Pipa

Description

This is a flat, pear-shaped bowl lute made of wood, with a short neck section and an angled pegbox almost at a 90 degree angle. The fingerboard has three large round bone frets and one of wood, and there are nine more raised bone frets glued onto the top of the soundboard (one fell off). There are four silk(?) strings (two broken) attached to a wooden tie-bridge, with bone saddle, glued onto the soundboard. The pegbox has three friction pegs made of bone (one missing). There is also a bone button at the bottom of the instrument. The soundboard has two curved tracings and small dots (near the 7th and 8th frets) that suggest this instrument might not have been finished, as the usual crescent-shaped sound holes were not carved.