Turkish tambur
fretted string instrument of Turkey and the former lands of the Ottoman Empire
The tambur is a fretted string instrument of Turkey and the former lands of the Ottoman Empire. There are two variants, one of which is played with a plectrum (mızraplı tambur) and the other with a bow (yaylı tambur). The player is called a tamburî.
History and development
There are several hypotheses as to the origin of the instrument. One suggests that it descended from the kopuz, a string instrument still in use among the Turkic peoples of Central Asia and the Caspian region. The name itself derives from the tanbur (tunbur), which in turn might have descended from the Sumerian pantur. The name (and its variants such as tambouras, dombura) also denotes a wide spectrum of pear-shaped string instruments in Persia and Central Asia yet these share only their names with the Ottoman court instrument and in fact are more akin to bağlamas or sazes.
By the 15th century, the tambur had assumed the modern shape, being described by Tinctoris in 1480 as being like "a large spoon with three strings." By 1740, when Jean-Étienne Liotard painted his painting, the instrument in his painting has pegs for 8 strings, which are strung in four courses.
The modern instrument also has four pairs or courses of strings.
Byzantine origin theory
There is a possibility that the version played in the former Byzantine Empire was adopted by the Ottoman Turks.
The public source identifies “Turkish tambur” as fretted string instrument of Turkey and the former lands of the Ottoman Empire. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Turkish, tambur and fretted.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4989127. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1480 and 1740.
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This entry incorporates text from “Turkish tambur” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.