musical instrument in which the neck extends from and forms a bow-shaped curve with the body. One of the principal forms of harp, it is apparently also the most ancient: depictions of arched harps survive from Sumer and Egypt from about 3000 BC. Both areas had harps played in vertical position, plucked with the fingers of both hands, often by a kneeling musician. Sumer also had horizontal arched harps—i.e., laid across the lap, strings toward the player, and sounded by a plectrum swept across the strings, the left-hand fingers damping unneeded strings. The arched harp disappeared from Sumer and subsequent Mesopotamian civilizations but continued in use in Egypt.

Arched harps were prominent in ancient Central Asia (Central Asian arts), and 1st-century frescoes (Gandhāra culture, in modern Pakistan) show a seemingly archaic variety that survives almost unchanged in the vaji, or Kafir harp, of Nūrestān in Afghanistan. This instrument's neck pierces and then emerges from the skin belly; the strings run from the neck to the protruding end (in most harps they pass through the belly).