Psaltery
Psaltery 1700 – Venetian school | |
| plucked string | |
|---|---|
| Classification | Chordophone |
| Hornbostel–Sachs classification | 314.122 (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) |
| Related instruments | |
- See Rotte (psaltery) for medieval harp psaltery & Ancient Greek harps for earlier psalterion
A psaltery (Greek: ψαλτήρι) (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.