The pandura is an ancient Greek

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

 string instrument

String instrument

A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...

 from the Mediterranean basin.

It is derived from pandur, a Sumerian term for long-necked lute

Lute

Lute can refer generally to any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes....

s. Source of our knowledge about this instrument is since the ancient Greek Mantineia

Mantineia

Mantineia was a city in ancient Greece that was the site of two significant battles in Classical Greek history. It is also a former municipality in Arcadia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Tripoli, of which it is a municipal unit. Its seat...

 marble (4th century BC), now exhibited at National Archaeological Museum of Athens

National Archaeological Museum of Athens

The National Archaeological Museum in Athens houses some of the most important artifacts from a variety of archaeological locations around Greece from prehistory to late antiquity. It is considered one of the great museums in the world and contains the richest collection of artifacts from Greek...

, depicting the mythical contest between Apollo

Apollo

Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...

 and Marsyas

Marsyas

In Greek mythology, the satyr Marsyas is a central figure in two stories involving music: in one, he picked up the double flute that had been abandoned by Athena and played it; in the other, he challenged Apollo to a contest of music and lost his hide and life...

, where Greek Pandouris is being played by a muse seated on a rock. Lutes have been present in ancient Greece

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

  and Mesopotamia since the Akkadian era, or the fourth millennium BCE.

The ancient Greek pandoura (or pandora) was a medium or long-necked lute with a small resonating chamber. It commonly had three strings: such an instrument was also known as the trichordon (McKinnon 1984:10). Its descendants still survive as Greek tambouras

Tambouras

The tambouras , is a traditional Greek string instrument. It has existed since at least the 10th century, when it was known in Assyria and Egypt. At that time, it might have between two and six strings, but Arabs adopted it, and called it a toubour...

 and bouzouki

Bouzouki

The bouzouki , is a musical instrument with Greek origin in the lute family. A mainstay of modern Greek music, the front of the body is flat and is usually heavily inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The instrument is played with a plectrum and has a sharp metallic sound, reminiscent of a mandolin but...

, North African kuitras, saz

Baglama

thumb|180px|Cura and bağlamaThe bağlama is a stringed musical instrument shared by various cultures in the Eastern Mediterranean, Near East, and Central Asia....

 and Balkan tamburicas. Renato Meucci (1996) suggests that the some Italian Renaissance descendants of Pandura type were called Chitarra Italiana

Chitarra Italiana

Chitarra Italiana is a lute-shaped plucked instrument with 4 or 5 single strings, in a tuning similar to that of guitar. It was common in Italy during the Renaissance Era....

, mandore

Mandore (instrument)

The mandore was mentioned as a new instrument in French music books from the 1580s. It was a small member of the lute family, teardrop shaped, with four, five or six courses of gut strings and pitched in the treble range. It is considered ancestral to the modern mandolin and has also been called...

or mandola

Mandola

The mandola or tenor mandola is a fretted, stringed musical instrument. It is to the mandolin what the viola is to the violin: the four double courses of strings tuned in fifths to the same pitches as the viola , a fifth lower than a mandolin...

. In the 18th century the pandurina (mandore) was often referred to as mandolino milanese.

Tanbur

A wide variety of similar instruments, often by the name tanbur

Tanbur

The term tanbūr can refer to various long-necked, fretted lutes originating in the Middle East or Central Asia. According to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "terminology presents a complicated situation. Nowadays the term tanbur is applied to a variety of distinct and related...

, are found in areas ranging from Central Asia to Egypt.

Afghanistan

In Afghanistan the pandura is called a dambura or dunbura, and is a popular folk instrument particularly among the Hazara people. Among the famous Afghan danbura players is Safdar Tawakoli

Safdar Tawakoli

Safdar Tawakoli is a musician from Afghanistan who focuses on Hazaragi music. He plays regional traditional music on the dambura.-Early life:...

.

Caucasus

In Georgia

Georgia (country)

Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...

 the panduri is a three-string fretted instrument widely spread in all regions of Eastern Georgia

Eastern Georgia

Eastern Georgia commonly refers to the eastern part of the nation of Georgia, which in historic times included the kingdom of Iberia in the Caucasus. The present-day term refers to the territory of Georgia which lies to the east and south of the Likhi and Meskheti Ranges, but excludes the region...

: such as Pshavkhevsureti, Tusheti

Tusheti

Tusheti is a historic region in northeast Georgia.-Geography:Located on the northern slopes of the Greater Caucasus Mountains, Tusheti is bordered by the Russian republics of Chechnya and Dagestan to the north and east, respectively; and by the Georgian historic provinces Kakheti and...

, Kakheti

Kakheti

Kakheti is a historical province in Eastern Georgia inhabited by Kakhetians who speak a local dialect of Georgian. It is bordered by the small mountainous province of Tusheti and the Greater Caucasus mountain range to the north, Russian Federation to the Northeast, Azerbaijan to the Southeast, and...

 and Kartli

Kartli

Kartli is a historical region in central-to-eastern Georgia traversed by the river Mtkvari , on which Georgia's capital, Tbilisi, is situated. Known to the Classical authors as Iberia, Kartli played a crucial role in ethnic and political consolidation of the Georgians in the Middle Ages...

. A similar Georgian instrument is the chonguri

Panduri

The panduri is a traditional Georgian three-string plucked instrument common in all regions of Eastern Georgia: such as Pshavkhevsureti, Tusheti, Kakheti and Kartli...

.

A similar instrument is found in Chechnya

Chechnya

The Chechen Republic , commonly referred to as Chechnya , also spelled Chechnia or Chechenia, sometimes referred to as Ichkeria , is a federal subject of Russia . It is located in the southeastern part of Europe in the Northern Caucasus mountains. The capital of the republic is the city of Grozny...

, where it is known as: pondar, ponder, pandir, or pandur, or dechig pondur, adkhoku pondur or dakhch pandr, or merz ponder.

External links

• Pandoura: the greco-Roman lyre of antiquity