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Lamellaphone
This is a lamellaphone, also known as thumb piano, made of a wooden box carved out of a single piece of wood. The left side of the box has a wooden panel (probably cut to allow the carving of the soundbox) joined and sealed with some kind of paper material and dark beeswax (most of which now missing). The box has a round soundhole on the bottom. There are nine lamellas made of iron alloy (ten in total, but one is missing). The pressure bar and the bridge are also made of iron alloy, and the former is attached to the box with rattan. The backrest is made of wood.
- Date:
19th century - Maker:
- Collection:
Saffron Walden Museum - Inventory number:
Loading... - Place of production:
Central Africa - Hornbostel-Sachs classification:122.12 Lamellaphones (or plucked idiophones) with laced-on, or hooked-in lamellae, with resonator
- Culture:
- Period:
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- Decorative elements:Geometric lines making a triangular pattern and six dots of pokerwork on surface.
- Inscriptions:
- Hornbostel-Sachs category:122.12 Lamellaphones (or plucked idiophones) with laced-on, or hooked-in lamellae, with resonator
- Repository:Saffron Walden Museum
- Measurements:Height: 255mm; Width: 144mm; Depth (at lamellas): 60mm