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HISTORY.

PLAUSIBLE ORIGINS OF STRINGED INSTRUMENTS.

The most primitive type of string instrument ever to be used was probably a simple musical bow, which is nothing but an arched stick, stretched tight by a string tied to its two ends, which continues to be used till this day in parts of Africa and South America. There is however a theory that in fact the musical bow precedes the hunting bow. You can imagine a scenario where the hunter accidentally plucks the string while holding the bow against his head, or conversely that the ancient musician stumbles upon the projectile nature of a strung bow by accident.
One of man´s first methods of concentrating energy, the hunting bow was discovered in the stone age in northern africa sometime between 30.000 and 15.000BC, when the Sahara desert was still very fertile. In a cave in southwest France called Les Trois Freres there is a wall decoration from about 15.000 BC depicting a man with a bow. This image is peculiar because the man is not hunting with the bow but is using it as a musical instrument for a religious ceremony.
The looped line emerging from the muzzle of the Bison or mans head has been interpreted as a bow and a symbolic representation of the mans or animals life breath. There is a similar abstract interpretation in southern african bushmen art which underlines the connection.

The evolution of the very primitive mouth bow was the eventual addition of a simple resonator and a later metamorphosis into the resonator with neck and the lyre type of configuration found in ancient Sumeria and Egypt.
These instruments appeared around 5,000 years ago.
Other string instruments which are also presumed to have been developed in ancient Egypt, Greece and India include forms, which contain a long box of wood over which one or more strings were stretched.
In order to enhance resonance, hollow objects such as coconuts, calabash, tortoise shells, wooden boxes or pig bladders were added.

Although it is unclear, the bowed stringed instruments are thought to have originated in the far east. Most notably the chinese Erhu and the indian Ravanstron are surviving examples that probably bear close resemblance to their ancestors.

In India there is a Hindu tradition that claims that the bowed string has a history dating back to before 3000BC and that it was invented by Ravanon the then king of Sri Lanka, and the Ravanastron was named after him.

It is played either by plucking or by bowing. (very ancient, it was played in Persia, in Arabia and in North Africa).

The Rabe Morisco is typical of an instrument brought into europe through spain by the arab cultures of northern africa.
These instruments which the Moors introduced into southern europe were later to split into two basic categories characterised by plucking on the one hand and bowing on the other.

These instruments aquired the arab name rubebe and rebec in the thirteenth century. This particular greek type was brought west in the eleventh century.
Up until the renaissance these instruments went through some pretty extreme changes in terms of size and shapes, eventually morphing into the european guitar and violin families.

Violin made by Hans Johannsson 1977

In the 18th and 19th centuries the violin in its fully developed form, made it´s way back to the east, where it has been used ubiquitously alongside traditional bowed instruments for a large array of musical idioms.