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History of Lyre Musical Instruments
The oldest lyres from the Fertile Crescent are known as the eastern lyres and are distinguished from other ancient lyres by their flat base. They have been found at archaeological sites in Egypt, Syria, Anatolia, and the Levant.
The round lyre or the Western lyre also originated in Syria and Anatolia, but was not as widely used and eventually died out in the east c. 1750 BCE. The round lyre, so called for its rounded base, reappeared in ancient Greece c. 1700–1400 BCE, and then later spread throughout the Roman Empire. This lyre served as the origin of the European lyre known as the Germanic lyre or rotte that was widely used in north-western Europe from pre-Christian to medieval times.
Origin of the word Lyre
The earliest reference to the word “lyre” is the Mycenaean Greek ru-ra-ta-e, meaning “lyrists” and written in the Linear B script. In classical Greek, the word “lyre” could either refer specifically to an amateur instrument, which is a smaller version of the professional cithara and eastern-Aegean barbiton, or “lyre” can refer generally to all three instruments as a family. The English word comes via Latin from the Greek.