Rhaetic harp

[Livio Asta]

Hi.

Getting more and more into iron age music instruments, i recently made a small angle harp freely inspired to an archeological finding from Austria, dated to second iron age; here, and somewhere else on the web, you can find a short article (in german) and some image:

http://www.uibk.ac.at/urgeschichte/fors ... 99_15.html

I wrote "freely inspired" because:

-The article is not very complete, and so are the images (e.g. no view from upside); some information from different web sites does not perfectly match. Asa far as i know, no official study has been published yet.

- The original is in deer antler, but i currently do not have an antler big enough, so i made it in oak wood.

- Sound box (probably wooden) is lost; i inspired myself to some egiptian harp (but they are "upside down"!) and to some middle age one. Holes are inspired to the decorations of some rhaetic brooches.

Well, i know i'd better wait for more details and better material, but...i just did'nt resist! As far as i know, this one is the first angle harp in europe for this period (if you know others, please let me know!).


Some details on my "unfaithful replica":
about 50x 32 cm;
red oak, ash and "something from guitar shop" wood;
modern glue;
modern pegs (but in the original too they were made of metal)
strings are cotton, just for the pictures: the risk that when i will put the real ones on the whole harp will explode is not so remote!

[Terry Sebolt]

Cool. I like it. Experimental archaeology at work. Lovely work.

[Becky Watkins Tien]

Beautiful details. I hope it doesn't explode!

[Jeff Scharp]

Absolutely great! I would love to hear it. Say, If you're needing natural materials like a huge antler or something, just let me know. In Texas it's still easy to get things like that. Still though, I love what you've done in wood.

[Livio Asta]

Thanx to all.
Jeff, thank you, but i read on the web that for some legal reasons it's difficult to send to Europe parts of wild animals (antlers, furs, teeth...) from outside E.U. and especially from U.S., even if those animals are not protected at all.

Does someone know if it's true?

[Terry Sebolt]

I used to send leather and supplies to Germany and Italy a few times a year. It would often get hung up in Italian customs, but everything got caught up in Italian customs, animal parts or not. If you payed FedEx enough or had an agent, it would get through in 1/4 of the time. I never had problems shipping to Germany. Things may have changed in the last few years, though.

Redg