The psalter itself (BL Add MS 37768) was made in Aachen, Germany or Northern France c.840-855 and was made someone in the court of Emperor Lothar at Aachen, probably for a sister of the Emperor. At this time it did not have its ivory cover, which was added later during the 12th century which was made in the St. Bertin area according to Werner Bachmann¹.

Werner Bachman included this source as plate 90 in The Origins of Bowing, claiming that it depicted a bowed rote (p.112), and included it in a list of sources, mixed between bowed rotes and bowed lyres (which were all designated by Bachamann as bowed rotes). He provided no further discussion on this particular source.

Between the initial planning of this article and being published the British Library changed the content description from 'A figure in ivory, measuring 115 x 50 mm, perhaps King David, seated, holding a harp and quill.' to 'A sculpted ivory figure of King David, formerly attached to the cover of Add MS 37768 (the Lothar Psalter). The figure is shown seated on a throne, crowned and bearded, and holding a bowed lyre.'. I do not know precisely when this change was made, however the description of the cover given in the description of the psalter itself states 'The outside lower cover has been slightly hollowed for a 12th-century ivory figure of King David, seated, with a harp.' (BL Add MS 37768 accessed 12 Sep. 2022). These discrepancies highlight the problem of identification. 

The British Library description of a harp is perhaps unusual, as I cannot recall any harps with a centre post with strings either side. However, there are numerous problems with the identification of a bow, and a bowed instrument. We shall first examine the alleged bow and then turn our attention to the instrument.

The bow

I can see why Bachmann identifies this as a bow as it certainly has some of the characteristics of a bow. His identification seems to rest on three features; the outer convex shape, the edge which gives the impression of a chord line between two ends, and the bottom where it looks like some kind of frog exists. However, all the other features fail to fit the identification; the tip shape, the lack of hair definition as a definite line (which is present in other ivories e.g. bsip79, bsip742, and bsip4032), the odd diagonal lines between the stick and the hair, and the mottled nature of the stick. None of these features have consonances that I have identified in a corpus of over 2300 sources in the Medieval period.

I propose a different identification. I believe that the item being held in the right hand is in fact a fern.

The picture shows a fiddlehead fern. Ferns grow by unfurling from a spiral at their head. This spiral of the ferns matches the top of the object in question. The stem of the fern shows this segmented effect cause by where the leaves protude from. This appears to be what is represented by the mottled//segmentation on our object. Note that the leaves to the left of the stem hang somewhat diagonally downwards. Again this feature matches our object. 

The fern is known in Christian symbolism, and explains the top feature, the mottled stick, and the downward strokes of the carving to the left of the stick. Very little mystery remains. Some might observe the picture of the fern shows the upper section curving backwards. I suspect this might be reversed if gravity is allowed to operate on head once it has been removed from its growing setting, and then angled slightly. There is a question of what is going on below King David's hand. However, the match is compelling.

The Instrument

If the bow is not a bow, then the identification of the instrument as a bowed rote or bowed lyre is in serious doubt. However, even if we ignore the bow the instrument has its own problems. The issues are:

• The instrument would be unique in the bowed strings corpus (there are no consonances in any geographical location in any time period).
• The fingers usually stop the string, this means the stopped strings must either be this side or the other side of the post. The detail shown this side does not appear to be a string. If it were then none of the other strings may be bowed, and at this time sympathetic strings are unknown. So the instrument must have the bow engaging on the other side (the side away from us, not shown). The string configuration would be 5s+5s if there is no stopped string, or 5s+1s+5s if there is. This string configuration two issues; there is no consonances in the corpus, and trying to bow a 10 or 11 string instrument with the strings all lying in the same plane has practical problems. My research does not yield any consonances of that many strings bowed in the same plane. However, construction of significant numbers of strings lying in the same plane are known on plucked instruments.