#kithara

Ritual water vessel. Red-Figure Loutrophoros without handles. Attributed to the White Sakkos Painter. South Italian, Apulian, ca. 330 BCE. Tampa Museum of Art. Info and photo from: American Art Guide.

The tendril or snake-legged figure has multiple curling tails, wears a leaf skirt and headdress, while her torso is bare.

This version of the Scythian snake-legged goddess is extremely interesting, as she’s playing a kithara, a Greek stringed instrument, similar to a lyre. I haven’t seen any other depictions of the Scythian goddess playing an instrument, of any kind. The instrument does make me wonder if the artist here mixed up the Scythian goddess with the Sirens of the Odyssey— especially as there’s another vase, which clearly shows a bird-bodied siren with curls similar to this vase:

Apulian red-figured oinochoe, about 350-320 BCE. Full post here, which discusses the other vases. Photo from Flickr.

There’s several other depictions possible Scythian goddess figures with wings:

While I don’t think that the two-tailed figure was ever called a “siren” until Romanesque church art, I find the parallels with both the Sirens and the Scythian snake-legged goddess here very interesting.

For reference, a bird-bodied Siren playing a lyre on a vase:

White-ground lekythos, Odysseus and the Sirens, Eretria. By the Edinburgh Painter. Late 6th century BCE. From the National Archeological Museum in Athens, picture by me.

Sources

The Tampa vase is Fig 255 in: Trendall, A. D. Red Figure Vases of South Italy and Sicily : A Handbook. Thames and Hudson, 1989.

When you're too good at playing the kithara but it doesn't really matter, does it?

Oh I really don’t have much to say at all about them, I was mostly exploring the wiki page and that’s about it lol, but since you asked!

I’m currently writing a fic rn where characters are playing instruments and I was curious about ancient greek instruments, considering all I really knew was the lyre and the aulos. So I decided to look up a wikipedia list and click around to see what I thought was pretty cool

(Quick disclaimer, everything I’m about to say is from wikipedia, so take it with a grain of salt. Also I am not a music historian or a musician so really I barely have any idea about what I’m talking about)

Turns out, there’s a million different versions of the lyre! They all look quite similar but I am sure they’re from different regions and have their own unique sounds and histories. The one I went with in my fic was the kithara! It is a seven stringed lyre-esque instrument that was mainly played by professionals (called kitharodes). Since lyres were considered a folk/beginner instrument, those who played music for a living tended to prefer the kithara. Fun fact! “Kithara” in modern greek means guitar, and the etymological origin of the english “guitar” comes from kithara. Words are cool!!!

Please forgive me if I am using the singular/plural versions of this instrument wrong, I’m not entirely sure how this all works and I am trying my best

I was mainly excited about the krotalon (latin: crotalum) which were pretty much castanets! (I really like castanets because the fun clappy sound is nice in my ears lol) they were made out of wood or shell and brass and were mainly used by women in religious dances. Often at a slower beat/rhythm than castanets as we think of them today

More fun facts! This time bird related! Krotala allegedly made the sound of a crane’s bill, thus the bird was called crotalistria "player on crotala.”

In some versions of heracles’ myth, he uses krotala to scare away the stymphalian birds in order to shoot them down!

Now, I mentioned the aulos earlier but honestly I still didn’t know much about it other than what it sounded like. (Shout out to olympus alfame from the hades 2 soundtrack, absolute banger!!!)

Anyways, while the aulos may look like a modern flute or clarinet, it is more akin to highland bagpipes in multiple ways! We see similarities in the way it’s played (the use of circular breathing), in sound (the droning that people often find really annoying) and in function! (Both instruments were used to communicate on the battlefield.)

They were also double-reeded like oboes!

There’s multiple types of auloi. The plain “aulos” we think about is the two pipes with reeds. A single pipe without a reed was called a “monaulos.” A single pipe that was held horizontally like a flute was a “plagiaulos,” and a pipe with a bag (ahem, bagpipe, one may say) that allowed for continuous sound was called a “askaulos”

Finally, I want to talk about a myth surrounding the aulos. A satyr named marsyas either invented the aulos or picked it up one day after athena discarded it because she hated how it made her cheeks puff up (which is really funny to me). Either way, he gets his hands on the instrument and challenges apollo to a music contest (always a bad idea) the winner would “do whatever he wanted” to the loser.

If you’re a freak like me you probably had the same train of thought as marsyas who, being a satyr, would never turn down the opportunity to fuck our favourite sunshine twink. Unfortunately for him, apollo and his lyre beat him in the competition. Even more unfortunate is that instead of being taken by the god of light he is strung up on a tree and flayed alive for his hubris. Hooray!

Ack it’s almost 4am I meant to go to bed an hour ago lmao (as if 3am is a reasonable time to go to bed)

Anyways I hope you enjoyed my yap sesh! I always get nervous when writing these up because I am bound to get information wrong. And if there are any discrepancies PLEASE do not be afraid to (kindly) inform me otherwise and I will fix it!!! I am no historian I am just a silly little guy with worms in their brain who is running on 5 hours of sleep

DANCING KITHARA PLAYER: "..a female figure with a zither under her arm, steps towards the left, in an elegant dance step.." "The work is probably attributable to a provincial workshop.." "The provenance of the relief from a burial area supports the hypothesis that it is a slab belonging to a circular funerary monument.." [Txt ©MANM] Limestone From Cardeto near Ancona 3rd quarter of the 1st c. BC.

Museo Archeologico Nazionale delle Marche, Ancona | MANM

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MANM | Michael Svetbird phs©msp | 05|07|24 6300X4200 600 [I.-III.] The photographed object is collection item of MANM [Non-commercial fair use | No AI | Author © rights apply | Sorry for the watermarks]

📸 Part of the "Reliefs-Friezes-Slabs-Sculpture" MSP Online Photo-gallery:

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