history of guitars

The guitar is an ancient and noble instrument, whose history can be traced back over 4000 years. Many theories have been advanced about the instrument's ancestry. It has often been claimed that the guitar is a development of the lute, or even of the ancient Greek kithara. Research done by Dr. Michael Kasha in the 1960's showed these claims to be without merit. He showed that the lute is a result of a separate line of development, sharing common ancestors with the guitar, but having had no influence on its evolution. The influence in the opposite direction is undeniable, however - the guitar's immediate forefathers were a major influence on the development of the fretted lute from the fretless oud which the Moors brought with them to Spain.

The sole "evidence" for the kithara theory is the similarity
between the Greek word "kithara" and the Spanish
word "quitarra". It is hard to imagine how the guitar
could have evolved from the kithara, which was a completely
different type of instrument - namely a square-framed lap harp,
or "lyre". 

It would also be passing strange if a square-framed
seven-string lap harp had given its name to the early
Spanish 4-string "quitarra". Dr. Kasha turns the question around
and asks where the Greeks got the name "kithara", and points out that the earliest Greek kitharas had only 4 strings when they were introduced from abroad. He surmises that the Greeks hellenified the old Persian name for a 4-stringed instrument, "charter". (See below.)

The Ancestors
The earliest stringed
instruments known to
archaeologists are bowl
harps and tanburs.

Since prehistory people have made bowl harps using tortoise shells and calabashes as resonators, with a bent stick for a neck and one or more gut or silk strings. The world's museums contain many such "harps" from the ancient Sumerian, Babylonian, and Egyptian civilizations. Around 2500 - 2000 CE more advanced harps, such as the opulently carved 11-stringed instrument with gold decoration found in Queen Shub-Ad's tomb, started to appear.

                          "Queen Shub-Ad's harp" (from the Royal Cemetery in Ur)

A tanbur is defined as "a long-necked stringed instrument with a small egg- or pear-shaped body, with an arched or round back, usually with a soundboard of wood or hide, and a long, straight neck". The tanbur probably developed from the bowl harp as the neck was straightened out to allow the string/s to be pressed down to create more notes. Tomb paintings and stone carvings in Egypt testify to the fact that harps and tanburs (together with flutes and percussion instruments) were being played in ensemble 3500 - 4000 years ago.

                                  Egyptian wall painting, Thebes, 1420 BCE:


  The oldest preserved guitar-like instrument:

  At 3500 years old, this is the ultimate vintage guitar! It belonged to the Egyptian singer Har-Mose. He was buried with his tanbur close to the tomb of his employer, Sen-Mut, architect to Queen Hatshepsut, who was crowned in 1503 BCE. Sen-Mut (who, it is suspected, was far more than just chief minister and architect to the queen) built Hatshepsut's beautiful mortuary temple, which stands on the banks of the Nile to this day. Har-Moses instrument had three strings and a plectrum suspended from the neck by a cord. The soundbox was made of beautifully polished “cedar wood” and had a rawhide "soundboard". It can be seen today at the Archaeological Museum in Cairo.

What is a guitar, anyway?

To distinguish guitars from other members
of the tanbur family, we need to define what
a guitar is. Dr. Kasha defines a guitar as
having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden
soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most
often with incurved sides" .
The oldest known iconographical
representation of an instrument displaying
all the essential features of a guitar is a 
stone carving at Alaca Hayak in Turkey,
of a 3300 year old Hittite "guitar" with 
"a long fretted neck, flat top, probably flat
back, and with strikingly incurved sides".

to be continued........