What musical instrument was the nablas?

Abstract

The nablas is a stringed instrument used in ancient Greek and Roman context, known from both Greek and Latin sources, as νάβλας and nabilium. Ancient authors converge on its eastern origin, varying as to the region to which they attribute its invention: for some, it came from Phoenicia (Sopater of Paphos); for others, from Cappadocia (Clement of Alexandria and Eusebius of Caesarea, who cites late-Classical and Hellenistic sources, such as Scamon of Mytilene); the most accepted version derives from Flavius Josephus, who points out its Hebrew origin. In its performance, the psallein technique was used, playing it with the use of the fingers of both hands, without using the plektron. According to Plutarch’s testimony, the Greeks knew it since the 5th century, due to a mention made of it by Sophocles, but it always continued to be seen as a foreign instrument, and more suited to women. In addition to the literary sources, a recent discovery in the necropolis of Dion, in Macedonia, brought to light a material and iconographic evidence, which is the only safe record of the shape that this instrument had in Imperial times.