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CHELYS (Gr. x Xvs, tortoise; Lat. tes...

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Originally appearing in Volume V06, Page 26 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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CHELYS (Gr. x Xvs, See also:tortoise; See also:Lat. testudo)  , the See also:common See also:lyre of the See also:ancient Greeks, which had a See also:convex back of See also:tortoise-See also:shell or of See also:wood shaped like the shell . The word See also:chelys was used in allusion to the See also:oldest lyre of the Greeks which was said to have been invented by See also:Hermes . According to tradition he was attracted by sounds of See also:music while walking on the See also:banks of the See also:Nile, and found they proceeded from the shell of a tortoise across which were stretched tendons which the See also:wind had set in vibration (Homeric Hymn to Hermes, 47-51) . The word has been applied arbitrarily since dassic times to various stringed See also:instruments, some bowed and some twanged, probably owing to the back being much vaulted . See also:Kircher (Musurgia, 486) applied the name of chelys to a See also:kind of See also:viol with eight strings . Numerous representations of the chelys lyre or testudo occur on the See also:Greek vases, in which the actual See also:tortoiseshell is depicted; a See also:good See also:illustration is given in Le Antichitd di Ercolano (vol. i. pl . 43) . See also:Propertius (iv . 6) calls the See also:instrument the See also:lyra testudinea . See also:Scaliger (on See also:Manilius, Astronomicon, Proleg . 420) was probably the first writer to draw See also:attention to the difference. between chelys and See also:cithara (q.v.) . (K .

End of Article: CHELYS (Gr. x Xvs, tortoise; Lat. testudo)
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