Anonymous (arranged by date and provenance)
3rd CenturyGermany
England
Israeli
A seated shepherd plays to his dog a tenor-sized pipe with a distinctly flared bell. His cheeks are not puffed and his arms and thumb are well positioned for recorder playing (Anthony Rowland-Jones, pers. comm., 1999). The dog is sitting up on his hind legs, turning his head away, and seems to be howling. An unconcerned rabbit hops by, nibbling at a grape.
Bet (or Beit) She'an is in NE Israel, 394 feet below sea level. The site is one of the oldest inhabited cities of ancient Palestine. It has a Roman amphitheatre, in excellent condition. Under Byzantine rule it was the capital of the Northern Province of Palestina Secunda. It declined after the Arab Conquest in AD 636 and supported a Jewish community in the next millenium. Now under Jewish domination, this area is the centre of a flax and cotton industry (Encylopedia Brittanica).
Provenance unknown
Irish (Hiberno-Saxon)
English
English
Armenian
Armenian
English
The peculiar beak of the recorder depicted here is somewhat reminiscent of that of the Göttingen and Esslingen recorders, two of the three surviving medieval recorders.
Croatian