[Bonetools] box zither with astragalus bridges

[S O'Connor]

Dear Alice,

 

Whilst working on my post-doc project in the stores of the Horniman Museum I
spotted this novel use of astragali.  This double-sided box zither (Horniman
Museum, London, accession no. 2010.0.1) was made in 2004 by Sergei Charkov
of Khakassia in the Russian Federation. The body of the zither is
constructed from larch and fir wood with  12 steel strings on the upper
surface and 11 below.  The bridges on the upper surface are made from sheep
astragali.  Each astragalus sits on a leather pad and they seem only to have
been modified by drilling a hole to support a strip of longbone in a
vertical position. The top of the bone strips have a small notch in which
the strings are located.  

 

I do not know if there is a tradition in this region of using astragali for
stringed instrument bridges but if organic strings are used, the bone
bridges might be the only surviving component and unlikely to be interpreted
as part of a musical instrument.

 

Any one seen anything like this?

 

Would you also like this for the mystery object page on the website?

 

All the best,

 

Sonia

 

 

Dr Sonia O'Connor PhD FSA FIIC ACR Honorary Visiting Fellow, University of
York

Post-doctoral Research Fellow

Archaeological Sciences

Division of AGES,  

University of Bradford

Bradford, West Yorkshire, BD7 1DP, UK

 

tel 01274 23 6498 (office) 5210 (lab)

fax 01274 23 5210

 

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