Cretan lyra

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Various models of the Cretan lyra at the museum of Greek traditional instruments, Athens.
String instrument
Other names	Cretan lyra/lira, Aegean lyra
Hornbostel–Sachs classification	321.321-71 (Necked bowl lute sounded by a bow)
Developed	10th century AD (est)
Related instruments
Byzantine lyra, the ancestor of the Cretan lyra Calabrian lira (Italian: Lira Calabrese) Classical kemençe, (Turkish: Armudî kemençe, Greek: Politiki lyra) Gadulka (Bulgarian: Гъдулка) Lira da braccio Rabāb (Arabic الرباب) Lijerica Violin
Musicians
Andreas Rodinos Alekos Karavitis Antonis Papadakis (Kareklas) Kostas Mountakis Nikos Xilouris Psarantonis Ross Daly Yiorgos Kaloudis Thanassis Skordalos Georgia Dagaki

The Cretan lyra (Greek: Κρητική λύρα) is a Greek pear-shaped, three-stringed bowed musical instrument, central to the traditional music of Crete and other islands in the Dodecanese and the Aegean Archipelago, in Greece. The Cretan lyra is considered to be the most popular surviving form of the medieval Byzantine lyra, an ancestor of most European bowed instruments.