ICONEA 2011 reworked, certainly in ancient times and though not quite a palimpsest, there were significant alterations to what might have been the original scene, in style as well as in its execution. (Fig. 5) However, Collon remained ambiguous in her statement as she later added that the re-cutting was probably recent as were the various scratch-marks on the surface of the soft stone. She added that she did not believe that the seal was an outright forgery and that everything indicated that the re-working of the underlying worn shapes was made around 3100 B.C. It was not ORGANOLOGY AND really clear what Collon meant by 'recent'. If she considered 3100 B.C. as being 'recent' in the Uruk PHILOLOGY Period, or if the 'recent' at the beginning of her statement addressed to modern times. OF AN Consequently the dating of the object URUKEAN LUTE* (?) became unsafe. There was also another critical argument which advanced that the implement might have been a paddle and not an instrument although the hand positions and the general posture Richard Dumbrill of the musician did not fit in with the usual paddling posture. Unscientifically, I had wishfully imagined the outlines of a hypothetical round sound-box which Yumiko Higano drew on my request (Fig. 4c) but I must confess that at that time I relied on the 1 Introduction flimsy evidence from other seals with elusive LNPT In 1996 my distinguished colleague and instruments played by either bow-legged children friend Doctor Dominique Collon informed me that or bow-legged dwarfs, a bit like fashionable 'air- the British Museum had acquired a new cylinder seal guitar playing'. (Figs. 6, a, b, c, d, e and f) During dating from the Uruk period1, about 3200 to 3000 the ICONEA 2011 conference Ricardo Eichmann B.C. (Fig. 1) Henceforth 'A', on which there would objected to my hypothesis and disagreed with my be the depiction of an individual, perhaps a woman views on the implement both with dating and on account of the hair style, sitting at the back of representation. However I remained certain that a boat and holding a long-necked implement2. The long-necked plucked-string instruments would have device was initially identified as a long-neck lute existed at the Uruk period, and even before. type, 'LNLT' henceforth, because of later Akkadian This paper will defend my postulation representations, from about 2334 to 2193 B.C. (Figs. that the depiction on the seal is probably that of 2, 2a and 3, 3a)3 of similar implements which had a stringed instrument on grounds of iconography, previously been identified as such. organology and philology. Furthermore, it is my Collon initially thought that the Uruk contention that the location of the instrument in implement would also be a long-necked instrument the organological chain of instrumental evolution a LNLT, although a soundbox was not clearly would logically place it during the fourth millennium. delineated4. (Fig. 4a) Then my learned friend revised her opinion on the basis that the seal would have been 2 Organological morphology of stringed instruments * The author has placed his illustration at the end of the Firstly, the organological characteristics of article for two reasons. The first is to preserve the flow of the text, and the second because most of the readers will these instruments must be clearly defined. There are already know the illustrations to which the author refers. two principal types of stringed instruments. 67 ICONEA 2011 Harps and lyres types are mono-polyhetero- with Mr. Urur's. Had we not found 'C', then it would chord instruments while lute types can be polyton- have been impossible to say if 'B' represented a al-monoheterochord or polytonal poly-heterochord LNLT. Thus its identification as a LNLT rests instruments. This means that while harps and lyres uniquely on the positive identification in 'C'. usually have many strings the nature of which being Therefore we have a subjectivist dilemma. of a different matter from its body (heterochord), While some feel quite satisfied that the instrument and are therefore polyheterochord instruments, as in 'B' is a LNLT, even if there is no evidence of each of their strings produce only one pitch. There- sound-box, but that at the same time reject the fore they are mono(tonal) types of polyheterochord hypothesis that 'A' could be a LNLT because it has instruments. no sound-box, is bewildering. Their arguments are Lute types are instruments where the string as follows: a) Because there are no other occurrences (in monoheterochord instruments) or strings (in of a LNLT during the Uruk period, therefore the polyheterochord instruments) produce more than implement cannot be one. b) Because the individual one pitch [poly(tonal)]. This is the consequence in 'A' is sitting at the back of a boat, it is more likely of the 'stopping' or of what is wrongly termed that she/he is handling a paddle rather than a LNLT. the 'fretting' of a string5. This is done by pressing c) Because there is no evidence of a sound-box, it (stopping, fretting) the string at a given point, with cannot be a LNLT. the finger (or with other devices), against a straight There is not much logic in all of this as it and flat, sometimes slightly curved, surface of the is not necessarily a typical LNLT that is represented instrument called the finger-board, or fret-board either in 'A' or in 'B'. On the other hand, it is highly which runs along and under the length of the string. probable that 'C' is a LNLT. If the implement Whereas lyres are mostly trapezoidal in shape; harps depicted in 'A' and 'B' are not LNLTs, what could are all triangular and lutes oblong with (or without) they be. Are they musical implements at all? We may added sound-boxes or resonators, developing in size assume that if 'B' identifies a musician because he is with time, becoming very large with the Arabian probably holding an instrument. Mediaeval ‘ūd, forerunner of the Renaissance and It is my contention that we have been Baroque lutes. However, another instrument type, misguided in expecting that a LNLT should the tube-zither, well-known to ethomusicologists necessarily be fitted with a sound-box. has been ignored by all scholars having written The tube-zither might have been the about the seal under scrutiny, and others. ancestor of the instrument, especially at Uruk where canes abound. They are hollow, and their 3 Comparative Organology cavity would have constituted the soundbox of the If most of my colleagues who are in doubt instrument which therefore did not need a dedicated that the implement depicted in 'A' is a LNLT on the typical hemispherical sound-box or resonator placed basis that there is no visible sound-box, then I would at its lower end. There is another organological suggest that they have another look at figure 2a, 'B'. parallel with early Uruk harps. They too were mono- (Fig. 2a) There is no sound-box to be seen. However, structural as there is no organological distinction there is an inscription which is a rare occurrence. between sound-boxes and yokes (Fig. 7a, b, c and d) It reads UR.UR/nar meaning '(Mr.) Urur, singer'. and in many ways, tube-zithers, (Fig. 8) from which This does not help in identifying the instrument stemmed the LNLT are similar since both are made he is playing. Mr. Urur’s depiction and name seem up of a hollow structure; both have plucked strings to have been added to a previously engraved seal with their frequency amplified by similar hollow bought 'off the shelf'. The identification of a mono-structures. LNLT 'B' on figure 2a was made on the basis that The major difference, besides one being the depiction on figure 3 and 3a, 'C' shows some curved, the other straight, is that with harps, kind of horse-shoe shape which would be, most strings 'pull out' the soundboard in extraction probably, a sound-box. On this seal, the musician while with LNLTs, string vibrations are transmitted is certainly part of the original composition unlike to the hollow structure by means of a bridge by 68 ICONEA 2011 compression of the soundboard. (Fig. 9a, and b) that a false, untenable, or absurd result follows from its denial, or in turn to demonstrate that a statement is false by showing that 4) What would an Uruk tube-zither look like? a false, untenable, or absurd result follows from its acceptance. The simplest form of tube-zither would During the ICONEA 2011 conference, consist of a cane, probably arundo donax, cut to I apposed Sumerian (giš) gù.di/dé = Akkadian an appropriate size, about 60 centimetres long with inu, to Chinese gŭdí, meaning 'bone-flute' which is a diameter of about 2 centimetres. A string of gut, the oldest known musical instrument from Jiahu in vegetal or animal hair fibre would be stretched China7, dating back to around 6000 B.C. (Fig. 12) from one end to the other and attached with a knot The word for bone is 'ku', a determinative, and inserted into a thin slit, at each end. An archaic form the substantive for flute is 'di'. Stuck together they of bridge would be placed where suitable and would ended up as the word 'gŭdí'. add tension to the string. In the course of evolution Irving Finkel immediately questioned the bridge would have been inserted into a carved my sanity as indeed any relation between them is groove. (Fig. 10) This probably happened when absurd.