Fourth-century Apulian iconography reveals a special type of stringed instrument, a rectangular cithara, which had an important development in southern Italy, namely in Taranto and Apulian hinterland centers (as Ruvo, Canosa and Gnathia). No archaeological remains of this instrument have been found so far. We know it mainly from vase-painting, but also from other iconographic registers, such as coins and terracotta figurines (polychrome figurine from Egnazia. Taranto, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, 54350.). The systematical analysis of its representation, both in pictorial and plastic iconography, contributes to understand different aspects of how this instrument was built: angle of the arms; connection between arms and soundbox; soundbox shape, and specifically its’ backside; and aesthetic decoration of the instrument. One of the conclusions we can reach, through the analysis of about one hundred vases depicting the rectangular cithara, is the existence of a variant to the standard type of rectangular cithara, with differences in the morphology, considering the back of the soundbox and the relation arms | soundbox: one would be acoustically closer to the kithara (arms seem take part in the ressonance box, e.g. Gnathian krater, Brindisi, Museo Archeologico Provinciale; red-figure bombylios, Munich, Antikesammlung, NI 6489; red-figure lekythos, Egnazia, Museo Nazionale Archeologico) and other closer to the chelys-lyra (arms do not take part in the ressonance box, e.g. red-figure pelike, Moscow, Pushkin Museum, II 1b 661; red-figure pyxis, Hamburg, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, 1876.286 a/b). Another aspect is the tendency of strings having parallel position, not converging to the center as in the lyra and kithara, for the chordotonon is longer in respect to the zugon than in these traditional stringed instruments (e.g. Gnathian skyphos, Basel, Antikenmuseum Basel und Sammlung Ludwig, Samm. Züst, Zü 297; Gnathian krater, Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, 80084).

Reference:

Vergara Cerqueira, F. The ‘Apulian Cithara’ on the Vase-Paintings of the 4th c. BC : Morphological and Musical Analysis. Telestes. An International Journal of Archaeomusicology and Archaeology of Sound, 1, 2021, 47-70.