The oldest lute on record is the Sumerian pan tur, also transcribed ban dur, and it had a completely straight neck with no separate
pegbox.
The pan tur, and all its descendants for centuries to come, had no tuning pegs but were tuned with thongs, which practically require a
straight neck.
I can't locate a proper source right now but, if memory serves me correctly, tuning pegs were invented in Byzantium some time around the beginning of
the common era, so we shouldn't expect to find bent-back peg boxes until some time after that.
Joinery, and even luthery specifically, was well developed by that time, and so I personally doubt that heavy antlers or shoulder-blade bones would
have been used for many peg boxes. :·)
So called peg disks seem to have been a popular early answer to a peghead, but I don't know for sure it they're the oldest form.
tuning pegs were invented in Byzantium some time around the beginning of the common era,
Make that "not until a few centuries into the common era", lol.
I can't remember where I came across that claim, though, and really wish I could find a source :·(
David rootsguitar - 6-30-2015 at 06:58 PM
Thanks for the input David
I'm interested in some of those details.
Also I got a hold of a Japanese Koto....since there are no tuning pegs & the bridges add to the tension I'm thinking of trying that out on my
proto-type missing link lute. Hmmmm 4 floating bridges placed at various parts of the neck?
Lol, more of an imaginative exercise than anything too serious.
its likely that there were different pockets of lute-like instruments developing in different ways at the same time...especially interested in a
pocket of people whose technology might have been limited by geographical reasons or stratified by economic or cultural reasons.
Kind of like how you might see photos of a modern horse cart made out of a recycled car axel in India but in Amish country in Ohio one would always be
built with a more traditional spoked wheel.
As for the seed trade era, Its a phrase I came up with trying to think what it would be like living in the 1500's watching new plants arrive from far
away places.
It must have been that at one time, much earlier than that, seeds were important trade items. Especially those that grew spices and medicinal
plants.
more soon!
rootsguitar - 7-1-2015 at 12:33 AM
had some extra time & read more...The record you mention seems to be the cylinder seals described in the link listed below?
here's a quote from the same link:
" Plucked lutes-- the oldest members of the lute family of string instruments-- first appear in the archaeological record more than 6,000 years ago in
Ancient Mesopotamia. Yet, the $64,000 question that scholars have pondered for generations is this: Did the lute actually originate there? "
one of the goals of The Adz Style Pegbox video is to add the questions:
Could these instruments have spread with traders from northern frontiers? ( North of the Caspian Sea )
& what did the natural environment look like to people in the freeze-zone, where rhubarb grows?
The english word Rhubarb being derived from " Beyond the Rha River, land of the Barbarians. " The Rha being named the Volga River in modern times.
At one time the Rhubarb root was valued for medicine...& needs to freeze as part of its natural cycle in order to grow.
At any rate still a work in progress!
[file]35886[/file]rootsguitar - 7-11-2015 at 10:15 AM
Another resource that describes the shifting populations of Central Asia in the distant past:
Empires of the Silk Road by Christopher Beckwith
" A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present "
2009-Princeton University Press
Trade history/Archaeology/Linguistics & more...also a glimpse into how much is unknown about early human experience, regarding Seed Trade, Chariot
building tools etc...
