Sistrum

About Sistrum

The sistrum is a ritual rattle of ancient Egypt, sacred above all to the goddess Hathor and later to Isis, consisting of a handle surmounted by a frame through which loose metal crossbars were threaded, so that the instrument produced a rhythmic jingling or rustling sound when shaken. It was played chiefly by women, by priestesses and by female members of the royal family in their roles in the cult, and its sound was understood to please the goddess, to ward off chaos and hostile forces, and to participate in the religious power of the deity it served. The Egyptian name for the instrument, sesheshet, is onomatopoeic, imitating the rustling sound of the rattle, and the Greek term sistron, from which the English sistrum derives, comes from the verb seio, 'to shake.'

Two principal types of sistrum are distinguished. The naos-sistrum, with origins in the Old Kingdom, has a frame in the shape of a naos or shrine, often surmounting a handle in the form of the head of Hathor with her characteristic cow's ears, the whole rising above a Hathor-head capital; the loop-sistrum, which became the more common type from the Middle Kingdom onward, has a simple arched or loop-shaped frame, again often set above a Hathor-head handle, through which the rattling crossbars pass. Both types are bound to the cult of Hathor, and the recurring Hathor-head on the handle ties the instrument visually and religiously to the goddess. The crossbars often ended in small disks or were shaped to enhance the sound, and the instrument might be made of bronze, faience, or other materials.

The religious meaning of the sistrum was bound up with the nature of Hathor and the powers she embodied. Hathor was the goddess of love, music, dance, joy, and motherhood, but also a goddess with a fierce solar aspect, the Eye of Ra, capable of destructive rage. The shaking of the sistrum was understood both to delight the goddess in her joyful aspect, accompanying the music and dance of her cult, and to pacify her in her dangerous aspect, soothing the fierce goddess and turning away her wrath. The sound of the sistrum was also thought to drive off hostile and chaotic forces, an apotropaic power that made the instrument a tool of protection as well as of celebration, and in this double function of pleasing and protecting the sistrum expressed the double nature of the goddess it served.

The sistrum appears throughout Egyptian history in the cult of Hathor and in related contexts, played in temple ritual, in festival processions, and in the music and dance that accompanied the worship of the goddess. It is depicted in tomb and temple reliefs in the hands of priestesses and royal women, and it survived as a cult-instrument into the Greco-Roman period, when it became especially associated with the cult of Isis, who had absorbed many of Hathor's attributes, and spread with the Isis cult through the Mediterranean world. The Greek writer Plutarch, in his treatise on Isis and Osiris, described and interpreted the sistrum, providing a valuable, if Hellenized, ancient account of the instrument's meaning, and the sistrum thus became known to the classical world as a characteristic emblem of Egyptian religion.

The Story

The story of the sistrum is the story of an instrument bound to a goddess and to the powers she embodied, an object whose rustling sound carried religious meaning across three thousand years of Egyptian worship. The sistrum was, before all else, the instrument of Hathor, the great goddess of love, music, dance, joy, and motherhood, and to understand the sistrum is to understand the goddess it served. Hathor was a goddess of celebration and delight, the patroness of music and the dance, and her cult was filled with song, rhythm, and movement; the sistrum, shaken by the priestesses and women who served her, was the characteristic sound of her worship, the rhythmic jingling that accompanied the music and dance of her festivals.

But Hathor was not only a goddess of joy. She had a fierce and dangerous aspect, for she was identified with the Eye of Ra, the fiery solar power that could turn to destructive rage. In the myth of the destruction of mankind, the goddess in her ferocious form set out to slaughter humanity and was stopped only by a trick; the same goddess who delighted in music and love could become a raging lioness whose wrath threatened the world. The cult of Hathor therefore had to address both her aspects, to celebrate her joy and to pacify her rage, and the sistrum served both purposes. Its sound pleased the goddess in her joyful mood and soothed her in her dangerous one, and the shaking of the rattle was an act both of celebration and of appeasement, delighting and calming the goddess at once.

The sistrum also possessed an apotropaic power, the power to drive off hostile and chaotic forces. The sound of the rattle was thought to repel the enemies of order, to scatter the forces of disorder and evil, and to protect the place and the persons of the cult. This protective function made the sistrum a tool not only of worship but of defense, a means of warding off the chaos that perpetually threatened the ordered world. In the hands of the priestesses who served the goddess, the sistrum both pleased the deity and guarded against the forces she, in her protective aspect, held back, and the instrument's sound was a sound of both joy and protection.

The form of the sistrum tied it visibly to Hathor. The handle of the instrument was often shaped as the head of the goddess, with her characteristic cow's ears, surmounted by the frame through which the rattling crossbars passed. In the naos-sistrum, the older type with origins in the Old Kingdom, the frame took the form of a naos or shrine rising above the Hathor-head; in the loop-sistrum, the more common type from the Middle Kingdom onward, the frame was a simple arch or loop, again often set above the Hathor-head handle. The recurring image of the goddess on the handle made the instrument itself an image of Hathor, the sistrum a small embodiment of the goddess whose sound was shaken from her own head.

The sistrum was played chiefly by women, by the priestesses of Hathor and by female members of the royal family who held roles in the cult. The queen and royal women were often depicted shaking the sistrum before the gods, and the instrument was associated with the feminine in the service of the goddess, the women of the cult producing with the rattle the sound that pleased and pacified Hathor. The menat-necklace, a heavy beaded collar with a counterpoise, was often shaken alongside the sistrum in the cult of Hathor, the two instruments together producing the sounds that accompanied the worship of the goddess, and the priestesses who served Hathor are shown holding both.

Throughout Egyptian history the sistrum remained the characteristic instrument of the cult of Hathor and of the related cults of goddesses who shared her attributes. It appears in temple ritual, in festival processions, and in the music and dance of the goddess's worship, and it is depicted again and again in the hands of priestesses and royal women in tomb and temple reliefs. The great temple of Hathor at Dendera, built in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, is rich in depictions of the sistrum and in architectural elements that take the form of the instrument, the Hathor-headed columns of the temple echoing the Hathor-headed handles of the rattle, and the sistrum was woven into the very fabric of the goddess's house.

In the Greco-Roman period the sistrum became especially associated with the cult of Isis, who had absorbed many of Hathor's attributes and functions, and as the cult of Isis spread through the Mediterranean world the sistrum spread with it, becoming a characteristic emblem of Egyptian religion in the classical world. The Greek writer Plutarch, in his treatise on Isis and Osiris, described the sistrum and offered an interpretation of its form and meaning, explaining its parts in terms of the cosmic and religious symbolism he attributed to it, and his account, though Hellenized and reflecting the interpretations of his own time, is a valuable ancient witness to the instrument and its significance. Through the Isis cult and through such classical accounts, the sistrum became among the most widely known of all Egyptian religious objects, its rustling sound carried far beyond Egypt as the characteristic music of the worship of the Egyptian goddess.

Symbolism

The sistrum is built on the symbolism of sound as a religious power, the rustling jingle of the rattle understood not as mere music but as an act with effect in the divine world. The sound of the sistrum pleased the goddess, soothed her wrath, and drove off chaos, and the shaking of the instrument was a ritual act whose power lay in its sound. This symbolism of efficacious sound, the rattle's noise as a force that delighted, pacified, and protected, is the core of the sistrum's meaning, the instrument a producer of sacred sound rather than ordinary music.

The Hathor-head on the handle symbolizes the identity of the instrument with the goddess it served. The recurring image of Hathor, with her cow's ears, on the handle of the sistrum made the instrument an image of the goddess, the sound shaken from her own head, and it symbolizes the binding of the sistrum to Hathor, the rattle as a small embodiment of the deity whose cult it served. To hold the sistrum was to hold the goddess; to shake it was to shake forth her sound.

The double function of the sistrum, to please and to pacify, symbolizes the double nature of Hathor herself, the goddess of both joy and rage. As the patroness of music and love, Hathor was delighted by the sound of the sistrum; as the fierce Eye of Ra, she was soothed by it. The instrument's symbolism thus mirrors the goddess's dual aspect, the same sound delighting her joyful self and calming her dangerous one, and the sistrum expresses the Egyptian understanding of a deity who held within her both celebration and threat.

The apotropaic power of the sistrum symbolizes the protective dimension of the goddess and her cult. The sound that drove off hostile and chaotic forces symbolizes the warding-away of disorder, the scattering of the enemies of order by the noise of the rattle, and it ties the sistrum to the broader Egyptian concern with the protection of the ordered world against the chaos that threatened it. The sistrum's sound was a sound of defense as well as of joy, the rattle a guard against the forces of disorder.

The association of the sistrum with women symbolizes the feminine dimension of the cult of the goddess and the role of women in producing the sacred sound. Played by priestesses and royal women, the sistrum was bound to the women who served Hathor, and its symbolism includes the place of the feminine in the worship of the goddess, the women of the cult shaking forth the sound that pleased and pacified the deity. The instrument expresses the role of women as the makers of the sacred sound in the service of the goddess.

The spread of the sistrum with the cult of Isis symbolizes the diffusion of Egyptian religion through the Mediterranean world and the absorption of Hathor's attributes by Isis. As Isis took on the functions of Hathor and her cult spread beyond Egypt, the sistrum became the emblem of the Egyptian goddess in the wider world, and its symbolism came to include the export of Egyptian religious forms to the classical Mediterranean, the rattle of the Egyptian goddess sounding in the temples of Isis far from the Nile, a portable sign of the worship of the great goddess of Egypt.

Cultural Context

The sistrum belongs to the cult of Hathor and to the world of Egyptian temple music and ritual, in which sound, rhythm, and the participation of women in the service of the goddess held an important place. Hathor was among the most widely worshipped of Egyptian deities, the goddess of love, music, dance, joy, and motherhood, and also a fierce solar goddess identified with the Eye of Ra. Her cult was filled with music and celebration, and the sistrum was its characteristic instrument, shaken by the priestesses and royal women who served her to produce the sound that pleased and pacified the goddess and drove off the forces of chaos.

The two types of sistrum, the naos-sistrum and the loop-sistrum, are documented across the long span of Egyptian history. The naos-sistrum, with its shrine-shaped frame and its origins in the Old Kingdom, is the older type; the loop-sistrum, with its simple arched frame, became the more common type from the Middle Kingdom onward. Both types are tied to Hathor by the recurring image of the goddess on the handle, and both are attested in the depictions of the cult and in surviving examples. The study of the types and their development has been undertaken in the scholarship on Egyptian music and on the iconography of the cult-instruments.

The sistrum is attested in a range of sources across Egyptian history. The Coffin Texts of the Middle Kingdom mention the instrument in a religious context, and tomb and temple reliefs depict it in the hands of priestesses and royal women throughout the dynastic period. The tomb of Khabekhnet at Deir el-Medina, of the Ramesside period, includes scenes of sistrum-shaking, and the great temple of Hathor at Dendera, of the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, is rich in depictions of the instrument and in Hathor-headed architectural elements that echo its form. The sistrum is thus documented continuously from the early periods to the end of pharaonic religion.

The instrument's association with women and especially with royal women is a notable feature of its cultural context. The sistrum was played chiefly by women in the service of the goddess, by priestesses and by queens and royal women who held roles in the cult, and the depictions regularly show female figures shaking the instrument before the gods. The menat-necklace, a beaded collar shaken alongside the sistrum in the cult of Hathor, completes the pair of instruments associated with the women of the goddess's cult, and the two together are shown in the hands of the priestesses who served Hathor.

In the Greco-Roman period the sistrum became especially associated with the cult of Isis, who had absorbed many of Hathor's attributes, and it spread with the Isis cult through the Mediterranean world, becoming a characteristic emblem of Egyptian religion in the classical world. The Greek writer Plutarch, in his treatise on Isis and Osiris of around 100 CE, described the sistrum and offered an interpretation of its form and meaning, a valuable if Hellenized ancient account. The study of the sistrum draws on this textual evidence, on the iconographic record, and on surviving examples, and it has been treated in the scholarship on Egyptian music and musicians and on the iconography of the cult-instruments, which trace the instrument's types, history, and religious meaning across the whole of Egyptian and Greco-Roman antiquity.

Cross-Tradition Parallels

The sistrum poses a structural question that recurs in the religious music of multiple traditions: can sound do religious work that words and images cannot? The rattle's noise was not an accompaniment to Hathor's worship — it was itself an efficacious act, a sound that pleased the goddess, pacified her fierce solar aspect, and drove off chaos. This model of sound-as-force, sound-as-protective-and-directive-power rather than merely sound-as-expression, appears across traditions in forms that illuminate what the sistrum was doing and what specific Egyptian assumptions it embodies.

Hindu — The Damaru of Shiva (Linga Purana, c. 7th-10th century CE; attested iconographically from Kushan period, 2nd century CE)

The damaru, the small hourglass-shaped drum held in the right hand of Shiva in his Nataraja form, produces its sound through the rotation of the drumhead, exactly as the sistrum produces sound through the shaking of crossbars. Both are instruments operated by a single hand, producing rhythmic sound through percussion and motion. Both are associated with a deity of double nature — Hathor is both joyous and destructive, Shiva is both creator and destroyer. Both instruments appear in ritual contexts where the deity's fierce or transformative aspect is present. The divergence is in cosmic function: the damaru's sound in the Nataraja image is the sound of creation itself, the primal resonance from which the universe emerges. The sistrum's sound pacifies and protects within an already-existing cosmos. Shiva's drum creates; Hathor's sistrum maintains. Both use rhythmic sound as a cosmic tool, but toward different ends.

Yoruba — The Use of Sacred Drums in Shango's Cult (documented oral tradition; Verger, Notes sur le Culte des Orisa, 1957)

In the Yoruba tradition, sacred drums (especially the bata drum) are used in the cult of Shango, the orisha of thunder and lightning, to call down his presence and to communicate directly with the divine. The drums are treated as ritual objects with their own sacred character, fed and honored like the orishas themselves. The parallel to the sistrum is the attribution of agency to the instrument itself rather than treating it as a passive vessel for human music-making. Both the sistrum and the bata drum are conceived as active participants in the ritual, the sound they produce having direct effect in the divine world. The contrast is in the direction of that effect: the sistrum appeases and wards off; the Shango drum summons and invites. The Egyptian rattle keeps the dangerous deity at a manageable distance; the Yoruba drum draws the powerful orisha deliberately into presence.

Christian — The Sounding Cymbals of Psalm 150 (c. 5th-4th century BCE) and Coptic Liturgical Sistra

Psalm 150, the closing doxology of the Hebrew Psalter, instructs the worshipper to praise God with timbrel, dance, strings, pipe, and the loud-sounding and high-sounding cymbal. The list of instruments is a catalogue of percussive and melodic sound, all directed to a single purpose: the praise of God. A structurally informative continuity then occurs: the Coptic Christian tradition, in Egypt, uses a ritual rattle descended from or related to the ancient sistrum in its liturgical practice. The tsenasel — a metal rattle — is shaken in Coptic worship, maintaining a sonic practice that traces its lineage to the sistrum of Hathor and Isis. The theological content has transformed entirely, from the appeasement of a goddess's wrath to the praise of a monotheistic God, but the sonic gesture — shaking a metal rattle to mark sacred presence — persists across the erasure of the theology that originated it. The same physical act, in different hands, carries different meanings while retaining a continuous material form across three thousand years.

Greek — The Krotalon and the Corybantes (Plato, Euthydemus 277d; Strabo, Geography 10.3, c. 7 BCE)

Greek ritual practice included the krotalon, clappers or castanets used in ecstatic Dionysian and Orphic rites, and the loud percussion of the Corybantes, whose noise was held to drown out the cries of the infant Zeus so that Kronos could not hear him. The apotropaic function of noise — using sound to ward off a threat, to cover, to protect — is exactly the sistrum's pacifying function applied in a different register. The structural convergence is striking: sound-as-protection, sound that keeps danger at bay. The difference is in what the sound protects against. The Corybantes' noise protected a divine infant from a divine threat; the sistrum's sound protected the ordered cosmos from the raging solar goddess who threatened it. Both are sonic shields, but the Egyptian version is woven into the daily maintenance of cosmological order while the Greek version is an emergency response to a one-time genealogical crisis.

Modern Influence

The sistrum has become a familiar emblem of ancient Egyptian religion in the modern world, recognized as the characteristic instrument of the cult of Hathor and Isis and regularly illustrated in works on Egyptian music, religion, and the goddesses. Its distinctive form, the Hathor-headed handle surmounted by the rattling frame, makes it a memorable and frequently reproduced object, and it appears in museum displays, books, and documentaries on ancient Egypt as the typical sound and sign of the worship of the great goddess.

The sistrum has played a part in the modern study of ancient music and the reconstruction of the soundscape of Egyptian religion. As a surviving instrument, examples of which are preserved in museum collections, the sistrum allows scholars and musicians to recover something of the actual sound of Egyptian ritual, and it figures in the study of ancient Egyptian music and musical instruments, a field that draws on surviving instruments, depictions, and texts to reconstruct the music of the ancient world. The rustling sound of the sistrum is among the few elements of ancient Egyptian ritual that can be physically recovered and reproduced.

The instrument's association with the cult of Isis and its spread through the Mediterranean world have made it important to the modern study of the diffusion of Egyptian religion in the Greco-Roman period. As the cult of Isis spread across the Roman Empire, the sistrum spread with it, and it is found in depictions and contexts far from Egypt, an emblem of the Egyptian goddess in the wider classical world. The sistrum thus figures in the study of the Isis cult and of the broader phenomenon of the export of Egyptian religious forms to the Mediterranean, a major topic in the history of ancient religion.

The sistrum has had an afterlife in later religious and musical traditions. A form of the sistrum continued in use in the liturgical music of the Ethiopian and Coptic Christian churches, where a rattle descended from or related to the ancient Egyptian instrument is still played, providing a living continuation of the ancient sound. This survival has interested students of the history of music and of the continuity of ancient practices into later religious traditions, and it gives the sistrum a continuous history reaching from pharaonic Egypt into the present.

Within Egyptology and the study of ancient music, the sistrum remains a standard subject, treated in the scholarship on Egyptian music and musicians, on the cult of Hathor and Isis, and on the iconography of the cult-instruments. It is studied for its types and their development, for its religious meaning and function, and for its place in the worship of the goddess and the soundscape of Egyptian ritual, ensuring that this rustling rattle of the Egyptian goddess continues to inform the modern understanding of the music, the ritual, and the religion of ancient Egypt, and of the powers that the sound of the sistrum was held to wield in the service of the goddess.

Primary Sources

The sistrum is documented in Egyptian sources from the Old Kingdom onward. The earliest physical examples, both the naos-sistrum and loop-sistrum types, survive in museum collections and are discussed and illustrated in Richard H. Wilkinson, The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt (Thames & Hudson, 2003), pp. 142–145, which covers Hathor's cult instruments including the sistrum and menat-necklace. The Coffin Texts of the Middle Kingdom (R.O. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts, 3 vols., Aris & Phillips, 1973–78) mention the instrument in ritual contexts, and the Egyptian name sesheshet is attested as an onomatopoeic term for the rattle.

The principal ancient literary description and interpretation of the sistrum comes from Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride, chapter 63 (Moralia V, Loeb Classical Library, trans. F.C. Babbitt, 1936; also J. Gwyn Griffiths ed. and trans., University of Wales Press, 1970). In this chapter Plutarch describes the circular top of the sistrum, its shaken crossbars, and its cat-figure, and offers an allegorical interpretation relating the instrument to the lunar cycle and to Isis and Osiris. Plutarch's account, though written c. 100 CE and reflecting Greco-Roman religious interpretation, is the most extended surviving ancient prose description of the instrument and is a primary source for its form and its association with the Isis cult. Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca I.18 (Loeb, trans. C.H. Oldfather, 1933), also mentions the sistrum in the context of Isis worship.

The religious use of the sistrum in the cult of Hathor is depicted in temple and tomb reliefs throughout the New Kingdom and later. The temple of Hathor at Dendera (Ptolemaic and Roman periods) is particularly rich in sistrum imagery, with the Hathor-headed columns echoing the instrument's form; the temple inscriptions are published in Auguste Mariette, Dendérah: Description générale du grand temple de cette ville, 4 vols. (Paris, 1870–75). For the Ramesside period, the Deir el-Medina tombs contain sistrum-shaking scenes; these are documented in the publications of the Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale.

The broader context of Egyptian music and musicians, within which the sistrum belongs, is surveyed in Lise Manniche, Music and Musicians in Ancient Egypt (British Museum Press, 1991), which treats the types of sistrum, their development, and their cult use, with attention to the Hathor and Isis associations and the evidence from surviving instruments and depictions. The Isis-cult spread of the sistrum through the Mediterranean is documented in Sharon Kelly Heyob, The Cult of Isis Among Women in the Graeco-Roman World (Brill, 1975), which gives evidence for the sistrum in Roman-period Isis temples far from Egypt.

Significance

The sistrum is significant as the characteristic instrument of the cult of Hathor and later of Isis, the sacred rattle whose sound was central to the worship of the great goddess across the whole of Egyptian history. As the producer of the sound that pleased the goddess, pacified her wrath, and drove off chaos, the sistrum was not a mere accompaniment to the cult but a participant in its religious power, and its importance in the worship of Hathor makes it a key object for understanding the music and ritual of the goddess's cult.

The instrument is significant for what it reveals about the religious power of sound in Egyptian thought. The sistrum's rustling jingle was understood as an efficacious act, a sound that delighted, soothed, and protected, and the instrument illustrates the Egyptian conception of sound as a force with effect in the divine world. The sistrum is thus a window onto the role of music and sound in Egyptian religion, the rattle's noise as a ritual power rather than ordinary music.

The sistrum is significant for its expression of the double nature of Hathor, the goddess of both joy and rage. The instrument's double function, to please the goddess in her joyful aspect and to pacify her in her fierce solar aspect as the Eye of Ra, mirrors the dual nature of the deity it served, and the sistrum illustrates the Egyptian understanding of a goddess who held within her both celebration and threat, the same sound serving to delight and to calm.

The instrument is significant for its association with women and the feminine in the service of the goddess. Played chiefly by priestesses and royal women, the sistrum was bound to the women who served Hathor, and it illuminates the role of women in the cult of the goddess and in the production of the sacred sound. The sistrum is a key object for understanding the place of women in Egyptian temple ritual and the gendering of the service of the goddess.

The sistrum is significant, finally, for its spread beyond Egypt with the cult of Isis and its survival into later traditions. As the cult of Isis spread through the Mediterranean world in the Greco-Roman period, the sistrum became the emblem of the Egyptian goddess in the wider classical world, and a related instrument survived into the liturgical music of the Ethiopian and Coptic churches. The sistrum thus has a significance reaching beyond pharaonic Egypt, a continuous history from the worship of Hathor through the spread of the Isis cult to the living liturgical traditions of the present, the rustling sound of the Egyptian goddess carried far in space and time.

Connections

The sistrum is bound most closely to Hathor, the goddess to whom it is sacred above all, and to her cult of music, dance, and joy. The Hathor-head on the handle ties the instrument to the goddess, and its sound served her worship, pleasing her in her joyful aspect and pacifying her in her fierce solar aspect.

The sistrum connects to Isis, who absorbed Hathor's attributes and with whose cult the sistrum spread through the Mediterranean world in the Greco-Roman period. The instrument became the emblem of the Egyptian goddess in the wider classical world through its association with the spreading cult of Isis.

Through Hathor's identity as the Eye of Ra, the sistrum connects to the solar theology of Ra and to the myth of the destruction of mankind, in which the fierce solar goddess set out to slaughter humanity and was pacified by a trick. The sistrum's soothing function is bound to the appeasement of the dangerous solar goddess.

The sistrum connects to the broader cycle of the distant goddess, the fierce goddess who flees to Nubia and must be pacified and returned, for the pacifying of the raging goddess by music and celebration was part of this mythological complex, and the sistrum was among the instruments whose sound soothed and welcomed the returning goddess.

The instrument connects to the menat-necklace, the beaded collar shaken alongside the sistrum in the cult of Hathor, the two instruments together producing the sounds of the goddess's worship, and to the broader world of Egyptian temple music and the role of women in the cult. The priestesses and royal women who served Hathor shook both instruments before the gods.

Finally, the sistrum connects to the temple of Hathor at Dendera, rich in depictions of the instrument and in Hathor-headed columns that echo its form, and to the broader iconography of the goddess and her cult. The instrument was woven into the fabric of the goddess's house, and through Plutarch's account it connects to the Greco-Roman reception of Egyptian religion and the transmission of knowledge of the sistrum to the classical and later worlds.

The sistrum connects to the broader Egyptian concept of heka, the magical force, for its sound was understood to act upon the divine world, pleasing and pacifying the goddess and driving off chaos, a sound with real effect rather than mere music. It connects also to the apotropaic protection of the ordered world against the forces of disorder, the rattle's noise a guard against chaos, and to the survival of the instrument in the liturgical music of the Ethiopian and Coptic churches, where a related rattle is still played, giving the sistrum a continuous history from the cult of Hathor into the living religious traditions of the present.

Further Reading