Context (CMS Context)
Picken Collection catalogue card reads:

'77.446 S.E. ASIA Provenance / unknown [crossed through] / S. Laos / nr. Saravane /
312.12: heterochord (true) tube-zither, made / from internode of bamboo. / 3 pegs bearing metal strings (one peg & string missing) / inserted into original thickness of bamboo. Resonating tube / thinned to a fragile shell, reducing weight & increasing / resonant response. Black ribbon band around top of tube (peg-end) / - sound-hole carved in rear / - from Robin Rattray c. 1960, from a village near / Saravane. /
- coll. Dr. L. E. R. Picken - numbered 317'
Event Date 29/4/2016
Author: Olivia Maguire

Context (CMS Context)
Other numbers, 312.12 and 317, as listed on Picken Collection catalogue card.
Event Date 29/4/2016
Author: Olivia Maguire

Context (CMS Context)
Found on box list for Picken Box 69 but without database record. This record created from information available on Picken Collection catalogue card. Object not physically seen.
Event Date 29/4/2016
Author: Olivia Maguire

Description (CMS Description)
Heterochord (true) tube-zither, made from internode of bamboo. 3 pegs bearing metal strings (one peg & string missing) inserted into original thickness of bamboo. Resonating tube thinned to a fragile shell, reducing weight & increasing resonant response. Black ribbon band around top of tube (peg-end). Sound-hole carved in rear. From Robin Rattray c. 1960 from a village near Saravane.
Event Date 29/4/2016
Author: Olivia Maguire

Context (CMS Context)
Letter (Archive 2, W16/1/1, Large Box N) from Robin [Rattray] (Monks, Priorswood, Compton, Guildford) to Laurence Picken, dated 9 June 1977 reads:
‘The instruments you ask about were all collected in Laos in 1960. Some I found myself in rather remote villages in Southern Laos, not fair from a place called Saravanne [sic.] which was later devastated by American bombing. The others were obtained from the Royal School of Music in Vientiane. I suppose that may also have disappeared now. There are of course some similarities with the music and dance of Thailand and Laos which could easily cause confusion.’
Event Date 3/5/2016
Author: Olivia Maguire