What Instrument is this Ancient Man Playing

Photographer:  unknown


There's no information regarding the photograph but the file has harp player in the name.  That sounds logical in an aesthetic sense but that instrument doesn't resemble too many harps.

You're probably familiar with the modern harp which has a straight front column and the body rests against your shoulder.  The body also contains the soundbox which helps the strings resonate and sound fuller.  Note:  technically speaking, harpists call that front column, simply, the column.


To find the first harps, we will need to go back over five thousand years but we won't find this one since typically the ancients ones were open and did not have a column or used an exceptionally strange one.

WIKI:  Harp

Zen Yogi:  I always thought a lyre was an ancient ancestor of the guitar

So did I, Yogi, and in some ways it probably is but it seems its true relationship is to the harp family.


The closest I could find to the harp in the sculpture was a Celtic harp.

Zen Yogi:  that answers the question, right?

It does seem so when the Celtics have a couple of millennia of history ... but I still struck out, Yogi.

Zen Yogi:  how so?

This is a modern Celtic harp which has existed only since about the 18th Century.

Zen Yogi:  you're just bummin' out all over Silas

Maybe not, Yogi, since maybe it's a stylized version of this instrument in the sculpture.

Zen Yogi:  so who is the fellow playing it?

The mystery continues, bear buddy.


My knowledge of ancient art isn't sufficient to localize that style of carving for the figure but it seems like something we should expect from the Middle East or an ancient American culture (i.e.  Incas, etc).

Zen Yogi:  but that was far before the Celtic harp pictured above

The mystery probably won't be solved, Yogi, since the sculpture appears to be old as well.

Zen Yogi:  maybe he's unstuck in time ... or it is?

Ref:  "Slaughterhouse V" by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

That may be the best we can do, my furry bear buddy.


Zen Yogi:  don't you think it's kind of elitist to go on about things like this?

I would rather call it curiosity, Yogi, since what do I know of harps except Harpo Marx surprised everyone by being such a crazy cool player.  Musical instruments are magical beings with some origin no-one can possibly know.

Zen Yogi:  do you think musical instruments are alive, Silas?

I don't just think so, I know so, Yogi.

Zen Yogi:  how so?

The last time I broke the neck on a guitar, she was on a hot wire to the amps when a cable pulled her out of the stand.  You don't ever want to hear any being make a noise like that, my furry buddy.

Zen Yogi:  that was the Galaxy Guitar?

Yep and don't even remind of what a heartbreaker that moment was.  She didn't have all her stars yet but she was definitely the Galaxy Guitar.

Zen Yogi:  you resurrected her when she lives today!

Let's not play it like that, bear buddy, since that's pointlessly disrespectful.  I know I saved her with huge help from people who are much better at fixing things than I.

Zen Yogi:  so instruments really are alive?

Well, I can tell you the Galaxy Guitar is.

Zen Yogi:  she isn't twinkling

She doesn't twinkle unless she moves ... but all of us are like that.

Zen Yogi:  dance, dance, dance?

Move your feet to the music, Yogi.