See how to enable JavaScript in your browser. Citation: Franklin, John Curtis. Kinyras: The Divine Lyre. Hellenic Studies Series This apparent coincidence of chronology and morphology was systematically elaborated by B.
Lawergren as follows:. Lawergren tacitly begins from a presumed lack of pre-Greek representations, but prudently avoids definite conclusions about the LBA island. Nevertheless the abundant visual evidence for early Cypriot lyre culture can hardly be ignored, given its contextual details and deep antiquity. It goes far beyond Greco-Roman literary sources to converge with documentary and iconographic evidence of the larger BA Near East. This provides a welcome first road-sign for traversing the lyric landscapes of early Cyprus.
Conversely, that of the latter period, so much more conspicuous and abundant, is potentially misleading. In fact the earlier materialβvotive figurines see below , rattles, scrapers, bronze cymbals, cylinder seals with dance scenes, and two outstanding bronze stands showing harpersβis ultimately quite illuminating for the Kinyras question, and will have to be considered in due course Chapter But first we must trace the history of lyres specifically, so far as possible.
Ancient Cypriot music iconography has never been completely assembled, thanks to hundreds of first-millennium terracotta- and limestone-votive musicians in collections around the world Figure Although these are so fragmentary that specific instruments cannot be identified, the superabundant IA specimens make it very likely that some or many of them were arranged in circular compositions around a central lyrist or double-piper.
Figure Map of Cyprus showing distribution of iconography discussed in text. The lyres of Cyprus deserve special mention. Like Palestine [sc. Round-based lyres flourished ca. E, but a few Western lyres continued through this period. Strong Greek influences reemerged in the second half of the sixth century B.
