Sitar

Woman's sitar, wire-strung, long-necked lute. The rectangular peg-box has two front entrant and three side entrant pegs for the main playing strings. There are two side entrant pegs at the top of the fingerboard for the cikari strings that provide a rhythmic punctuation to the melody.These seven pegs have large round whorled heads of dark brown wood. The neck has eleven side entrant pegs for sympathertic strings that emerge from the fingerboard through bone eyelets arranged in a diagonal line. The frets are curved bars of metal alloy, fixed to the sides of the fingerboard. The round back is formed of a gourd, separated at the shoulder from the wooden neck by a dark brown border with a pattern of bone. The soundtable is slightly convex, with an upper bridge with a top plate of bone, grooved for the seven played strings; beneath is a lower grooved bridge for sympathetic strings. Bone end-pin. Bone inlay around sound-table, fingerboard and peg-box. Two stylised birds in bone are inlaid on the sound-table, one either side of the bridge. The sound-table and fingerboard are ornamented with star shapes in bone.