The Sistrum
A sacred rattle of looped bronze or copper rods strung across a frame, shaken in the cults of Hathor and Isis to please the goddess and to repel evil with its hissing, sibilant sound, called sesheshet in Egyptian after the noise it makes. Priestesses, queens, and kings bore it in temple ritual, and queens are depicted holding it in both hands; great ceremonial versions, often of gilt bronze, stood as temple furniture. Its naos-shaped variant carried the cow-eared head of Hathor between its handles and remained in use into Graeco-Roman Egypt, where it became an attribute of Isis in her universa