The instrument was carried in such a way that the strings were perpendicular and the bar horizontal, while the sounding-board projected forwards at an angle above the player's head.

It was played by the naked hand, without a plectrum; and both hands seem to have found their employment in pulling the strings.

[PLATE CXXVII., Fig.

1.] [Illustration: PLATE 127] Three varieties of the lyre are seen in the Assyrian sculptures.

One of them is triangular, or nearly so, and has only four strings, which, being carried from one side of the triangle to the other, parallel to the base, are necessarily of very unequal length.