The pandura ( grc, πανδοῦρα, ''pandoura'') or pandore, an ancient
string instrument, belonged in the broad class of the
lute
A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted.
More specifically, the term "lute" can re ...
and
guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected string ...
instruments.
Akkadians played similar instruments from the 3rd millennium BC.
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...
artwork depicts such lutes from the 3rd or 4th century BC onward.
[
]
Ancient Greece
The
ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...
''pandoura'' was a medium or long-necked lute with a small resonating chamber, used by the ancient Greeks. It commonly had three strings: such an instrument was also known as the ''trichordon'' (three-stringed) (τρίχορδον, McKinnon 1984:10). Its descendants still survive as the Kartvelian
panduri
The panduri ( ka, ფანდური) is a
traditional Georgian three-string plucked instrument common in all regions of Eastern Georgia: such as Pshav-Khevsureti, Tusheti, Kakheti and Kartli
Kartli ( ka, ქართლი ) is a histori ...
, the Greek
tambouras and
bouzouki
The bouzouki (, also ; el, μπουζούκι ; alt. pl. ''bouzoukia'', from Greek ), also spelled buzuki or buzuci, is a musical instrument popular in Greece. It is a member of the long-necked lute family, with a round body with a flat top and ...
, the North African
kuitra, the Eastern Mediterranean
saz and the Balkan
tamburica
Tamburica ( or ) or tamboura ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", tamburica, тамбурица, little tamboura; hu, tambura; el, Ταμπουράς, Tampourás; sometimes written tamburrizza or tamburitza), refers to a family of long-necked lute ...
and remained popular also in the near east and eastern Europe, too, usually acquiring a third string in the course of time, since the fourth century BC.
Renato Meucci (1996) suggests that the some
Italian Renaissance
The Italian Renaissance ( it, Rinascimento ) was a period in Italian history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Europe and marked the tra ...
descendants of pandura type were called
chitarra italiana
Chitarra Italiana (; 'Italian guitar') is a lute-shaped plucked instrument with four or five single (sometimes double) strings, in a tuning similar to that of the guitar. It was common in Italy during the Renaissance era.
According to Renato Me ...
,
mandore
Mandore is a suburb Historical town located 9 km north of Jodhpur city, in the Indian state of Rajasthan.
History
Mandore is an ancient town, and was the seat of the Pratiharas of Mandavyapura, who ruled the region in the 6th century C ...
or
mandola
The mandola (US and Canada) or tenor mandola (Ireland and UK) is a fretted, stringed musical instrument. It is to the mandolin what the viola is to the violin: the four double courses of strings tuned in fifths to the same pitches as the viola ...
.
Roman
Information about Roman pandura-type instruments comes mainly from ancient Roman artwork. Under the Romans the pandura was modified: the long neck was preserved but was made wider to take four strings, and the body was either oval or slightly broader at the base, but without the inward curves of the pear-shaped instruments.
[ "Pandura" in ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', year 1911.] The word ''pandura'' was rare in classical Latin writers.
Mesopotamia
Lute-class instruments were present in
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...
since the
Akkadian era, or the third millennium
BCE.
Eastern variations
There were at least two distinct varieties of pandura.
[ One type was pear-shaped, used in Assyria and Persia.][ In this type the body had graceful inward curves which led up gradually from base to neck.][ These curves changed at the bottom end off the instrument to a more sloping outline, an elongated triangle with the corners rounded off.][ The oval type, a favourite instrument of the Egyptians, was also found in ancient Persia and among the Arabs of North Africa.][
]
Caucasus
From the ancient Greek word ''pandoura'', a comparable instrument is found in modern Chechnya and Ingushetia
Ingushetia (; russian: Ингуше́тия; inh, ГӀалгӏайче, Ghalghayče), officially the Republic of Ingushetia,; inh, Гӏалгӏай Мохк, Ghalghay Moxk is a republic of Russia located in the North Caucasus of Eastern Europe ...
, where it is known as '' phandar''. In Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to t ...
the ''panduri
The panduri ( ka, ფანდური) is a
traditional Georgian three-string plucked instrument common in all regions of Eastern Georgia: such as Pshav-Khevsureti, Tusheti, Kakheti and Kartli
Kartli ( ka, ქართლი ) is a histori ...
'' is a three-string fretted instrument. The modern Georganian ''panduri'' instrument is in the tanbur
The term ''Tanbur'' ( fa, تنبور, ) can refer to various long-necked string instruments originating in Mesopotamia, Southern or Central Asia. According to the '' New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', "terminology presents a comp ...
class.
Gallery
File:Terracotta Figure of a Woman Playing a Pandoura, Cyprus, c. 300 BC.jpg, Terracotta Figure of a Woman Playing a Pandoura, Cyprus, c. 300 BC
File:Pandoura 002.jpg, Ancient Greek Tanagra
Tanagra ( el, Τανάγρα) is a town and a municipality north of Athens in Boeotia, Greece. The seat of the municipality is the town Schimatari. It is not far from Thebes, and it was noted in antiquity for the figurines named after it. The T ...
figurine, 200 BC.
File:Indo-GreekBanquet.JPG, Short lute-family instrument on a Hellenistic
In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium i ...
-style plaster sculpture made in Hadda, Afghanistan and now at the Guimet Museum in Paris. Estimated date 1st-2nd century AD.
File:Mérida pandurium.jpg, Memorial stele for a 16-year-old Roman woman, depicted playing a pandura-type instrument, date estimated 2nd century A.D. Unearthed in 1956 at the archeological site Emerita Augusta in Spain. Kept at the ''Museo Nacional de Arte Romano'' in Mérida, Spain
Mérida () is a city and municipality of Spain, part of the Province of Badajoz, and capital of the autonomous community of Extremadura. Located in the western-central part of the Iberian Peninsula at 217 metres above sea level, the city is cros ...
.
File:Guitar-type_instrument_depicted_on_an_ancient_Roman_sarcophagus_in_marble,_British_Museum_number_1805,0703.132.jpg, Pandura-type instrument depicted on a Roman sarcophagus
A sarcophagus (plural sarcophagi or sarcophaguses) is a box-like funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word ''sarcophagus'' comes from the Gre ...
dated 3rd century AD.
File:Byzantine Pandore.gif, Roman or Byzantine pandoura from a 6th-century A.D. mosaic in the Great Palace of Constantinople. The instrument has three strings.[ ]
See also
* Phandar
* Tambouras
*Panduri
The panduri ( ka, ფანდური) is a
traditional Georgian three-string plucked instrument common in all regions of Eastern Georgia: such as Pshav-Khevsureti, Tusheti, Kakheti and Kartli
Kartli ( ka, ქართლი ) is a histori ...
* Baglamas
* Bandura
*Tanbur
The term ''Tanbur'' ( fa, تنبور, ) can refer to various long-necked string instruments originating in Mesopotamia, Southern or Central Asia. According to the '' New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', "terminology presents a comp ...
*Mandolin
A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...
References
Citations
Bibliography
*
External links
Picture of a pandura, originally published 1947 in the book ''The Great Palace of the Byzantine Emperors'' by David Talbot Rice. Henry George Farmer calls the instrument "a three-stringed pandoura" in his 1949 article ''An Early Greek Pandore''.
{{Greek musical instruments
Ancient Greek musical instruments
Necked lutes