Editing String instrument (section)

== Lutes ==
{{further|History of lute-family instruments}}
{{multiple image|caption_align=center|header_align=center
 | align = right
 | image2 = Mérida pandurium.jpg
 | width2 = 120
 | alt2 = Sculpture of a Roman pandura in Spain
 | caption2 =Spanish [[stele]] of a boy with a [[pandura]].<ref>{{cite web |title=The Deceased is the Young Lutaia Lupata Who is Shown Playing the Lute or Pandurium |date=20 September 2014 |url=https://m.flickr.com/#/photos/julio-claudians/8098646683/ |quote=Museum information sign for the stele. Circa 2nd century AD memorial [[stele]] from [[Augusta Emerita]] in modern Spain for a Roman boy, Lutaia Lupata, showing him with his pandurium, the Roman variant of the Greek Pandura. Kept at the Museo Arqueologico, [[Mérida, Spain]]. |via=flickr}}</ref>

 | image1 = Indo-GreekBanquet.JPG
 | width1 = 165
 | alt1 = Gandhara banquet with lute player
 | caption1  = Hellenistic banquet scene from the 1st century AD, [[Hadda, Afghanistan|Hadda]], [[Gandhara]]. Lute player far right.
}}

Musicologists have put forth examples of that 4th-century BC technology, looking at engraved images that have survived. The earliest image showing a lute-like instrument came from [[Mesopotamia]] prior to 3000 BC.<ref name=Dumbrillp321>{{harvnb|Dumbrill|2005|p=321}}</ref> A [[cylinder seal]] from {{Circa|3100 BC}} or earlier (now in the possession of the British Museum) shows what is thought to be a woman playing a stick lute.<ref name="Dumbrillp321" /><ref name=Britishmuseum>{{cite web |url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1447477&partId=1&people=24615&peoA=24615-3-17&page=1 |title=Cylinder seal |access-date=2017-06-15 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170702214251/http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1447477&partId=1&people=24615&peoA=24615-3-17&page=1 |archive-date=2017-07-02 |publisher=[[British Museum]] |quote=Culture/period Uruk, Date 3100BC (circa1), Museum number 141632}}</ref> From the surviving images, theorists have categorized the Mesopotamian lutes, showing that they developed into a long variety and a short.{{sfn|Dumbrill|2005|p=310}} The line of long lutes may have developed into the [[tambur]]s and [[pandura]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Dumbrill |first=Richard J.|author-link=Richard Dumbrill (musicologist)|date=2005 |title=The Archaeomusicology of the Ancient Near East |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nlm1Kbc7P5UC&q=dumbrill%2C%20long%20lutes&pg=PA320 |location=Victoria, British Columbia |publisher=Trafford Publishing |pages=319–320 |isbn=1-4120-5538-5|oclc=1020920823|quote=The long-necked lute in the OED is orthographed as tambura; tambora, tamera, tumboora; tambur(a) and tanpoora. We have an Arabic Õunbur; Persian tanbur; Armenian pandir; Georgian panturi, and a Serbo-Croat tamburitza. The Greeks called it pandura; panduros; phanduros; panduris or pandurion. The Latin is pandura. It is attested as a Nubian instrument in the third century BC. The earliest literary allusion to lutes in Greece comes from [[Anaxilas (comic poet)|Anaxilas]] in his play ''The Lyre-maker'' as 'trichordos'... According to [[Julius Pollux|Pollux]], the trichordon (sic) was [[Assyria]]n and they gave it the name pandoura...These instruments survive today in the form of the various Arabian ''tunbar''...}}</ref> The line of short lutes was further developed to the east of Mesopotamia, in [[Bactria]], [[Gandhara]], and Northwest India, and shown in sculpture from the 2nd century BC through the 4th or 5th centuries AD.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=https://iranicaonline.org/articles/barbat|title=Barbat|encyclopedia=[[Encyclopædia Iranica]]|date=1988-12-15 |access-date=2023-06-15|url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150517011447/http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/barbat |archive-date=2015-05-17 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://collections.lacma.org/node/201622|title=Five Celestial Musicians|website=LACMA.org|access-date=15 May 2017|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171010211908/http://collections.lacma.org/node/201622|archive-date=10 October 2017}} Views 3 & 4 show a musician playing a 4th- to 5th-century lute-like instrument, excavated in Gandhara, and part of a Los Angeles County Art Museum collection of ''Five Celestial Musicians''</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.clevelandart.org/art/1980.15|title=Bracket with two musicians 100s, Pakistan, Gandhara, probably Butkara in Swat, Kushan Period (1st century-320)|publisher=The Cleveland Museum of Art|access-date=March 25, 2015|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402101154/http://www.clevelandart.org/art/1980.15|archive-date=April 2, 2015}}</ref>

During the [[medieval era]], instrument development varied in different regions of the world. Middle Eastern rebecs represented breakthroughs in terms of shape and strings, with a half a pear shape using three strings. Early versions of the violin and fiddle, by comparison, emerged in Europe through instruments such as the [[gittern]], a four-stringed precursor to the guitar, and basic [[lute]]s. These instruments typically used catgut (animal intestine) and other materials, including silk, for their strings.