spike fiddles

Lutes having a handle that pierces the body and emerges at the lower end were known in the second millennium B.C., when they appeared in western Asia and in Egypt (as long-necked lutes), and are referred to as spike lutes. Once the bow had come into existence it was applied to the spike lute, transforming it into a spike fiddle. Al-Farabi (d. 950) documents the spike, and indeed the first bowed instruments are likely to have been spike fiddles...