LATE PERIOD, 26TH DYNASTY, 664-525 B.C.

According to M. Reynders (pp. 945-955 in "Names and Types of the Egyptian Sistrum,’’ in C.J. Eyre, ed., Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress of Egyptologists) this faience sistrum featuring a naos-type shrine is of the variety known in ancient Egyptian as a bekhen. This example unusually preserves the original bronze disks still attached by transverse bronze pins, indicating that it would have functioned in ritual as a rattle. The decoration in the form of Hathor points to the function of the sistrum in the cult of that goddess, who is associated with love, revelry, drunkenness and music.