/page/n340/mode/2up?q=harp&view=theater |journal=The Ohio State University Bulletin |volume=26 |issue=13 |page=facing title page, 319 |quote=t'na, a harp}}{{Cite web |last=Kersale |first=Patrick |title=La harpe préangkorienne |trans-title=The pre-Angkorian Harp |url=https://www.soundsofangkor.org/fran%C3%A7ais/musique-ancienne/harpes/harpe-pr%C3%A9angkorienne-vf/ |access-date=4 March 2023}}{{Cite book |title=The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments |date=1984 |publisher=Macmillan |editor-last=Sadie Stanley |volume=2 |page=736 |chapter=Na den}}{{Cite book |title=The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments |date=1984 |publisher=Macmillan |editor-last=Sadie Stanley |volume=3 |page=598 |chapter=Tinaou}}

File:Harpist, Mathura-school artwork, 1st century C.E.jpg|Harpist, Mathura-school artwork, Mathura, Northern India, 1st century C.E. Horizontal bow-harp, the striker to play the strings is held in the Harper's raised hand.

File:Gandhara harpist, bow harp.jpg|Gandhara harpist, bow harp, 100-300 A.D. Horizontal bow-harp, played with striker. The harp is being held on the neck, over the strings.

File:Arched harp from Gandharan artwork, 2nd century CE.jpg|Arched harp from Gandhara, 2nd century A.D. Found at Loriyan Tangai, Pakistan.

Indra and his harpist visit the Buddha in Indrasala Cave.jpg|Buddhist artwork from Gandhara, Sikri Yusufzai stupa, 3rd-4th century A.D. Indra and his harpist visit the Buddha in Indrasala Cave.

File:Saraswati Third Century AD.jpg|Saraswati playing an arched harp, 3rd century A.D. Manasa-Mandsaur area of Madhya Pradesh, India. Unlike the Gandhara images, this image shows the harp being played with both hands and not with a plectrum.

File:Lady with a Harp, Brooklin Museum, ACCESSION NUMBER 2002.65.jpg|5th century A.D. sculpture from the Gupta Empire, India, showing a lady playing an arched harp.

File:Vina on decorated bowl, MET LK.1975.419.jpg|alt=Vina harp on decorated bowl at the Metropolitan Museum of art, MET LK.1975.419|5th-6th century A.D. India, decorated bowl with harp vina. Southern India, probably Andhra Pradesh

File:Harp, detail from pedestal, My Son E1, view 4, 7th century, Quang Nam - Museum of Cham Sculpture - Danang, Vietnam - DSC01721.jpg|Vietnam, Champa arched harp, Mỹ Sơn, 7th century

File:Borobudur lute and harp, 9th century CE.jpg|Borobudur lute and harp, 9th century CE

File:Champa Harp.jpg|Vietnam, Champa harp, part of relief sculpture from Phong Lệ, 10th century.

File:Cloesup of The women sing and play to the prince.jpg|12th century A.D., Ananda Temple at Bagan, Myanmar

File:A little lunchtime music (10845286724).jpg|Modern saung

File:Pin, Cambodian harp.jpg|A Cambodian woman plays a modern pin.

{{Multiple images

|image1= Kafir harp.jpg

|caption1= Line drawing of a Kafir harp.

|width1= 120

}}

Overland from India in north-eastern Afghanistan, the Nuristani people have the Kafir harp or waji,{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Grove Music Online |url=https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.L2291671 |last=Dick |first=Alastair |date=8 December 2014 |doi=10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.L2291671 |article=Waji [wuj]|url-access=subscription }} though the instrument has become rare. To make it, a musical bow is embedded into the resonator's skin soundboard through two holes, resting with the open arch of the bow facing the sky. The resonator is boat shadows with incurved sides, each end of the boat pointed. The resonating skin soundboard is stretched across the bowl of the resonator and the edges are pulled and secured on the resonator's bottom side with a thong sewn through the edges. The bow is held tight to the resonator with chords running from each end of the resonator to the closest side of the bow.

The player, seated on the floor or on a chair, holds the waji cradled in his left arm. The strings are in an approximately horizontal position and are strummed with a pine plectrum in the right hand. The plucking is usually done in an up and down motion across all strings. Strings that are not meant to sound are muted with the fingers of the left hand gripping from the outside.

{{Further|Saung}}

Arched harps spread to Southeast Asia to create the saung in Burma,{{Cite journal |last=Becker |first=Judith |year=1967 |title=The Migration of the Arched Harp from India to Burma |journal=The Galpin Society Journal |volume=20 |pages=17–23 |doi=10.2307/841500 |jstor=841500 |quote=[Note: a photo of the Bawbawgyi Pagoda relief sculpture (showing the earliest Burmese harp known) can be found on page 23]}} the pin in Cambodia,{{Cite web |last=Kersalé |first=Patrick |title=In the footsteps of the Khmer harp |url=https://www.soundsofangkor.org/english/ancient-music/harps/ |website=Sounds of Angkor}} the t'na of the Karen and Mon peoples, the harp seen in ancient artwork from Champa in Vietnam, and the harps displayed in Malaysia in the reliefs of Borobudur.{{Cite web |last=Kersalé |first=Patrick |title=The arched harp in Java |url=https://www.soundsofangkor.org/english/ancient-music/the-arched-harp-in-java/ |website=Sounds of Angkor}}

{{Multiple images

|align=left

|header= Southeast Asian harps

| image1= Khmer harp (pin).jpg

|width1=173

| alt1 = relief sculpture, arched harp

| caption1 =Khmer pin harp from Sambor Prei Kuk. 7th c. National Museum of Cambodia.{{Cite web |last=Patrick Kersalé |title=Pre-Angkorian Harp |url=https://www.soundsofangkor.org/english/ancient-music/harp-pre-angkorian/ |website=Sounds of Angkor}}

|image2= Saung harp musician.jpg

|caption2= A saung musician in 1900.

|width2=173

}}

The saung entered Burma between pre-500 A.D. to after 800 A.D. The dates represent modern debates among researchers. 800 A.D. and after is based on medieval Burmese artwork from 1000 to 1200 A.D. and the relationship between Burma and Bengal in that same period. Before 500 A.D. represents the idea that the harp was found in earlier Pyu artwork which resembled the Amaravati harp (200-400 A.D.) and on the relationship between India and the Pyus in the 1st-5th centuries A.D.

The earliest archaeological evidence of the harp is at the Bawbawgyi Pagoda of the Sri Ksetra kingdom of the Pyu people, near present-day Pyay (Prome).{{Citation |last=Williamson |first=Muriel C. |title=Saùng-gauk |url=http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000045701 |work=Oxford Music Online |year=2001 |access-date=18 August 2022 |publisher=Oxford University Press |language=en |doi=10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.45701 |isbn=978-1-56159-263-0|url-access=subscription }} At that site, there a relief sculpture from the mid-600s that depicts an arched harp with about five strings, in a scene with musicians and a dancer. The artwork dates to the era of expansion of Buddhism into Burma. Other evidence for an early date for the arrival of the harp in Burma comes from Chinese chronicles from the 801-802 A.D. documents from China. In that period, the Pyu Kingdom sent an embassy to China, with an orchestra of Burmese musical instruments, including two types of arched harp – a 14-string, long-necked harp topped with a phoenix head projecting forward, and a harp that curved inward. Both types were found in Amaravati artwork form 200-400 A.D.

The Saung gauk is still present in Burma as a living tradition.{{Cite book |last=Baines |first=Anthony |title=The Oxford companion to musical instruments |date=1992 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0-19-311334-1 |page=152}} The instrument was played in the royal court until the end of the kingdom. There followed a period of decline before World War II. Then in 1947, Hmat Kyi, who descended from royal woodcarvers, created 7 harps for the State Schools of Fine Arts. While rare today, there are still craftsmen in the country making the instruments.{{cite news |title= Meet one of Myanmar's last harp makers |website= Myanman Mix |date= 24 November 2020|url= https://myanmarmix.com/en/articles/meet-one-of-myanmars-last-harp-makers}} At the university level, musicologists are working to expand harp education in the country.{{cite news |title= Harpist Hopes to Improve Music Education |website= The Irrawaddy |publisher= Irrawaddy Publishing Group |url= https://www.irrawaddy.com/in-person/profile/harpist-hopes-to-improve-music-education.html}}

In Cambodia a harp called the pin ({{langx|km|ពិណ}}, {{Transliteration|km|pĭn}} {{IPA|km|pɨn|}}) was one of the most historically important instruments in Cambodian music. Originating in India, the instrument can be seen in ancient artwork. Its historical importance is emphasized by the very name for Cambodian classical music, pinpeat (Khmer: ពិណពាទ្យ).{{cite web |url= https://khmer-dictionary.appspot.com/?word=%E1%9E%96%E1%9E%B7%E1%9E%8E|title=Khmer Dictionary: ពិណ Chuon Nath's Khmer-Khmer Dictionary|author= |date= |website= khmer-dictionary.appspot.com |publisher= |access-date= 27 October 2018 |quote=...2. Pinpeatya...As time passes, the Khmer people get rid of the harp, not including the band, but the music is still called the "Pinpet"...}} Cambodians stopped using the pin about the sometime between the 13th and 15th centuries A.D. The instrument is now being restored in modern times.{{Cite news |last=Loy |first=Irwin |title=Cambodia works to revive an ancient harp, plucked from a temple wall |work=The World |publisher=Public Radio International (PRI) |url=https://theworld.org/stories/2013-10-30/cambodia-works-revive-ancient-harp-plucked-temple-wall}}{{Cite web |last=Kersale |first=Patrick |title=The true story of the Khmer harp's revival |url=https://www.soundsofangkor.org/english/ancient-music/harp-reconstruction/ |website=Sounds of Angkor}}{{cite web |url= https://khmer-dictionary.appspot.com/?word=%E1%9E%96%E1%9E%B7%E1%9E%8E|title=Khmer Dictionary: ពិណ Chuon Nath's Khmer-Khmer Dictionary|author= |date= |website= khmer-dictionary.appspot.com |publisher= |access-date= 27 October 2018 |quote=1. ពិណ [1. Harp]}}

{{Multiple images

|image1= The Karen People of Burma800.jpg

|caption1= Sgaw Karen youth, playing t' nah arched harp, 1920 A.D. The instrument is also called na den.

|width1= 140

|image2=T'na, Smithsonian, 89.4.270.jpg

|caption2= T'na harp, Karen people, Myanmar, 19th century.

|width2=230

|footer= Although the instrument could be strummed, the harpist in the above left photo is using fingers for each string, possibly damping strings as well as sounding specific strings.

}}

A third arched harp belongs to the Karen and Mon peoples, the T'na arched harp. The Karen harp is usually made with five or seven strings,The Karen People of Burma: A Study in Anthropology and Ethnology by Harry Ignatius Marshall, pp. 139-141, 162 but may have as many as 10 to 12 strings to play contemporary songs. Traditionally, harp strings were made of braided hemp thread or bamboo-vine fiber, coated with beeswax. Later cotton strings were used. Today it may be strung with silk or nylon strings or wire strings. The instrument was "strummed" and had a soft tone.

In making the T'na, it is divided into two parts, the body part and the head part. The body is usually made of one type of wood and the headstock is made of another type of wood. The body of the harp is made of hard wood hollowed out, resembling a dugout canoe with one end sharper than the other, about two feet long, 5 inches wide. The soundboard might made of barking deer hide. Two holes are drilled in the sides of the body.

The neck of the Karen harp is not curved as far inward as the Burmese saung harp. The head of the harp is made from naturally curved wood attached to the body, inserted into the sharp end. Pegs in the neck are used to tighten the strings, the other end of the strings going to a strip of wood attached to the middle of the soundboard.

According to Harry Ignatius Marshall, who was with the Karen prior to 1922, the t'na was used primarily by young men, who frequently carried the harp with them.

He reported that the T'na was used in courtship in the early 20th century. Young men would play for young women, who would answer with a t'xe mouth harp. The two could sit together, her parents listening; so long as they could hear instruments playing, the young people could have privacy.

The Karen have also made the t'na with a bamboo body, resulting in an instrument with greater resonance. The opening for the skin soundboard was made on one side of the tube, between two nodes in the bamboo. The skin was stretched across the opening and tied on the opposite side of the tube.

{{Main|Konghou}}

{{multiple image|caption_align=center|header_align=center

| align = right

|header= Buddhist artwork

|image3=Qiu-Zi arched harp, Cave 181, Kizil Caves.jpg

|caption3= A woman plays a Qiu-Zi arched harp while a dancing man leans against her. Cave 181, Kizil Caves, 7th century A.D. The harp has a resonator made from a kidney-shaped gourd.

|width3=114

| image2 = Bird of Life or Jivajivaka (共命鸟), playing a pipa or Phoenix-headed Konghou (凤首箜篌) 02.jpg

|width2=145

| alt2 = Phoenix headed konghou harp

| caption2 = Yulin Grottoes, cave 25. Bird of Life (共命鸟) or Kalaviṅka, playing Phoenix-headed Konghou (凤首箜篌). Instrument also resembles pipa. Circa 800 C.E.

| image1= Phoenix headed harp, Sui Dynasty, Mogao Caves.webp

|width1=130

| alt1 = cave painting, arched harp

| caption1 =Phoenix headed konghou harp in the hands of a flying apsara, Mogao Caves, cave 327.{{Cite book |last=Bo Lawergren |title=Conservation of Ancient Sites on the Silk Road: Proceedings of the Second |editor-last=Neville Agnew |page=119 |chapter=Harps on the Ancient Silk Road |date=3 August 2010 |publisher=Getty Publications |isbn=9781606060131 |quote=Depiction of an arched harp from the Mogao Grottoes (cave 327). |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n8YAyXzJE2IC&pg=PA119}} Western Xia (1036-1226 A.D.){{Cite web |title=DUNHUANG STUDIES - CHRONOLOGY AND HISTORY |url=http://www.silkroadfoundation.org/dunhuang/dhhistory.html |website=silkroadfoundation.org/ |quote=CREDIT - The Dunhuang webpages are researched and contributed by Prof. Ning Qiang}}

|footer=(left two:) Two members of Buddhist mythology play phoenix headed konghou harps, here shown with a bird's head on the top of each instrument. (right:) Image cropped to show Buddhist devotees singing, playing and dancing in a crowd surrounding Buddha figures, visible in the full image.

}}

Arched harps migrated to China from India by way of Gandhara, Bactria and Sogdia. Additionally, Burma sent musicians to play in the Chinese court, including two types of arched harp. One of the harps had a neck longer than the instrument's body, "the end of the neck...turned outward and the apex shaped like the head of a phoenix". This was like the later Chinese feng shou konghou ({{lang|zh|鳳首箜篌}}, literally "phoenix-headed konghou"), an arched harp, thought to have been introduced from India in the Eastern Jin dynasty (317–420 AD). "Beginning in the Sui dynasty (581–618), it was also used in {{transliteration|zh|yanyue}} (banquet music)."{{Cite web |title=Konghou |url=http://arts.cultural-china.com/en/94Arts7567.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160310144901/http://arts.cultural-china.com/en/94Arts7567.html |archive-date=10 March 2016 |website=Shanghai News and Press Bureau , cultural-china.com |quote=The phoenix-headed konghou was introduced from India in the Eastern Jin Dynasty (317-420 AD)...Beginning in the Sui Dynasty (581-618), the konghou was also used in yanyue (banquet music).}} The arched harp probably disappeared in China after 1000 A.D., coinciding with the decline of Buddhism.{{cite web |website=Sounds of Angkor |first=Patrick |last= Kersalé |title= The arched harp in China |url= https://www.soundsofangkor.org/english/ancient-music/the-arched-harp-in-china/}} The angular harp lasted longer than the arched harp in China, becoming extinct sometime in the Ming dynasty (1368 to 1644).

Chinese musical researcher Li Mei (李玫) mentioned that in the artwork in China, two kinds of arched harps can be seen.{{Cite journal |last=Li Mei (李玫) |date=Spring–Fall 2014 |title=Adaptations of Harps Reflected in Murals of the Chinese Western Regions |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/90012946 |journal=Music in Art |publisher=Research Center for Music Iconography, The Graduate Center, City University of New York |volume=39 |issue=1–2 |pages=43–55 |jstor=90012946}} One of them appears to be the standard Indian arched harp, which became the modern saung. This kind has a long wooden body and a high arched neck, carved to meet smoothly. The other type is the Qiu-Zi arched harp, named for the Qiu-Zi Grottos (Kizil Grottos). This harp appears to have been made with the body of a gourd, looking somewhat like a bean and not transitioning into the instrument's neck as smoothly as the Indian arched harp. The harp is only depicted in the Kizil Grottoes, which is why it was named for them.

File:Phoenix headed konghou 10th century.jpg|Phoenix headed konghou (Konghou fengshou), 10th century A.D., Bezeklik Caves, cave 48.{{Cite web |date=23 August 2016 |title=箜篌故事：凤首丝绸之路上的凤首箜篌 |trans-title=Konghou Story: The Phoenix-headed Konghou on the Silk Road |url=https://m.yueqixuexi.com/konghou/20160923159438_2.html |language=zh |quote=图4 柏孜克里克第48窟中的凤首箜篌 公元十世纪 (translation: Figure 4 The phoenix-headed Konghou in Cave 48, Bezeklik, 10th century AD)}}

File:Apsara playing a Phoenix-headed konghou - Yulin Cave 15.jpg|Apsara or Feintian (flying goddess 飛天女神) playing a Phoenix-headed konghou - Yulin Cave 15. Tang dynasty artistry, (618-907)

File:Arched harp, Kizil Cave 80.png|Arched harp, Kizil Cave 77, circa 7th century A.D. (Alternately dated 3rd-9th centuries A.D.)

File:Mogao Cave 465, bow harp.jpg|Mogao Cave 465, Tibetan-style bow harp. Yuan dynasty, 1227–1368.

{{Main|African harp}}

{{Multiple image|total_width = 500

|header = Types as seen in Egypt

|image1 = Harper, Funerary chapel of Hetepherakhet.jpg

|caption1 = Shovel harp. Funerary chapel of Hetepherakhet, Old Kingdom, 5th dynasty, circa 2400 B.C.

|alt1 = Harpist playing shovel harp⁷

|image2 = Harper, Stele of Djedkhonsouioufânkh.jpg

|caption2 = Ladle harp. 3rd Intermediate Period (1064-664 BC).

|alt2 = Egyptian harper playing ladle harp

|image3 = Harper, Tomb of Nakht, Thebes.jpg

|caption3 = Naviform vertical harp. Tomb of Nakht, Thebes, circa 1422-1411 BCE

|alt3 = woman playing vertical harp in Egypt

|image4 = Harper, Tomb of Ramses III, illustrated in 1809.jpg

|caption4 = Arch shape, or crescent. Harper, Tomb of Ramses III, 1186-1155 B.C. illustrated in 1809.

|Blind harper of tomb of Ramses III

|footer= According to Bo Lawergren, organologist researcher, current understanding of the Egyptian harps shows that the first Egyptian harps were shovel shaped, from about 2632-1562 B.C. From about 1562 B.C the shovel shape was largely gone, replaced by boat shaped and ladle shaped instruments, with some shoulder harps and angular harps. From 1076-332B.C. shovel and angular harps were dominant, with some ladle, 7-shaped and boat shaped harps. From 332 to 32 B.C., angular harps and crescent harps had taken over.{{Cite encyclopedia |url=https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.45738 |access-date=6 November 2022 |date=20 January 2001 |doi=10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.45738 |encyclopedia=Grove Music Online |article=Harp, II-Ancient Harps |author1=Bo Lawergren|url-access=subscription }}

}}

The harp was the most important musical instrument in ancient Egypt. The bowed harps known from Ancient Egypt from the same period (Egyptian in general bīnꞏt, b.nt, bent, benet, Coptic voina) can be roughly divided into four groups according to their chronological order and their shape.{{Cite book |last=Hickmann |first=Hans |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/orientalischemus0000hick/page/158/mode/1up?view=theater |title=Handbuch der Orientalistik. 1. Abt. Der Nahe und der Mittlere Osten. Ergänzungsband IV. Orientalische Musik. |date=1970 |publisher=EJ Brill |editor-last=Coiler |editor-first=Bertold |volume=Supplementary Volume IV Oriental Music |location=Leiden/Cologne |pages=70, 158–159 |trans-title=Handbook of Oriental Studies. 1st Dept. Near and Middle East |chapter=Altägyptische Musik (translation: Ancient Egyptian Music) |quote= [translated quote:] The harp used...by the Assyrians, but also in Elam and later by the Persians was also used by the Arabs under the designation al-gank...but also as Arab wunn, Persian van, Pahlavi von or vun...also naturalized vin, the latter expression in clear imitation of the ancient Egyptian bowed harp bn.t (bent, bjent, Coptic voina) a word that also covered the old Indian harps, later the zither-vina.}} These include shovel, ladle, naviform (boat-like), and arch or crescent.

The bowed harp was first used in the Old Kingdom, in the 4th dynasty (2723–2563 B.C.) and appears in the feast scenes of the mastabas of Saqqara and Giza. This type of harp is reminiscent of a modern spade: its small, flat, pointed body is joined by a slightly curved, stout, long neck, like a spade blade. The "spade-shaped" bowed harp was initially the only type of harp, but it was made in several sizes, with the number of strings between 4 and 6. Towards the end of the Egyptian Middle Kingdom, it disappears from iconography, and then reappears during the New Kingdom.

{{multiple image

|align=right

|header = Older way to classify

|image1 = Britannica Harp Egyptian Harp Variety.png

|width1 =250

|footer = One earlier way to classify these instruments focused on the way they were held and played. However, different kinds of instruments can be held the same way. (Left to right):{{Cite book |last=Hickmann |first=Hans |title=BULLETIN DE L'INSTITUT D'ÉGYPTE |date=1952–1953 |publisher=PRINTING OFFICE OF THE FRENCH INSTITUTE OF ORIENTAL ARCHEOLOGY |volume=35 |location=CAIRO |pages=309–315 |language=fr |trans-title=NEWSLETTER FROM THE EGYPT INSTITUTE |chapter=Les harpes de l’Egypte Pharaonique Essai.'Unr Nouvelle Classification'" |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/BIE35/page/n173/mode/2up}}

1. Standharfe, harp played standing
2. Stützharfe, stool supported
3. shoulder harp
4. Stützharfe, stool supported

Today, 1 and 3 are naviform harps, for the way the soundboxes resemble boats. 2 is a crescent or arch-shaped harp. 4 is a ladle harp, resembling a spoon.

}}

Already in the Middle Kingdom (ca. 2160–1633 BC), a new type of "ladle-shaped" harp appeared . A small, "ship-shaped" harp also became popular in the New Kingdom, gradually increasing in size over time, and eventually sometimes reaching the height of the human body.{{Cite book |last=Abeer El-Shahawy |title=The funerary art of Ancient Egypt |publisher=American University in Cairo Press |year=2005 |isbn=977-17-2353-7 |page=63}} A special type of harp of this era is the "seven-shaped" vertical bowed harp, the neck of which bends in a narrow arc and then continues horizontally, straight, in a manner reminiscent of the number 7. During the Hellenistic period (332–30 BC), "sickle-shaped" bowed harps appeared.

File:Harp player, from Tomb of Rekhmire.jpg|Arched-harp player, from Tomb of Rekhmire. Ladle harp.

File:Maler der Grabkammer des Nacht 001.jpg| Blind harper in Tomb of Nakht, TT52, 1422-1411 BCE. Ladel-shaped

File:Banquet inerkhaou dj 33 harper.jpg|Egyptian harper in Tomb of Ankerkhe, Workmen's Tombs.

File:Woman playing an arched harp, detail from a tomb wall painting at Beni Hasan.jpg|Shovel harp. Beni Hasan area tomb painting. 2040 BC -1782 B.C.

File:Tomb chapel of paätenemheb (RMO Leiden egypt saqqara 1333-1307bc) (3963497965).jpg|Tomb chapel of Paätenemheb, 1333-1307 B.C.

File:Harper, Stela of the Overseer of Priests Iki, 1981-1802 B.C.jpg|Shovel harp, resembles crescent harps from about 1500 years later. Stela of the Overseer of Priests Iki, 1981-1802 B.C.

File:Harper, tomb of Nebamun, TT17.jpg|Naviform harp. Shoulder harp. Tomb of Nebamun, TT17.

File:Harp at the access door to the temple of Mut at Karnak.jpg|Crescent harp, circa 246-222 B.C.

File:Crooked harp or 7-shaped harp, 25th dynasty.jpg|Crooked harp or 7-shaped harp, 25th dynasty

File:Egyptian harp.jpg|Ancient Egyptian naviform arched harp on display in some UK museum. New Kingdom era, Tomb of Ani (Thebes).

File:Arched Harp (shoulder harp) MET 43.2.1 EGDP013644.jpg|Shoulder harp, arched harp. circa 1390 –1295 B.C. New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty

File:Harp Hieroglyph.jpg

File:Abydos-Bold-hieroglyph-Y7.png

File:Abydos-Bold-hieroglyph-Y7A.png

File:Abydos-Bold-hieroglyph-Y7B.png

File:Abydos-Bold-hieroglyph-Y7C.png

{{Further|Ancient Greek harps|African harp}}

{{multiple image|caption_align=center|header_align=center

|align = right

|header = Greek and Roman arched harps

|image4=Harfenspielerin Römisches Fresko.jpg

|caption4=Arched harp, Pompeii, 1st century A.D.

|width4=90

|alt4=Woman from Pompeii holding harp

|image3 = Greek Plaque, c. 5th Century BCE. 500 Harp.jpg

|caption3=Greek vertical bow harp, circa 5th century BCE.

|alt3=modern depiction of relief sculpture showing Greek harp

|width3= 90

|image2 = Egyptian vertical harp, kneeling harper.jpg

|caption2 = Engraving showing Egyptian vertical arched harp

|alt2 = Engraving showing Egyptian vertical arched harp

|width2 =142

|image1 = Greek bow harp.jpg

|width1= 110

|alt1 = bow harp similar to enanga

|caption1 = A Greek bow harp from the 5th century B.C. Possible sambuca.

}}

The cithara was the main stringed instrument of ancient Greece, and other stringed instruments were known there, including the pandura lute. Although preferring the cithara, Greeks possessed both arched and angular harps whose names are known, but which academics cannot match with a specific harp. These include psalterion, pektis, trigonos, magadis, sambuca, and epigonion. Much of the surviving artwork shows angular harps. However the Greeks did use the arched harp too, which passed to Greece and Rome from Egypt.{{Cite encyclopedia |year=1964 |title=Arched harp |publisher=Doubleday and Company |location=Garden City, New York |url=https://archive.org/details/musicalinstrumen00marcus |last=Marcuse |first=Sibyl |page=20 |quote=(note:Marcuse put in her own pitch notation scale, converted here to Scientific pitch notation)}} Recovered artwork has revealed at least two pictured arched harps.{{Cite web |last=Pestcoe |first=Shlomo |title=Pandoura: The Greco-Roman Lute of Antiquity |url=http://www.shlomomusic.com/pandoura.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110929033820/http://www.shlomomusic.com/pandoura.htm |archive-date=29 September 2011 |quote=The large harp, seen on the left, is certainly Egyptian in style...this plaque is dated to the 5th century BCE, which means that it predates Alexander the Great's invasion of Egypt in 331 BCE...the obvious similarities between the depicted pandoura and the Ancient Egyptian lutes-- offers us clear evidence of the influence Egyptian musical culture must have had on the Greek vernacular music of the day.}} A relief sculpture in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, dating back to the 5th century B.C., shows a scene of musicians dressed in Greek fashion playing musical instruments, including a large vertical bowed harp similar to harps played in Egypt. Also, a vase painting shows a woman holding a small bowed harp, similar to the enanga harp used in Africa today. This last may be a sambuca, because (being small) it would have the high, effeminate tone that the sambuca was said to have.{{Cite book |last=Sachs |first=Curt |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofmusical0000unse_k1p8/page/136/mode/2up |title=The History of Musical Instruments |date=1940 |publisher=W. W. Norton |location=New York |pages=135–136|isbn=9780393020687 }}

Harps were played by women in Greece, often hetaira. In the literature of the 4th century BC and later, the term sambukistria, meaning a woman who plays the sambuke, was used for courtesans (as in general, the word psaltria, meaning a female harpist).{{Cite book |last=Landels |first=John Gray |url=https://archive.org/details/musicinancientgr0000land/page/76/mode/2up |title=Music in ancient Greece and Rome |date=1999 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=041-516-776-0 |page=76}}

The arched harp may survived in the Roman Empire at least until the 1st century A.D. Excavations at a villa near Pompeii uncovered a frescoe of a young woman playing an arched harp. (see artwork) This artwork may not be reliable as to depicting current events of its day, as Romans copied art from earlier periods.

{{Main|African harps}}

File:Three Adungu Harps.jpg

Today, the richest deposits of bowed harps are in sub-Saharan Africa; in 1984, the New Grove Encyclopedia of Musical Instruments listed about 37 entries for African arched harps (as compared to 5 entries for angular harps). They are found mainly in the parts of Central Africa north of the equator, from the western savannas to Uganda, where nearly 50 different cultures use harps.{{Cite book |last=Randel |first=Don Michael |title=The Harvard dictionary of music |date=2003 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=0-674-01163-5 |page=384}} African bowed harps have five to ten strings; it is used standing, lying down, in all possible postures to accompany singing.

While there isn't evidence that directly links Egyptian arched harps to modern African Arched harps, it can be assumed.{{cite journal |first=Bo |last= Lawergren |title= Acoustics and Evolution of Arched Harps |journal= The Galpin Society Journal |date= March 1981 |volume= 34 |pages= 110–111 |publisher= Galpin Society |doi= 10.2307/841475 |jstor= 841475 |url= https://www.jstor.org/stable/841475|url-access= subscription }} The assumption is based on the studied survival of another Egyptian musical instrument, the plucked lute, which survives as the gunbri. Ethnomusicologists in the 1960s mapped locations of different types of harp in Africa and arrived at a theory of how they arrived from Egypt and spread across the upper middle part of the continent, below the Sahara.{{cite journal |title= Human Migration and African Harps |first= Klaus |last= Wachsmann |journal= Journal of the International Folk Music Council |date= 1964 |volume= 16 |pages= 84–88 |publisher= Cambridge University Press |doi= 10.2307/835087 |jstor= 835087 |url= https://www.jstor.org/stable/835087|url-access= subscription }}

There is also a connection between Africa and Indonesia which could have introduced the harp, by way of ships sailing the monsoon winds between the two regions. The yam arrived from Indonesia and was grown in a "narrow corridor" called the "yam-belt" in "Kenya, Uganda, North Zaire/South Sudan, the Central African Republic, South Chad to Gabon/Guinea/Cameroon/Nigeria." These are also the areas where the arched harp is used. It isn't certain which direction the harp took on this sea-road, but both Indonesia and Africa used the arched harp.

African bowed harps are very diverse both in construction and decoration, which is often figurative and anthropomorphic. They are identical in that they have a body covered with a leather resonator, which is usually joined by a curved neck made of wood.{{Cite book |title=The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments |date=1984 |editor-last=Stanley |editor-first=Sadie |volume=2 |pages=156–157|article=Harp, section 6 African Harps}} In most cases, the strings can be tuned with wooden keys fitted to the neck of the instrument. The other end of the strings runs to a longitudinal string support slat, which is located either above or below the leather roof panel, or threaded through it from above and below. The integration of the neck into the body can be done in three ways:

Type 1 sits in the cavity of the body like a spoon in a teacup, held in place only by the tension of the strings.

Type 2 is tightly screwed into the tapering end of the body, like a cork in the neck of a bottle.

Type 3 is attached to a – often anthropomorphic – extension of the body carved from wood.

File:Ennanga - MET 89.4.926.jpg|Ennanga, Uganda Type 1. Ladle shaped. The string support is below the leather sound table; it pokes through the table at the neck, wedging into the neck and keeping it from being pulled further by the strings.

File:Mangbetu-Harpe anthropomorphe-Musée royal de l'Afrique centrale.jpg|Mangbetu harp, Kundi type 2. Ladle shaped. The string support is below the leather sound table.

File:Musée africain de Gunsbach-Ngombi.jpg|Ngombi, Gabon Type 3. The string support is below the leather sound table.

File:InstrumentistesNord2.jpg|2016, Cameroon. Right, arched harp with modern tuners. Left, possible gúlúm or gurmi lute.

File:Harp 2 - Collection des instruments de musique du Baron d'Erlanger.jpg|Tunisian harp, type 2. String support visible, poking through skin.

File:Harpa - Massa, Chad - Royal Museum for Central Africa - DSC06965.JPG|Chad, Masa people, type 2. Dilla.{{cite book |title= African Music A People's Art |first= Francis |last= Bebey |translator= Josephine Bennett |page= 53 |publisher= Lawrence Hill Books |place= Brooklyn, New York |date= 1975}} Visible string support.

File:Harpa - Ngbaka, Zaire - Royal Museum for Central Africa - DSC06959.JPG|Zaire, Ngbaka people, type 3. Visible string support.

File:Harpa - Fang, Gabon - Royal Museum for Central Africa - DSC06968.JPG|Gabon, Fang people, type 3.

File:PA067070 Finely carved Harp with snake skin, Mangbetu people, DRC (10202457845).jpg|Harp of the Mangbetu people, snakeskin soundboard.

{{reflist}}

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• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdM0C-RHfnU Video, Karen traditional harp music.]
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6WJr0ifLTo Video, Saung being played.]
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GW1dXuVYyRA Video, Saung being played with "Mediterranean accents".]

Category:Indian musical instruments

Category:Iranian musical instruments

Category:Egyptian musical instruments

Category:Greek musical instruments

Category:Chinese musical instruments

Category:Burmese musical instruments

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Category:Vietnamese musical instruments

Category:African musical instruments