Ostracon Depicting a Queen Holding a Sistrum

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A queen/queen mother, identifiable by the vulture cap with uraeus that she wears, shakes two arc sistra. The fully preserved example has a Hathor emblem below the arc. On the queen's head is a modius of uraei whose bodies are extremely elongated. She wears a fine transparent linen over-garment open at the front revealing her sensual figure. Her overlarge eye and the quick line of her profile give her face a lively air. New Kingdom queens and princesses played the sistrum in temple ceremonies, and may be found doing so in temple scenes at many sites. This ostracon was left in the Valley of the Kings by the workmen from Deir el Medina who executed the tombs in the Valley, but it is difficult to see its connection to the work in the Valley. The few royal women buried in the valley are not depicted shaking sistra. The workmen worked at many other sites, for instance, the Valley of Queens where queens do shake the sistrum, royal temples on the west bank, or the temple of their own village, so it is possible this piece was a drawing or study for another project.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met collection of ancient Egyptian art consists of approximately 30,000 objects of artistic, historical, and cultural importance, dating from about 300,000 BCE to the 4th century CE. A signifcant percentage of the collection is derived from the Museum's three decades of archaeological work in Egypt, initiated in 1906 in response to increasing interest in the culture of ancient Egypt.

Metropolitan Museum of Art