Cretan Lyre or Byzantine Lyre

Also called classical Kemençe, it is more common for melancholic, religious or courtly music. It has a more rounded shape with a larger sound box, similar to a pear.

The remains of two actual examples of Byzantine Lyras from the Middle Ages have been found in excavations in Novgorod, one dated to around 1190 AD. The first known representation of this extensive family of instruments in a Byzantine ivory attack (900-1100 AD), preserved in the Palazzo del Podesta in Florence (Museo Nazionale, Florence, Coll. Carrand, No.26). Versions of the Byzantine lyra are still used not only in Greece, but in the Republic of Macedonia, Albania, Monte Negro, Serbia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Italy and Turkey; Another notable example is the island of Crete, where the lyra is central to the island's traditional music.

The first recorded reference to the bowed lyra is in the 9th century by the Persian geographer Ibn Khurradadhbih (d. 911), in his lexicographical analysis of instruments who cited the lyra (Lura) as the typical instrument of the Byzantines, along with the urghun (organ), shilyani (probably a type of harp or lyre) and the salandj (probably a bagpipe). 

The lyra spread widely across the three continents through the trade routes that linked the Byzantines. In the 11th and 12th centuries, European writers used the terms violin and lyre interchangeably to refer to bowed instruments.