Openwhyd: The community of music lovers

In 1929, there were five lyres discovered in a royal burial pit in the ancient Sumerian city of Ur (in southern Mesopotamia) by the British archeologist, Sir Leonard Woolley. Unfortunately, these instruments were simply laid in the ground nearly 4500 years ago, and covered over with earth so they were completely crushed flat and any organic material used in their construction quickly rotted and turned to dust. Two of the lyres, however, had been made of wood covered with a layer of silver sheeting about the thickness of a tin can. The wood beneath the silver disintegrated but the silver itself did not, although after 4500 years it became heavily oxidized and turned black. The archeologists poured melted wax over what was left of the lyres and when the wax hardened they carefully lifted them out of the ground. Just to put things into perspective, these instruments were made nearly 2000 years before Stonehenge and the Great Pyramid of Giza.