Roman, I have no idea what encylopedia you are using, nor what it speaks of. I don't even know what wire is in that definition. But chain mail was being used in the late first millenium, and probably in the middle part of it. And what is chain mail other than rather thick wire. King Arthur's knights, as apochryphal as they are, would have worn chain mail rather than "shining armor" (and lived in thatched cottages or mud huts rather than Camelot). But beaten wire could yet be used for an instrument. Has it occured to you that once the process of beating hot metal into shapes had been discovered, and then taken to beating it into a thick round (for the chain mail, or even before that for the links holding the plates together) then someone might have beaten it thinner. The making of metal linkages goes back a long way, key bolts for stone structures go back 3000 years. Let us not assume that some old boy didn't make wire, whatever that is. (When does a long thin piece of metal stop being a bar and become wire? I guess when you can bend it and sew something together with it.)
OK, "drawn wire". Malleable metals have the ability to take shape when drawn through an orifice. That makes for a more consistant wire than a beaten one. But early gut strings, made by twisting "cat gut" (whether from a sheep or pig, or whatever) were inconsistant in longitudinal density, as was beaten wire. In fact I'll make a guess here, I think it was probably easier to make a consistant beaten wire than a consistant gut. Put the wire under tension and use a light hammer to pound out the thick points. But that is just a guess as I haven't tried it. But we do know that once the gut is twisted the anomalies in the guage (density) will be locked into it. I state the thesis that string making was an art, not a science. And that making wire strings might have been easier than gut. Best, Jon ----- Original Message ----- From: "Roman Turovsky" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Bonnie Shaljean" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, November 26, 2004 8:22 AM Subject: Re: Wire strings > >From an encyclopedia: > "History of wire production > Wire was originally made by beating the metal out into plates, which were > then cut into continuous strips, and afterwards rounded by beating. The art > of wire-drawing does not appear to have been known until the 14th century, > and it was not introduced into England before the second half of the 17th > century. ...." > RT > ______________ > Roman M. Turovsky > http://polyhymnion.org/swv > > > Wire strings were not "deemed an implausibility" on early harps - it was > > used for centuries. The Irish had developed the technique of > > wire-drawing which not only gave them magnificent-sounding harps (as > > evidenced by the rapt verbal descriptions of their contemporaries) but > > also allowed for the finely-wrought metal work on early Celtic jewelry > > and other historical treasures. If you read the written accounts of > > the Medieval Irish harpers (who travelled all over the continent) both > > they and their instruments seem to have been king of the mountain. > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > > >
