Spike fiddle; rababa

Rab?ba, spike fiddle. (The local name of this instrument as recorded in the Victoria and Albert Museum register of 1882 is 'kemangeh a' gouz'.) The resonator is a coconut shell, with the front section cut off, and the hole covered with soundtable consisting of a bladder membrane that is stuck to the shell. Holes are drilled into the back of the resonator. Through it passes an iron spike, which acts as a support at the lower end, and is driven into the long wooden neck at the upper end. The neck is decorated with bone inlaid in a pattern of spiral lines, notched squares and quatrefoils. The peg box is a cylinder of bone with a slot hollowed out of it, fitted with two large pegs. The instrument terminates in a turned finial. The two strings consist of a number of strands of horsehair, bound round the pegs and attached to an iron hook that passes through the spike just below the resonator. A piece of tape is tied around the upper part of the neck to act as a nut. Flat bridge - a drone instrument. The bow is a heavy stick with a slight outward curve and shaped to an octagonal section at the head. Arched blocks of wood act as a frog, the hair is secured by copper(?) ferrules at the ends. Coloured with red pigment applied after the hair was attached.