A fragment of a faience head showing a collar and Hathor curl. The head of Hathor appears on both sides of the object, and it is probable that this formed part of a (naos) sistrum, preserving part of the Hathoric decorative element forming the transition between the (now lost) handle below and naos above. For another faience naos-sistrum fragment in the Egypt Centre, see AB23. A nice parallel example, from Twenty-sixth Dynasty Tell Basta, can be found in the British Museum (EA 34190). Faience instruments, while usable, would have been quiet and fragile and are usually identified as votive objects, though there was probably a more complex landscape of uses and meanings than we currently know of.

Manniche, Lise 1991. Music and musicians in ancient Egypt. London: British Museum Press. Reynders, Marleen 1998. sšš.t and sḫm: names and types of the Egyptian sistrum. In Clarysse, Willy, Antoon Schoors, and Harco Willems (eds), Egyptian religion: the last thousand years. Studies dedicated to the memory of Jan Quaegebeur: part II, 1013–1026. Leuven: Peeters.