The barbat () or barbud is a lute of Greater Iranian or Persian origin, and widespread across Central Asia, especially since the Sassanid Empire. Barbat is characterized as carved from a single piece of wood, including the neck and a wooden sound board. Possibly a skin-topped instrument for part of its history, it is ancestral to the wood-topped oud and biwa and the skin-topped Yemeni qanbus.
Although the original barbat disappeared, modern Iranian luthiers have invented a new instrument, inspired by the Barbat. The modern re-created instrument (Iranian Barbat) resembles the oud, although differences include a smaller body, longer neck, a slightly raised fingerboard, and a sound that is distinct from that of the oud.
History
The barbat probably originated in Central Asia. The earliest image of the barbat dates back to the 1st century BC from ancient northern Bactria. While in his book (Les instruments de musique de l’Inde ancienne) musicologist Claudie Marcel-Dubois pointed out a more "clear cut" depiction of the barbat from Gandhara sculpture dated to the 2nd-4th centuries AD, which may well have been introduced by the Kushan aristocracy whose influence is attested in Gandharan art. The name itself meant short-necked lute in Pahlavi, the language of the Sasanian Empire, through which the instrument came west from Central Asia to the Middle East, adopted by the Persians. The barbat (possibly known as mizhar, kirān, or muwatter, all skin topped versions, like the rud) was used by some Arabs in the sixth century. At the end of the 6th century, a wood topped version of the Persian-styled instrument was constructed by al Nadr, called "ūd", and introduced from Iraq to Mecca. This Persian-style instrument was being played there in the seventh century. Sometime in the seventh century it was modified or "perfected" by Mansour Zalzal, and the two instruments (barbat and "ūd shabbūt") were used side by side into the 10th century, and possibly longer. The two instruments have been confused by modern scholars looking for examples, and some of the ouds identified may possibly be barbats. Examples of this cited in the Encyclopedia of Islam include a lute in the Cantigas de Santa Maria and the frontispiece from The Life and Times of Ali Ibn ISA by Harold Bowen.
Kusana origin of short lutes
Laurence Picken in his 1955 article The Origin of the Short Lute laid out an argument for the lute originating in the lands of the Kusana peoples. He looked at the likely places for the short ovoid lute to originate. He showed that the evidence found by 1955 indicated that China would not likely have had the such a lute earlier than the 5th century. He found no evidence of the Sasanian barbad or barbud earlier than the 4th century A.D. The earliest evidence was to be found among the Kusanas. He considered other peoples further west, but only found evidence of long-necked lutes. The only other possibility was among the "Elamic clay figures" from the 8th century B.C. These were discounted, as "no structural detail are visible." He was careful to point out that his conclusions were based on the evidence which had been unearthed by 1955, from literature and art.
Iconographic evidence
In his paper which summarized what was known about early examples of Asian harps and lutes, focusing on images and literature for his sources, Michael Nixon pointed out that one image of the barbat from Sasanian Iran (estimated origin in his paper 3rd-7th centuries A.D and 7th-8th centuries A.D. by the British Museum) resembled other images of the barbat from Sasanian and Gandharan sources. He said that the instrument itself resembled these and was held in the same manner. The instrument also resembled an image from a door-lintel bas-relief from the Gupta period in Padmavati Pawaya, India.(240-605). A.D.)
The Ganharan image he points to (c. 2nd-4th centuries A.D.) was published in Kurt Sachs' book The History of Musical Instruments in 1940. It shows a man holding a lute-style instrument with bottom of the rounded bowl of the instrument held to his chest, the neck of the instrument held down at a approximately 45 degree angle, and the man strumming the instrument near his chest.
Another image from Gandhara from an overlapping time period (100-320 A.D.) is in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. The image shows a similarly shaped instrument, with similar bridge (the bar at the bottom of the instrument's bowl) held and strummed in the same manner. This image, unlike the other two mentioned, shows sound holes, an indication that this instrument had a wooden soundboard and not a skin top.