The study of sound and music can be said to have begun nearly 2,500 years ago, with the famous Greek scientist, Pythagoras, who made observations regarding the sounds of notes plucked on a simple lyre with strings at different lengths and tensions. In ancient Greek or Roman times, stringed instruments, such as the lyre or harp, were plucked or strummed. was not until 3000 B.C. that the first true stringed instrument played with a bow appeared - the ravanastron, an instrument still played in India today. Other early bowed instruments included the Indian-Arab rebab, which was brought into Europe in the thirteenth century, about the time of the Crusades, probably via Spain. (In France and other parts of Europe, it was called the rebec.) The crwth or crwd, was played in Brittany before the Moorish invasions. This stringed instrument actually had a tailpiece, sound holes, and was held like a violin. In the nearly two thousand years that followed, the forerunners of the violin evolved rather slowly. Many of the earliest violins were structural amalgams of various stringed precursors, such as the rebec, lira da braccio, and Renaissance fiddle. The full ancestry of the violin is unclear. In particular, it remains a mystery as to what individual or group brought forth the violin in its final form. It has even been conjectured that the great Florentine genius, Leonardo da Vinci (b.1451 - d.1519)may have contributed seminal concepts regarding its form and mathematical proportions. Suffice to say that by the early 1500's, a form of the violin emerged which, in its shape, basic dimensions, and final details, has remained fundamentally unchanged for nearly 400 years. Prior to around 1600, the violin remained a rather minor instrument, used by what was regarded as a lower class, for their dance music. Archangelo Corelli (b.1653 - d.1713), a violinist as well as teacher and noted Baroque composer, may have been a significant early influence in popularizing the violin. As the violin has inspired changes in music, changes in music have also led to certain alterations in the violin. Evolving performance requirements eventually imposed further changes on the violin; composers were writing music that increased technical demands on the performer in both range and power. The virtuosic compositions that were the hallmarks of nineteenth-century violin literature, would not have been possible on the original instruments made by Antonio Stradivari. Violin makers, such as Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume and firms like Hill, were called upon to literally disassemble and rebuild a majority of the pre-existing instruments. Adaptations included lengthening the neck and changing its angle, a longer bass bar, and new types of bridges and strings. These changes eventually resulted in the emergence of the modern violin, and contributed to its rise to prominence as "the king of instruments".