Tambura has been developed from a stringed instrument, already known in the ancient culture of Mesopotamia and Egypt. Image of the instrument with a long neck and a small, pear-corpus has been found carved in the stone from the third century BC. In Thebes and Egypt were stored artistic monuments of the forerunners of tambura, where the instrument was called the lute, which later was encountered with the Greeks and Romans …
The development of the lute differ between two types: the short-necked and the long-necked.
From the short-necked lute, which has been brought by the Araps, in Spain was developed guitar and mandolin in Italy. From the long-necked lute, conducted by the Turks to the Balkans, tambura developed on the Balkans, pandora by Bulgarians, bandura in Ukraine and balalaika and domra in Russia.
The first historical documents of Tambura in this region date back from 1551. from a travel- writer Nicholas, who acompanied the French Consul on his way to Turkey.