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EntityQ1044408· pop 28· linked from 541 articles

Also known as psalterium, sawtry

See Rotte (psaltery) for medieval harp psaltery & Ancient Greek harps for earlier psalterion

Key facts

Instrument.name
Psaltery
Instrument.image
Chiesa di San Maurizio - Salterio - Scuola Veniziana - 1700.jpg
Instrument.image_size
250px
Instrument.alt
Psaltery, built Venice in the 1700s
Instrument.caption
Psaltery 1700 – Venetian school
Instrument.background
plucked string
Instrument.classification
Chordophone
Instrument.hornbostel_sachs
314.122
Instrument.hornbostel_sachs_desc
Box zither. Chordophone with one or more strings stretched between fixed points, a board for a string bearer, parallel to the plane of the strings, with a resonator box
Instrument.related
Baltic psaltery Dan tranh Dulcimer Gayageum Gusli Guzheng Jetigen Kacapi Kanklės Kannel Kantele Kokle Koto Qanun Rotte Se Zither Yatga Jadagan

via Wikipedia infobox

Wikidata facts

Image
Chiesa di San Maurizio - Salterio - Scuola Veniziana - 1700.jpg
Show 3 more facts
Commons category
Psalteries
Hornbostel-Sachs classification
314.122
Sources (1)

via Wikidata · CC0

~6 min read

Encyclopedic overview

9 sections
Contents
  • Etymology
  • Characteristics
  • Medieval and Renaissance psalteries
  • Modern psaltery
  • Gallery
  • See also
  • Notes
  • References
  • External links

See Rotte (psaltery) for medieval harp psaltery & Ancient Greek harps for earlier psalterion

A psaltery (), or sawtry, an archaic form, is a fretboard-less box zither (a simple chordophone) and is considered the archetype of the zither and dulcimer. Plucked keyboard instruments such as the harpsichord were also inspired by it. Its resonance box is usually trapezoidal, rectangular or in the form of a "pig's head" and often richly decorated.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “psaltery” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.