Custom-Built Musical Instruments at Very Reasonable Rates
Instruments of Antiquity

What can we
create for you?

(Links lead to detailed pages with larger photos and more information...)


Authentic:

Citole:

  Cantigas style
  Warwick style

Drums:
  Bodhran

Gusli

Harps:
  Bardic/Lap Harps:
    Gut Strung
    Celtic Wire Strung
  Floor Harps:
    Gothic
    (more to come)

Kantele:
  5 string
  5 string Piccolo
  9 string
  Performance set

Lyres:
  Trossingen
  Sutton Hoo
  Mosning Thorpe
  Bergh Apton
  Oberflacht
  Cologne
  Student Model
Bowed Lyres:
  Crwth
  Jouhikko

Psaltries:
  Pig Nose
  Cantigas style

Rebecs:
  Soprano
  Alto
  Tenor
  Bass

Zithers:
  Fretted:
    Epignette
    Scheitholt
  Fretless:
    Myrna Hammered Dulcimer


Echoic:
Non-authentic, but imitative of the sound of the original instrument

Flutes

Whistles


Sutton Hoo Lyre
Example of one of my sutton hoo lyres
Rotes and Lyres:

More specifically, our common offerings are Anglo Saxon Lyres and Germanic Rotes.  The epic sagas of the early Germanic, Viking and Anglo-Saxon tribes would not have been so widely spread if it weren't for skilled Skalds and Skops travelling the lands enthralling audiences with heroic tales accompanied by skilled manipulation of these beautiful 6 stringed instruments.  USed to set mood, to influence emotion, to convey action and motion, these weren't solo performance instruments, these were used to layer on top of the voice of a skilled storyteller as he wove a fabric of heroic deeds, great joys and terrible tragedies, spreading the history as they provided entertainment to the nobles and commoners indeed.  But this was not just the instrument of skilled performers; it was the fireside instrument played in intimate gatherings of friends, while on voyages or in the lonely nights between battles.  It is a meditative instrument that can help bring calm to the spirit and joy to the halls and chambers of any manor.

We base our instruments on the bits and fragments found in such places as Bergh Apton, Sutton Hoo (as the one pictured on this page), Trossingen, Cologne, Morning Thorpe, Prittlewell among others, but we don't replicate these instruments, we use what we know of them to create a completely unique and authentic period instrument with your own style and flair.  And we do, in this certain case, have a few real surprises up our sleeves. Contact us to start on your way towards meeting your very own absolutely individual rote or lyre, and free the epic hero within...

For more information or to place an order, contact:

Chris Nogy, founder and craftsman
contact@instrumentsofantiquity.com
Phone: 479-283-6364 
  Please call between 9 AM and 7 PM U.S. Central Time  (-6 GMT)



copyright  (c) 2011