Cleveland Museum of Art

Head of a Woman Holding a Sistrum

Date

150 BCE–50 CE

Medium

marble

Department

Greek and Roman Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

This head of a woman was likely originally part of a stele or grave marker. The woman sits in partial profile holding a sistrum close to her head, possibly making music. A sistrum is a type of rattle that originated in ancient Egypt and spread to the Greek world. (View a sistrum in the collection here: 1920.1990 .) The sistrum likely signaled to ancient viewers that the woman on the grave marker was a worshiper of the Egyptian goddess Isis, whose cult spread throughout the Mediterranean after Alexander the Great took over Egypt. A sistrum (rattle) can have either three or four branches through the body of the instrument.

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