 Other instruments, also called "lyres", were played with a bow in Europe and parts of the Middle East, namely the Arabic rebab and its descendants, including the Byzantine lyra.The earliest reference to the word is the Mycenaean Greek "ru-ra-ta-e", meaning "lyrists" and written in the Linear B script.In classical Greek, the word "lyre" could either refer specifically to an amateur instrument, which is a smaller version of the professional cithara and eastern-Aegean barbiton, or "lyre" can refer generally to all three instruments as a family.