Greek musical instruments were grouped under the general term "all developments from the original construction of a tortoise shell with two branching horns, having also a cross piece to which the stringser from an original three to ten or even more in the later period, like the

Byzantine era The Byzantine calendar, also called the Roman calendar, the Creation Era of Constantinople or the Era of the World (, also or ; 'Roman year since the creation of the universe', abbreviated as ε.Κ.), was the calendar used by the Eastern Orth ...

". Greek musical instruments can be classified into the following categories:

Ancient

Aulos An ''aulos'' (plural ''auloi''; , plural ) or ''tibia'' (Latin) was a wind instrument in ancient Greece, often depicted in art and also attested by archaeology. Though the word ''aulos'' is often translated as "flute" or as " double flute", ...

Barbiton The barbiton, or barbitos (Greek language, Gr: wikt:βάρβιτον, or wikt:βάρβιτος, ; Latin, Lat. ''barbitus''), is an ancient stringed instrument related to the lyre known from Greek literature, Greek and Ancient Rome, Roman classic ...

Chelys The chelys or chelus (, , both meaning "turtle" or "tortoise") was a stringed musical instrument, the common lyre of the ancient Greeks, which had a convex back of tortoiseshell or of wood shaped like the shell. The word ''chelys'' was used in a ...

Cithara The kithara (), Latinized as cithara, was an ancient Greek musical instrument in the yoke lutes family. It was a seven-stringed professional version of the lyre, which was regarded as a rustic, or folk instrument, appropriate for teaching mus ...

(or Kithara) *

Crotalum In classical antiquity, a crotalum, ( κρόταλον ''krotalon'') plural crotala, was a kind of clapper or castanet used in religious dances by groups in ancient Greece and elsewhere, including the Korybantes. The term has been erroneous ...

Epigonion The epigonion () was an ancient stringed instrument, possibly a Greek harp mentioned in Athenaeus (183 AD), probably a psaltery. Description The epigonion was invented, or at least introduced into Greece, by Epigonus of Ambracia, a Greek musici ...

Harp The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orchestras or ...

Kanonaki The qanun, kanun, ganoun or kanoon (; ; ; , ''qanun''; , ''qānūn''; ; ; ) is a Middle Eastern string instrument played either solo, or more often as part of an ensemble, in much of Iran, Arab East, and Arab Maghreb region of North Africa, ...

Kymbalon :See also Carillon and Bell chime'' The cymbalum (plural ''cymbala'') was the name of two historical instruments, medieval European bells hung and struck with a hammer and Greek ''kymbalon'' cymbals. The two instruments may possibly be related, ba ...

Lyre The lyre () (from Greek λύρα and Latin ''lyra)'' is a string instrument, stringed musical instrument that is classified by Hornbostel–Sachs as a member of the History of lute-family instruments, lute family of instruments. In organology, a ...

Pan flute A pan flute (also known as panpipes or syrinx) is a musical instrument based on the principle of the closed tube, consisting of multiple pipes of gradually increasing length (and occasionally girth). Multiple varieties of pan flutes have been ...

(Syrinx) *

Pandura The pandura (, ''pandoura'') or pandore, an ancient Greek string instrument, belonged in the broad class of the lute and guitar instruments. Akkadian Empire, Akkadians played similar instruments from the 3rd millennium BC. Ancient Greece, Ancien ...

Phorminx :''Phorminx is also a genus of cylindrical bark beetles.'' The ''phorminx'' () was one of the oldest of the Ancient Greek stringed musical instruments, in the yoke lutes family, intermediate between the lyre and the kithara. It consisted of tw ...

Rhoptron A rhoptron ((), plural: rhoptra) was a buzzing drum used in Parthian music. According to Plutarch, the Parthian Empire used it made a frightening sound—resembling a mix of animal noises and lightning—to scare their opponents in battle, inste ...

Sambuca Sambuca () is an Italian anise-flavoured liqueur. Its most common variety is often referred to as "white sambuca" to differentiate it from other varieties that are deep blue ("black sambuca") or bright red ("red sambuca"). Like other anise-fla ...

Salpinx A salpinx (; plural salpinges ; Greek σάλπιγξ) was a trumpet-like instrument of the ancient Greeks. Construction The salpinx consisted of a straight, narrow bronze tube with a mouthpiece of bone and a bell (also constructed of bronze) o ...

Sistrum A sistrum (plural: sistra or (in Latin) sīstra; from the Greek ''seistron'' of the same meaning; literally "that which is being shaken", from ''seiein'', "to shake") is a musical instrument of the percussion family, a form of rattle, used mo ...

Psaltery :''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 ...

Tambourine The tambourine is a musical instrument in the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zills". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, thoug ...

Trigonon A trigonon (trígōnon, from Greek "τρίγωνον", "triangle") is a small triangular ancient Greek harp occasionally used by the ancient Greeks and probably derived from Assyria or Egypt. The trigonon is thought to be either a variety of the ...

Water organ The water organ or hydraulic organ () (early types are sometimes called hydraulos, hydraulus or hydraula) is a type of pipe organ blown by air, where the power source pushing the air is derived by water from a natural source (e.g. by a waterfal ...

(Hydraulis) File:Mildenhall treasure great dish british museum, detail-- dancer with cymbals.jpg, Roman art, 4th century A.D. Dancer with

kymbalon :See also Carillon and Bell chime'' The cymbalum (plural ''cymbala'') was the name of two historical instruments, medieval European bells hung and struck with a hammer and Greek ''kymbalon'' cymbals. The two instruments may possibly be related, ba ...

. File:Mildenhall treasure great dish british museum, detail-- satyr with pan pipes.jpg, Mildenhall treasure, great dish, British Museum, detail-- satyr with pan pipes File:Mildenhall treasure, great dish, British Museum, detail-- aulos and tambourine.jpg, Mildenhall treasure, great dish, British Museum, detail-- aulos and tambourine File:Mildenhall treasure, great dish, British Museum, frame drum.jpg, Mildenhall treasure, great dish, British Museum, frame drum File:Attic red figure pelike Rhodes.jpg, Afterlife scene of a woman playing crotalum clappers leading a man playing a

barbitos The barbiton, or barbitos ( Gr: or ; Lat. ''barbitus''), is an ancient stringed instrument related to the lyre known from Greek and Roman classics. The Greek instrument was a bass version of the kithara, and belonged in the zither family, ...

lyre.

Medieval and modern

String instruments In musical instrument classification, string instruments, or chordophones, are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer strums, plucks, strikes or sounds the strings in varying manners. Musicians play some ...

Baglamas The baglamas ( ), plural '' baglamades'') or baglamadaki (), a long necked bowl-lute, is a plucked string instrument used in Greek music; it is a smaller version of the bouzouki pitched an octave higher (nominally D-A-D), with unison pairs o ...

Byzantine lyra The Byzantine lyra or lira () was a medieval bowed string musical instrument in the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire. In its popular form, the lyra was a pear-shaped instrument with three to five strings, held upright and played by stopping ...

Bouzouki The bouzouki (, also ; ; alt. pl. ''bouzoukia'', , from Greek , from Turkish ) is a musical instrument popular in West Asia (Syria, Iraq), Europe and Balkans (Greece, North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Turkey). It is a member of the long-necked lute fam ...

Cretan lyra The Cretan lyra () is a pear-shaped three-stringed Greece, Greek Violin, a traditional Greek musical instruments, musical instrument, central to the traditional music of Crete and other islands in the Dodecanese and the Aegean Islands, Aegean Ar ...

Calabrian lira The Calabrian lira ({{langx, it, lira Calabrese) is a traditional musical instrument characteristic of some areas of Calabria, a region in southern Italy. Characteristics The lira of Calabria is a bowed string instrument with three strings ...

Guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

Mandolin A mandolin (, ; literally "small mandola") is a Chordophone, stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally Plucked string instrument, plucked with a plectrum, pick. It most commonly has four Course (music), courses of doubled St ...

Mandola The mandola (US and Canada) or tenor mandola (Ireland and UK) is a fretted, stringed musical instrument. It is to the mandolin what the viola is to the violin: the four double courses of strings tuned in fifths to the same pitches as the viola ...

* Oudola *

Oud The oud ( ; , ) is a Middle Eastern short-neck lute-type, pear-shaped, fretless stringed instrument (a chordophone in the Hornbostel–Sachs classification of instruments), usually with 11 strings grouped in six courses, but some models have ...

* Politiki lyra (Constantinople lyra) *

Santouri The santur ( ; ) is a hammered dulcimer of Iranian origin.--- Rashid, Subhi Anwar (1989). ''Al-ʼĀlāt al-musīqīyya al-muṣāhiba lil-Maqām al-ʻIrāqī''. Baghdad: Matbaʻat al-ʻUmmāl al-Markazīyya. History The santur was invented ...

Laouto The laouto (, pl. laouta ) is a long-neck fretted instrument of the lute family, found in Greece and Cyprus, and similar in appearance to the oud. It has four double-strings. It is played in most respects like the oud (plucked with a long ple ...

(big and small) *

Lavta The lavta is a plucked string music instrument from Istanbul. Description The Politiko Laouto has a small body made of many ribs made using carvel bending technique. Its appearance is somewhat like a small (Turkish) oud - the strings are mad ...

(Politiko laouto) * One stringed lyra (rare) * Macedonian lyra *

Pontian lyra Pontian may refer to: * Pope Pontian (died 235), 3rd-century Catholic Pope * Pontian Greeks, a group of ethnic Greeks traditionally from the Pontus and Pontic Mountains regions in northern Turkey * Pontian Islands, a group of islands on the coast ...

Violin The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...

Tzouras The ''tzouras'' (), is a Greek stringed musical instrument related to the bouzouki. Its name comes from the Turkish cura. It is made in six-string and eight-string varieties. Similar musical instruments in Turkish culture are generally referred ...

Tambouras The tambouras ( ) is a Greek traditional string instrument of Byzantine origin. It has existed since at least the 10th century, when it was known in Assyria and Egypt. At that time, it might have had between two and six strings. The characteristi ...

* Thaboura * Karantouzeni *

Bağlama The bağlama or saz is a family of plucked string instruments and long-necked lutes used in Europe, Balkans, Caucasus, Middle East, Khazar, Central Asia including Germany, France, Belgium, TRNC, Netherlands, Albania, Greece,Bosnia, Serbia, Croat ...

Aerophones An aerophone is a musical instrument that produces sound primarily by causing a body of air to vibrate, without the use of strings or membranes (which are respectively chordophones and membranophones), and without the vibration of the instrum ...

Askomandoura Askomandoura () is a type of bagpipe played as a traditional instrument on the Greek island of Crete, similar to the ''tsampouna''. Its use in Crete is attested in illustrations from the mid-15th Century.Ioannis TsouchlarakiThe folk musical instr ...

Floghera The floghera (, ) is a type of flute used in Greek folk music. It is a simple end-blown bamboo flute without a fipple, which is played by directing a narrow air stream against its sharp, open upper end. It typically has seven finger holes. See al ...

Gaida Bagpipes are a woodwind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The Great Highland bagpipes are well known, but people have played bagpipes for centuries throughout large parts of Europe, Nor ...

Karamuza The karamuza (), is a type of Greek reed instrument, likely having descended from the aulos, a common instrument of ancient Greece and Rome. It is made from wood, with a typical length of about 60 cm. The karamuza was extant in Greek music lo ...

Klarino The clarinet is a Single-reed instrument, single-reed musical instrument in the woodwind family, with a nearly cylindrical bore (wind instruments), bore and a flared bell. Clarinets comprise a Family (musical instruments), family of instrume ...

* Lalitsa * Mantura * Souravli (Thiamboli) *

Tsampouna The tsampouna (or tsambouna; ) is a Greek musical instrument and part of the bagpipe family. It is a double- chantered bagpipe, with no drone, and is inflated by blowing by mouth into a goatskin bag. The instrument is widespread in the Greek isla ...

Zurna The zurna is a double reed wind instrument played in Central Asia, West Asia, the Caucasus, Southeast Europe and parts of North Africa. It is also used in Sri Lanka. It is usually accompanied by a davul (bass drum) in Armenian, Anatolian and Ass ...

Percussion instruments A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...

* Cochilia *

Crotala In classical antiquity, a crotalum, ( κρόταλον ''krotalon'') plural crotala, was a kind of clapper or castanet used in religious dances by groups in ancient Greece and elsewhere, including the Korybantes. The term has been erroneously ...

* Daouli *

Koudounia The Koudounia (), are bell-like percussion instruments. Most often, they are made from copper and upon playing (that is, hitting them with a stick) they give out a special ringing sound. Originally the koudounia had been used as an amulet which prot ...

Toubeleki The toubeleki (), is a kind of a Greek traditional drum musical instrument. It is usually made from metal, open at its downside and covered with a skin stretched over it. It is played with the hands and used often in the Greek traditional folk rhy ...

Trigono Trígono (, , meaning "triangle") is a former municipality in the Evros (regional unit), Evros regional unit, East Macedonia and Thrace, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform, it is part of the municipality Orestiada, of which it is a muni ...

* Tympano * Zilia

External links

Tα μουσικά όργανα των αρχαίων Eλλήνων/ancient Greek instruments
Culture of Greece {{Greece-stub