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AFRICAN LYRES |
Roger Blench
This page is intended to contain
information about the African lyre. The lyre is related to the
pan-Mediterranean lyre known in antiquity and probably originating in Sumeria
or that region. It was carried down the Nile in two forms, as the small,
tortoise-shell resonated lyre and the larger, ground-standing instrument, today
surviving as the beqena in Ethiopia,
but clearly related to the Greek kithara.
The mpa shows the area where the small lyre is currently played, and the red
area is the extension of the distribution In Arabia, where the instrument was
brought as a consequence of the slave trade. The smaller area in yellow is the
main area where the larger beqena
type instruments are played.
Map 1. African and Arabian lyres
