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Head of a Woman Holding a Sistrum
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
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.
Cleveland Museum of Art’s own descriptionCredit lineHead of a Woman Holding a Sistrum, 150 BCE–50 CE. Marble; overall: 17.7 x 20 x 11.2 cm (6 15/16 x 7 7/8 x 4 7/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund, 1929.980
